Spain · ESP · snapshot 2026-10-06
Spain
Measured
Currency movement
Not measured
This market's currency is the euro, so there is no euro reference rate for it and no entry window to state. For a euro-denominated buyer there is no currency move here at all; for anyone else the move is in their own currency against the euro, which this screen measures on the market they are coming from rather than the one they are going to.
Foreign-buyer rules
5 of 5 published rules apply
These are the restrictions a foreign buyer meets before price is even discussed — approval regimes, surcharges, ownership limits.
What it does not show. It is not a completeness claim. A rule we have not read is not a rule that does not exist, and this row counts what is cited, not what is in force.
Cost of money
2.25%
The price of money to banks across the euro area, set by the European Central Bank rather than by anything in this country. It sets the floor everything else is priced from, and it is identical in every member state.
What it does not show. It is not a mortgage quote, and it is not a fact that distinguishes this market from any other euro-area member — the rate is the same in all of them, so it can never be the reason to prefer one over another. What differs between them is what a bank adds on top, which this does not measure. What a non-resident is offered is a different number again, usually much higher.
Supply against absorption
Not measured
No statistics agency for this market has been read and cleared for republication.
Residential price cycle
151.3 against a 2015 base of 100
House prices have risen faster than consumer prices since 2015 — the market is above its own inflation-adjusted level of that year.
What it does not show. It is a position, not a direction, and it is not a valuation. Deflating by consumer prices says nothing about what the asset yields or what credit costs, and a market can sit above its 2015 level for years without that meaning anything is due.
Valuation against its own history
128.2 to income, 166.6 to rent
Housing costs more relative to incomes than it did in 2015, on this country's own index. Buying takes more years of a local salary than it did then, which is a statement about the people who live there rather than about a foreign buyer's return.
What it does not show. It is not comparable to another country's figure. Each index is 100 in its own 2015, so two of these side by side are two different base years wearing the same label — a market at 120 is not dearer than one at 90, it has merely moved further from its own past. It is also not a forecast, and a ratio can stay stretched for a decade.
On the market now
Not measured
No listings platform has been read for this market. The one platform this site can read covers Russian cities only, and inventing a count for anywhere else would be worse than an empty row.
No dossier has been written for this market yet. What follows is the measured layers and the rules, each with its source — not an argument about whether to be here. A market reaches this page as soon as two layers can be cited, because an unwritten thesis is a reason to publish less, not a reason to publish nothing.
The series behind those figures, and the workings
Cost of money
2.25%
Central bank policy rate, 2026-08. Source: Bank for International Settlements.
This is the price of money to banks, not the price of money to a non-resident buying a building. The gap between those two is where a market’s financing story actually lives, and it is not in this number. A mortgage quote for a foreign buyer depends on the lender, the asset and the borrower, and no public dataset carries it.
BIS terms permit this figure on a free page and state that nothing in their statistics constitutes investment advice. They also allow inclusion in a commercial product only where it adds no charge, so this series is published here and is not priced into any paid work.
Background
Annual national statistics from the World Bank, under a licence that permits reuse with attribution. They describe the country; they do not time an entry, and they are not counted as measurements of this market — otherwise every territory on earth would claim to be measured on the strength of one dataset.
| Indicator | Value | Year |
|---|---|---|
| GDP per capita | 38,627 US$ | 2025 |
| Consumer price inflation | 2.7 % | 2025 |
| Population | 49,355,143 | 2025 |
| Urban population | 80.5 % of total | 2025 |
| Official exchange rate | 0.8850 per US$ | 2025 |
What the rules do to a foreign buyer
Each entry cites the instrument and the authority page it was read from, with the date it was retrieved. Facts of law change; the retrieval date is how you know how old this reading is.
| Topic | How it fails you | In force | When it bites | Applies to | What applies | Instrument | Read on |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Military authorisation, and the exemption that says natural persons | Somebody has to say yesMoney does not open itThe transaction never happened | In forceNot stated by the source | On the way in | All propertyYour passportReaches a company too | Acquisition of property and other rights in rem over real estate by foreign natural or legal persons in a zone of restricted access is subject to military authorisation. The requirement reaches a Spanish company too: authorisation is needed where more than half its share capital belongs to foreign natural or legal persons, so incorporating locally does not by itself put a buyer outside the rule. Enforcement does not wait for a dispute — notaries and property registrars must require proof of the authorisation before executing or registering the deed, which means an unauthorised purchase does not quietly complete and then get challenged; it does not complete. The Act attaches nullity of full right where the transaction is not registered within eighteen months. An additional provision added in 1990 disapplies these rules, and it is worth reading closely: it is expressed of natural persons holding the nationality of a member state of the European Community. On its own words it does not name a company incorporated in a member state, so a European fund is not obviously outside the regime the way a European individual plainly is, and that gap has not been resolved here. | Ley 8/1975, de 12 de marzo, de zonas e instalaciones de interes para la Defensa Nacional, articulos 18, 19, 20 and 21, with the disposicion adicional added by Ley 31/1990. Read from the consolidated text published by the Boletin Oficial del Estado. | 2026-09-06 |
