Inheriting Spanish property as a non-resident: taxes, deadlines and steps

01The clock that matters most: six months

Start here, because everything else can wait a week — this cannot. As a non-resident heir you pay Spanish inheritance tax (Impuesto sobre Sucesiones y Donaciones, Ley 29/1987) on the assets located in Spain — the property, a Spanish bank account, a car. Lawyers call this limited liability (obligación real): Spain taxes only the Spanish assets, not the worldwide estate. Because you are a non-resident, the return is filed with the national tax agency (AEAT) using form modelo 650 — not with a regional office.

The deadline is six months from the date of the death. Not from the day you found out, not from the day the will was read — from the death itself. For families spread across countries, half of that window often disappears before anyone has even located the Spanish deeds.

There is a pressure valve, but it has its own deadline. You can ask AEAT for an extension of another six months — and the request must be filed within the first five months of the original period, accompanied by the death certificate and the heirs’ details. Miss that five-month mark and the extension route closes. One honest caveat: the extension is not free — it accrues late-payment interest on the tax eventually due. It buys time, not money.

And there is a second clock running in parallel at the town hall: the municipal capital-gain levy on the land (plusvalía municipal) is also triggered by an inheritance of urban property. The declaration window is the same six months, extendable to a year on request. Two taxes, two administrations, one date of death.

02The rule that changes the bill: regional rules for non-residents

Spanish inheritance tax has a state rulebook and seventeen regional ones — and the difference between them is not decoration. Many regions (comunidades autónomas) heavily reduce inheritance between close family members: spouses, children, parents. Under the bare state rules the same inheritance can cost dramatically more.

For years non-residents were locked out of those regional reductions — until the Court of Justice of the EU said no. In case C-127/12 (judgment of 3 September 2014) the court found that treating non-residents worse was contrary to the free movement of capital. Spain rewrote the law: the second additional provision (disposición adicional 2ª) of Ley 29/1987 now gives non-resident taxpayers the right to apply the rules of the relevant region instead of the state default.

Which region is “relevant”? If the deceased was a non-resident, it is the region where the highest-value Spanish assets are located — usually simply where the property is. If the deceased lived in Spain, it is the region where they were resident. You still file the modelo 650 with the state AEAT, but you calculate the tax using that region’s rules if you opt for them.

Two practical notes. First, the current text of the provision carries no EU-residence restriction — heirs living outside the EU can rely on it too. Second, regional reductions change and each region attaches its own conditions, so never budget from a blog number: check the current rules of the relevant region before you file. For a close-family heir, this single choice is often the difference between a symbolic bill and a painful one.

03Which law decides who inherits — and why a Spanish will helps

Tax is only half the question. The other half is which country’s succession law governs who inherits what — and here the answer for most of Europe comes from EU Regulation 650/2012. The default rule: the succession is governed by the law of the country where the deceased had their habitual residence, unless the will expressly chose the law of their nationality. Spain applies this regulation to every estate it handles, whatever the deceased’s nationality.

That default produces real surprises. A British owner who retired to Valencia may find Spanish forced-heirship rules shaping who gets the apartment — unless the will said “I choose the law of my nationality”. Conversely, a German resident of Berlin with a holiday flat in Málaga passes it under German law. If you are reading this as an heir, the first legal question to a professional is exactly this: which law governs, and did the will make a choice?

In practice, the single thing that most simplifies a cross-border estate is a separate Spanish will (testamento) covering only the Spanish assets. It is not legally required — a foreign will is valid — but a Spanish notarial will is registered centrally, written in the format Spanish notaries and registries process daily, and spares the family months of translating, apostilling and validating foreign probate documents.

Whether or not such a will exists, Spain will tell you. Every notarial will is logged in the central wills registry, and the wills registry certificate (certificado de últimas voluntades) states which was the last will and before which notary it was signed. In practice it can be requested from about fifteen business days after the death — it is the first official document the paper chain below depends on.

04The paper chain, in order

A Spanish inheritance is sequential: each document unlocks the next one, and doing them out of order is how families lose months. This is the chain, in the order it actually runs:

• 1. Death certificate. If the death occurred outside Spain, the certificate needs an apostille and a sworn translation into Spanish before Spanish authorities will accept it.
• 2. Wills registry certificate (certificado de últimas voluntades). Confirms whether a Spanish will exists and identifies the last one. Requested with the death certificate.
• 3. The will — or a declaration of heirs. An authorised copy of the will from the notary who holds it; if there is no will, a notarial declaration of heirs (declaración de herederos) establishes who inherits by law.
• 4. NIE for each heir. Every heir needs a Spanish foreigner identification number (NIE) — not one per family, one each — because every heir appears in the deed and the tax filing. Start this early; it is a frequent bottleneck. See our guide on getting the NIE.
• 5. Acceptance deed (escritura de aceptación y adjudicación de herencia). The heirs formally accept the inheritance and divide the assets before a Spanish notary. This deed is the document everything downstream refers to.
• 6. Tax filings. The modelo 650 for inheritance tax with AEAT, and the municipal plusvalía declaration at the town hall — both against the six-month clock from section one.
• 7. Land-registry registration. With the deed and proof of the tax filings, the property is registered in the heirs’ names at the land registry (Registro de la Propiedad). Only now can you sell, mortgage or formally rent it out.

Notice what the order implies: the tax deadline in step 6 is fixed, but steps 1–5 all have to happen first. That is why the five-month extension request exists — and why the NIE applications and document legalisation should start in week one, not month five.

05Doing it from abroad: you do not have to fly to Spain

The most common fear — “do I have to travel to Spain for every signature?” — has a clean answer: no. The entire chain, from requesting certificates to signing the acceptance deed before the notary to filing both taxes and registering the property, can be handled through a power of attorney (poder notarial) granted to someone in Spain. The power can be signed at a Spanish consulate or before a local notary with an apostille. Our separate guide covers how to draft it safely — a power limited to the specific inheritance steps, not a blank cheque.

One more option belongs in this section, phrased carefully: accepting an inheritance is a choice, not an obligation. If the estate carries debts — an outstanding mortgage larger than the property’s value, tax arrears, personal loans — Spanish law lets an heir renounce the inheritance, and there are also protective forms of acceptance that limit exposure to the estate’s own assets. Which route fits, and what it means for the other heirs, depends on the exact numbers and documents: treat renunciation as an option to evaluate with professional advice before signing anything, not as a step to rush. What you should never do is informally “take over” the property — using it, renting it, selling its contents — while still deciding, because behaviour can amount to acceptance.

06After you inherit: the owner obligations begin

The day the property is registered in your name, you stop being an heir and become a non-resident owner — with the standing obligations that come with the title:

• IBI — the annual municipal property tax, billed by the town hall. Set up a direct debit from a Spanish account so a missed paper bill abroad never becomes a surcharge.
• Modelo 210 — the annual non-resident income tax return, due even if the property sits empty (Spain taxes a deemed “imputed income” on it). Our modelo 210 guide covers rates and deadlines.
• Community fees (comunidad de propietarios) — if the property is in a building or urbanisation, the monthly fees and owners’ meetings are now yours; the estate’s unpaid fees typically follow the property, so check the balance during the paperwork, not after.

And if you eventually sell as a non-resident, one more mechanism awaits: the buyer must withhold 3% of the price on account of your capital-gains tax, and recovering it is a filing of its own. Read the 3% retention guide before you list the property — the same article covers the plusvalía on a later sale, including when the levy can be challenged after the constitutional-court rulings on confiscatory cases.