Step 1 — The buyer withholds 3% (Form 211)
When the seller of a Spanish property is a non-resident, the law makes the buyer withhold 3% of the agreed price and pay it to the Tax Agency using Form 211, within one month of the sale. It is not optional and it does not depend on whether you are making a profit: it is an advance payment on account of your final tax. The buyer must hand you a copy of the filed Form 211 — keep it, because you will need it for your own return and for any refund.
If the buyer fails to withhold, the property itself remains liable for the seller’s tax — which is why every notary and every buyer’s lawyer insists on it at completion.
Step 2 — You declare the real gain (Modelo 210)
The 3% is an estimate; the real tax is calculated on your actual gain. You file Modelo 210 within three months of the end of the buyer’s one-month window — roughly four months from the notary appointment. The gain is the transfer value (price minus your selling costs, such as agency fees and the plusvalía) less the acquisition cost (what you originally paid, plus the taxes and expenses of that purchase and documented improvements). Non-residents pay 19% on the gain.
- If the final tax exceeds the 3%: you pay the difference with the return.
- If the 3% exceeds the final tax — or you sold at a loss: you claim the difference back in the same return, attaching the buyer’s Form 211.
Step 3 — Don’t forget the municipal plusvalía
Separate from the state tax, the town hall charges the plusvalía municipal on the increase in the land’s value while you owned it. As a non-resident seller it falls on you, it has its own short deadline, and since the 2021 reform it can be calculated two ways — objective or by real gain — so it is worth checking which produces the lower bill, and whether any charge is due at all when there was no real increase.
The paperwork that makes or breaks the refund
Refund claims live or die on documentation: both deeds, the Form 211 copy, invoices for the purchase costs and improvement works, the plusvalía receipt, and a certificate of tax residence from your home country when the tax office asks for it. Gathering this before completion day is the single best way to shorten the wait for your money.
We handle the whole sale, refund included: coordination with the notary, the Modelo 210, the plusvalía and the follow-up with the tax office until the money is in your account.