| The ceilings, which are on the municipality rather than on you | A cap that can be fullMoney does not open it | In forceNot stated by the source | On the way in | All propertyYour passport | Inside a restricted zone the regulation does not only ask each foreign buyer for permission; it caps how much of the place can be in foreign hands at all, computed by municipality. The ceilings are 15 per cent for the insular territories, for Cartagena, for the Portuguese border zone, for Galicia and for the French border zone; 10 per cent for the Strait of Gibraltar and the Bay of Cadiz; and 5 per cent for the non-insular North African territories. Two entries are nil rather than a percentage: islands and islets smaller than Formentera, and the municipality of Llivia. A cap of this shape behaves unlike any charge, because whether it binds depends on who bought before you, and no amount of willingness to pay moves it. Whether any municipality is at its ceiling today has not been established here — the regulation sets the limit and does not publish the running total. | Real Decreto 689/1978, de 10 de febrero, Reglamento de zonas e instalaciones de interes para la Defensa Nacional, articulos 32, 33 and 37. Read from the consolidated text published by the Boletin Oficial del Estado. | 2026-09-06 |
| Three per cent of the price stays with the buyer | It costsFalls on the other side of the deal | In forceNot stated by the source | On the way out | All propertyWhere you live | When a non-resident without a permanent establishment in Spain sells Spanish real estate, the buyer must withhold 3% of the agreed price and pay it to the tax authority as a payment on account of the seller's non-resident income tax. The base is the price, not the gain, so the 3% is held back whether or not the sale made a profit; it is a payment on account, not the tax itself. If the buyer does not withhold and pay, the property itself stays charged with the unpaid amount — up to the lesser of the 3% and the tax actually due — so the failure follows the asset to its new owner. Contributions of property to the capital of a Spanish-resident company are excluded. | Real Decreto Legislativo 5/2004, texto refundido de la Ley del Impuesto sobre la Renta de no Residentes, artículo 25.2 — Non-Resident Income Tax Act, article 25(2), in the consolidated text published by the Boletín Oficial del Estado. | 2026-09-23 |
| An empty flat is taxed on rent it never earned | It costs | In forceNot stated by the source | While you hold it | Residential onlyWhere you liveLived inA second homeHeld empty | A non-resident individual who owns urban property in Spain that is not let and not used in a business is taxed each year on income the law imputes to it: 2% of the cadastral value, or 1.1% where that value was revised by a general valuation that took effect in the year or the ten years before, prorated by the days owned. The imputed income is taxed at 24%, or 19% for a resident of another EU or EEA state with effective exchange of tax information. The same imputation reaches Spanish residents but excludes their habitual home, and a non-resident's Spanish property is never that, so a holiday home a foreign owner leaves vacant, or comes to live in themselves for part of the year, carries this charge every year. Living in it does not escape the charge. Letting it does, and the imputed income is then replaced by tax on the actual rent; so does allocating it to the owner's own business activity. Property under construction or unusable for planning reasons carries none. | Real Decreto Legislativo 5/2004 (Non-Resident Income Tax Act), articles 13.1(h), 24.5 and 25.1(a), in the consolidated text published by the Boletín Oficial del Estado. Article 24.5 still refers to article 87 of the repealed Real Decreto Legislativo 3/2004; the imputation rule it points to is now article 85 of Ley 35/2006 (Personal Income Tax Act), read in its consolidated text on the same day. | 2026-09-23 |
| The same charge on an unlet office or shop | It costs | In forceNot stated by the source | While you hold it | Commercial onlyWhere you liveHeld empty | The imputed income that reaches a non-resident's empty home in Spain reaches an urban commercial unit on the same terms: an office or shop owned by a non-resident individual that is not let and not used in a business activity is taxed each year on 2% of its cadastral value, or 1.1% after a general revaluation in the year or the ten years before, prorated by the days owned, at 24% or 19% for a resident of another EU or EEA state with effective exchange of tax information. A unit left vacant between tenants carries it for those days. Letting the unit, or using it in the owner's own business activity, escapes it; unbuilt land carries none. | Real Decreto Legislativo 5/2004 (Non-Resident Income Tax Act), articles 13.1(h), 24.5 and 25.1(a), in the consolidated text published by the Boletín Oficial del Estado. Article 24.5 still refers to article 87 of the repealed Real Decreto Legislativo 3/2004; the imputation rule it points to is now article 85 of Ley 35/2006 (Personal Income Tax Act), read in its consolidated text on the same day. | 2026-09-23 |
What is missing, and why
currency — Source does not cover this market
The dataset simply does not include this territory. Absent, not zero.
This market's currency is the euro, so there is no euro reference rate for it and no entry window to state. For a euro-denominated buyer there is no currency move here at all; for anyone else the move is in their own currency against the euro, which this screen measures on the market they are coming from rather than the one they are going to.
supply — Source does not cover this market
The dataset simply does not include this territory. Absent, not zero.
No statistics agency for this market has been read and cleared for republication.
What supports this, what would make it wrong, and how it could go
Record
| Why this market is on the list | Added when the euro area was expanded into its member states. The cost-of-money layer here is the European Central Bank's rate, which is not a fact about this country in the way a national policy rate is a fact about Japan — it is identical in all twenty-one members and can never be the reason to prefer one over another. It is published because its absence was worse: without it this territory rendered on the coverage map exactly like one whose central bank publishes nothing at all. The valuation layer is this country's own, indexed to its own 2015. Euro adopted 1999. The friction layer was opened on 2026-09-06 from the consolidated texts of the 1975 defence-zones Act and its 1978 regulation, published by the Boletin Oficial del Estado. Spain is widely described as having no restriction on foreign ownership; it has one, it is fifty years old, and it covers every island in the country. |
|---|---|
| Dossier | None written. Layers and rules only, which is why this market reads as “Measured” rather than reviewed. |
| Next review | 2026-11-15 |
| Evidence snapshot | 2026-10-06 |