Spain’s yearly property tax, known as IBI, varies a lot throughout the country, but in which provincial capitals do people pay the most and where do they pay the least?

IBI stands for Impuesto sobre Bienes Inmuebles in Spanish, which translates to tax on property goods, but it also goes by the name SUMA, depending on where exactly in Spain you live.

It’s effectively a local property tax that has to be paid once a year by all property owners in Spain, and it serves as a benchmark to calculate all other Spanish property-related taxes.

The IBI amount is decided by the town hall in which your property is located, and there can be big differences between municipalities.

Taking into account the latest IBI data published by the Ministry of Finance in 2022 in the 52 provincial capitals, property giant Fotocasa analysed the numbers to reveal the places with the highest and lowest IBI taxes in the country.

They worked it out by taking the example of a property with a cadastral value of €80,000 and discovered that the average amount of the IBI tax varies between €804 and €320, which is a huge difference.

All of the three most expensive cities for IBI tax can be found in Catalonia, but surprisingly Barcelona does not make the top 10.

The top 10 most expensive places for property tax in the country are:

City               Tax rate                IBI bill 

Girona              1.01%              €804

Lleida              0.97%              €773.6

Tarragona       0.95%              €762.4

Melilla             0.80%              €640

Ceuta               0.79%              €632

Ciudad Real     0.79%              €632

Huelva             0.78%              €624

Huesca            0.78%              €624

León                0.77%              €612.80

Cáceres           0.75%              €600

Which cities pay the lowest IBI tax?

The top 10 cities with the cheapest IBI tax are:

City              Tax rate                IBI bill 

Santander       0.40%              €320

Zaragoza         0.40%              €320

Toledo             0.44%              €352

Teruel              0.44%              €352

Palma              0.45%              €356

Albacete          0.45%              €356.8

Ourense          0.45%              €360

Málaga            0.45%              €360.80

Madrid            0.46%              €364.80

Burgos             0.46%              €365.44

One important factor to note is that the Ministry of Finance doesn’t publish information on the tax rates in the Basque Country and Navarra. This means that the cities in these regions are not included in the rankings.

If you are looking to buy a property in Spain and need a mortgage, email mark@vci-network.com for the latest criteria