The purchase of a home is surrounded by a series of additional expenses to the payment of the real estate. In the case of second-hand houses, the most important is the Property Transfer Tax (ITP), which depends on each autonomous community. Barcelona is one of the provincial capitals with the highest rate, reaching 10%. This means paying more than 30,000 euros over the average price of a two-bedroom home, which according to Idealista is 302,164 euros. The data published this Tuesday by the real estate portal is based on the purchase prices of May of this year.
There are other cities that also apply a rate of 10% on used homes, however, in absolute terms the rate is lower because the homes are cheaper on average. This is the case of Girona (18,839 euros), Valencia (18,471 euros), A Coruña (17,136 euros) and Alicante (16,710 euros), where second-hand houses do not reach 190,000 euros. In total, there are four Galician capitals and three Valencians that apply the same ITP as in Catalonia.
San Sebastián is the city with the highest average price for a two-bedroom home, standing at around 372,592 euros. However, it has one of the lowest rates in Spain, with just 4%. This makes the tax payment less than 15,000 euros. Palma is the second most expensive provincial capital, with prices exceeding 355,000 euros; and its tax is 8%. Madrid is also among the most expensive cities (263,746 euros), although the tax applied is 6%.
There are 25 capitals in which the ITP is below 10,000 euros. Jaén, Huelva and Zamora are the ones that charge the least in absolute terms, although their rate is between 7% and 8%. In all cases, the fee to be paid is delimited based on a percentage of the real price of the property acquired, except when this is less than the cadastral value.
According to the latest data from the Ministry of Finance, the collection of the regions closed the year 2021 with record figures in taxes on property transfers. In total, the autonomies entered about 7,900 million euros through this item. Catalonia was the one that collected the most: almost 2,000 million, followed by Andalusia, Madrid and Valencia.
In 2022, the sale of homes grew by 14.7% to close to 650,000 operations, for which record figures in collections are expected. However, the real estate boom is starting to run out of steam, so by 2023 the numbers will stabilize. The latest data from the National Institute of Statistics show that the sale of homes plummeted 8.1% in April compared to the same month in 2022, and reached 43,311 operations, the lowest figure in two years. The biggest puncture was suffered by the sale of used houses, which fell 9% year-on-year. The regions with the greatest annual decreases in the number of home sales in April were the Basque Country (23.4%), the Balearic Islands (19.6%) and La Rioja (18.6%).
Regarding prices, houses continue to be more expensive than a year ago, but the rate of increases has moderated. According to the INE, from January to March housing became more expensive by 3.5%, two points lower than the rise experienced in the last quarter of 2022.
Other taxes to pay on a used home
In addition to the ITP, the fee for Documented Legal Acts (AJD) must be paid. Both are indirect taxes that are applied in Spain and that tax real estate and financial transactions, respectively. Its management and collection are ceded to the autonomous communities, which modulate the tax.
The ITP affects the transfer of assets and property rights, including the purchase and sale of houses, the constitution of mortgage loans or the assignment of rights over real estate. The AJD, for its part, taxes notarial and commercial documents, such as mortgage loan deeds or insurance policies. In this case, the rates range between 0.5% and 1.5% of the value of the document.
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