A home in Spain while living in Italy: modelo 210 and its new calendar

If you live in Italy and own a home in Spain that you do not rent out, the Spanish tax authority charges you a tax every year simply for having it available. It is called imputación de rentas inmobiliarias (deemed rental income) under Spain's non-residents' income tax, and it is declared on modelo 210. The 2025 income is due by 31 December 2026. For 2026 the calendar changes: Orden HAC/623/2026, published in the BOE on 23 June, moves the opening of the filing window to 1 April 2027.

The amount is usually small, which is exactly why people forget it. What they do not forget is the letter from the Agencia Tributaria that arrives years later with the tax, surcharges and sometimes a penalty.

Who has to file

Anyone who is not tax resident in Spain and owns an urban property in Spanish territory that they use themselves, lend to relatives or leave empty. A flat in Alicante for the summer, an apartment in Tenerife for the winter, the parents' house inherited in an Asturian village: all of them count.

A property that is rented out is taxed on the rent instead. A home owned by someone already resident in Spain goes on the Spanish IRPF return, not on modelo 210.

Each co-owner files their own modelo 210 for their share. If a married couple owns the house 50/50, that means two returns, one each, with half the income on each.

How it is calculated

The base is a notional income, the one the law assumes you get from enjoying the property:

• 2% of the cadastral value, as a rule;
• 1.1% if the municipality's cadastral values were revised in a general collective valuation that came into force in the last ten years (for 2025 income, from 1 January 2012 onwards).

The cadastral value is printed on the IBI (Impuesto sobre Bienes Inmuebles) bill, the municipal property tax you pay every year. The rate on that income is 19% if you live in the European Union or the European Economic Area, and 24% otherwise. No expenses are deductible: not the IBI, not the community fees, not the insurance.

An example with round numbers. Cadastral value of 80,000 euros, municipality with revised values: 80,000 × 1.1% = 880 euros of deemed income; 880 × 19% = 167.20 euros of tax. If the municipality has no revised values, the income rises to 1,600 euros and the tax to 304 euros.

The income is prorated by days. If you bought the house in July, or rented it out for two months, the charge covers only the days it was at your disposal. The tax accrues on 31 December each year.

The calendar: 2025 still runs on the old rule

Orden HAC/623/2026 changes the modelo 210 deadlines, but only from 2026 income onwards:

• 2025 deemed income: 1 January to 31 December 2026. This is the usual rule, and the window closes in a few weeks.
• 2026 deemed income: 1 April to 31 December 2027. Payment by direct debit is available from 1 April to 23 December 2027.

From 1 January 2027 the form also gains new boxes: the number of days the property was at your disposal, your ownership share and a code showing whether the property has a cadastral reference. It helps to have the title deed and the latest IBI bill at hand before starting.

If you rent the house out

When the house is let, even for a few weeks a year, those weeks stop generating deemed income: the rent received is taxed instead, also at 19% for EU residents. Residents of another EU state can deduct the expenses linked to the letting, such as the proportional IBI, community fees, insurance or repairs.

The Orden changes things here too. Until now, returns with tax to pay on rental income were filed every quarter, in the first twenty days of April, July, October and January. Under the new wording they are filed once a year, from 1 to 20 April of the following year. If you declare each rental separately, the change applies from rent earned in the last quarter of 2026; rent from January to September 2026 still follows the quarterly calendar. If you choose the grouped annual return, the new rule covers the whole of 2026. Nil returns are filed from 1 to 20 January.

And in Italy: the IVIE

For the Italian tax authority, a home in Spain owned by an Italian resident is a foreign asset. It goes in the quadro RW section of the Italian tax return and pays the IVIE (imposta sul valore degli immobili situati all'estero, the tax on foreign property), at 1.06% since 2024. For property in the European Union the base is the same Spanish cadastral value shown on the IBI bill.

Two things come off the IVIE. The first is the IBI paid in Spain that year: the Agenzia delle Entrate's circular 28/E of 2012 lists it among the foreign property taxes that give a credit. The second, for property in the EU, is the Spanish income tax on that same property that could not be used as a credit against Italian IRPF. An empty house stays out of IRPF precisely because it pays IVIE, so the modelo 210 tax on deemed income can be set against the IVIE.

Back to the example: 80,000 × 1.06% = 848 euros of IVIE. If the IBI was 400 euros and modelo 210 came to 167.20 euros, 280.80 euros remain to pay in Italy. What you pay in Spain also lowers what you pay in Italy.

With a rented house the picture changes: the rent is declared in Italy as well, in the quadro RL section, and the tax paid in Spain is recovered as a foreign tax credit under article 165 of the TUIR, the Italian income tax code.

Where it usually goes wrong

The most common mistake is assuming that with no rent there is nothing to declare in Spain. The second is filing a single return for a jointly owned house, or using the wrong percentage because nobody checked whether the municipality has revised values. The third, on the Italian side, is leaving the house out of the quadro RW and losing the IBI credit.

The window for 2025 income closes on 31 December 2026. For owners with earlier years undeclared, filing modelo 210 late but before any request from the tax authority triggers a surcharge with no penalty: 1% plus a further 1% for each full month of delay, and 15% plus late-payment interest after twelve months.

If you have any doubts, Riondato & Partners is here to help

With over 45 years of experience between Italy and Spain, Riondato & Partners works with people who live in Italy and own a home in Spain: modelo 210 every year, rental income, the IVIE and the quadro RW. If you own property in Spain and are not sure everything is up to date, get in touch with us.

Sources

• Orden HAC/623/2026 of 12 June (BOE)
• Spanish Tax Agency: changes to the modelo 210 deadlines
• Spanish Tax Agency: deemed income on urban property for own use
• Agenzia delle Entrate, circular 28/E of 2 July 2012 on the IVIE (Italian)
• Fiscoinvestimenti: IVIE 2026 at 1.06% (Italian)
• Ecnews: taxation of foreign property and the quadro RL (Italian)