What a 500,000 Euro House in Spain Really Costs You, Line by Line

You are buying a 500,000 euro house in the Valencia region. How much do you actually pay, all in? Short answer for a resale, as of July 2026: 45,000 euros of transfer tax, a regulated notary bill, around 260 euros for the Land Registry, and your lawyer's fee. Call it close to 48,000 euros on top of the price, and I am going to show you where every euro goes.

My name is Daniel Bertomeu. I work as a tax advisor alongside my father Juan Bertomeu, a lawyer with over 30 years of experience and offices in Moraira and Denia, in the province of Alicante, almost entirely for international buyers. I recorded this exact example on camera, in German for the German side of our clients, and you can watch it here. The numbers work the same in any language.

One warning before we start. Many buyers still budget 10% transfer tax, or add taxes that do not exist on their type of purchase. The rules in Valencia changed for purchases completed from 1 June 2026, so let's do this properly, with numbers that add up.

The first question: new-build or resale?

Everything depends on this. A resale, meaning a property that already had an owner, pays transfer tax, the ITP. A new-build bought from the developer pays VAT plus stamp duty instead. Different taxes, different rates, and you never pay both systems on the same purchase.

So for the main example, let's say you are buying a resale. That is the most common case for our clients, and the cheaper of the two in tax. We will come back to the new-build numbers, because the difference is bigger than most people expect.

Line 1: transfer tax (ITP), 45,000 euros

In the Valencia region, which covers Alicante, Valencia and Castellon provinces, the general ITP rate is 9%. On a 500,000 euro purchase that is 45,000 euros. This is the big line; everything else on this list is small next to it.

Now, three things about that 9% that catch buyers out.

First, the date. The 9% applies when the taxable event, in practice the day you sign the public deed of purchase, falls on or after 1 June 2026. Before that, the rate was 10%. What matters is the completion date, not the day you signed the arras contract and not the day you pay the tax. On this house, that timing difference is worth 5,000 euros.

Second, the base. You do not automatically pay 9% on the price you agreed. The tax is calculated on the reference value that the Spanish Cadastre assigns to the property, whenever that value is higher than your price. Say you negotiate well and pay 500,000 euros, but the reference value is 520,000. Your ITP is 9% of 520,000, which is 46,800 euros, not 45,000. Your lawyer should check the reference value before you sign the arras, so this never surprises you at completion.

Third, the million euro line. If the value of the property goes above 1,000,000 euros, the rate on the whole purchase is 11%, not 9%. And there is an anti-splitting rule: purchases connected to the same property from the same seller within three years are added together, so buying the villa and the plot next door separately does not keep you under the line. At 500,000 you are nowhere near this, but if you are shopping higher up in Moraira or Javea, keep it in mind.

One honest note. The reduced ITP rates you may have read about, for young buyers or large families, are built around the property being your main home in Spain and around Spanish income tax limits. A non-resident buying a holiday home does not qualify. For you, the realistic rate is 9%, or 11% above the million.

Line 2: stamp duty (AJD), zero euros

This is the mistake I see most often: budgeting 1.4% or 1.5% of stamp duty on top of the transfer tax. On a resale, that is simply wrong. ITP and AJD are incompatible by law. If your purchase pays ITP, it does not pay AJD. Zero.

Stamp duty belongs to the VAT route, meaning new-builds, and we will count it there. So if a spreadsheet for a resale shows 45,000 of ITP plus 7,000 of AJD, that is 7,000 euros nobody has to pay. Cross it out.

Line 3: the notary

Notary fees in Spain are not a market price. They are set by the State in an official tariff, on a sliding scale based on the value of the deed, the same for a British buyer in Moraira as for anyone else, with a mandatory 5% rebate on top. The final invoice adds regulated items like copies and pages, so the exact figure depends on your deed, but in our experience, on a purchase like this one, the notary bill comes to a few hundred euros, not thousands.

And here is a detail almost nobody knows. Since 2000, the law allows the notary to apply a discount of up to 10% on those tariffs. It is the notary's choice, not a right you can demand, but it exists, and almost nobody asks because almost nobody has heard of it.

Line 4: the Land Registry, around 260 euros

Registering the purchase in the Land Registry is what makes you a protected owner in the eyes of Spanish law: once you are registered in good faith, article 34 of the Mortgage Law shields your title. For what it gives you, it is the bargain of the whole operation.

The Registry works on a State tariff too, a regressive scale with the 5% rebate included. On a 500,000 euro purchase the inscription itself works out at around 260 euros, with small fixed items on top for presentation and notes. About half a percent of what you pay in ITP.

Line 5: your lawyer

Lawyer's fees in Spain have no official tariff, and since 2009 the bar associations are not even allowed to publish recommended scales. That is why quotes for the same purchase vary so much between firms. The honest comparison is not the number alone, it is what the engagement includes and who signs the file.

I will tell you ours, because I prefer to be open about it. For purchases up to 500,000 euros, our fee as an independent law firm is 1,600 euros plus VAT, covering the legal side from the first checks to the deed. Above 500,000, the fee adds 0.2% on the excess.

Adding it up

So, the full picture for our 500,000 euro resale, assuming the reference value does not exceed the price. ITP at 9%: 45,000 euros. Stamp duty: zero. Notary: a few hundred euros on the regulated tariff. Land Registry: around 260 euros. Legal fee: 1,600 euros plus VAT. In round numbers, have close to 48,000 euros ready on top of the price; the exact figure moves with the notary's invoice and the reference value of your house.

Notice what is not on the list. No stamp duty. No percentage-of-price notary fee. And usually no agent's commission on your side: in our experience, in this area the seller pays the selling agent, and that cost sits inside the asking price. If you hired a buyer's agent yourself, that fee is whatever you agreed with them.

If you want to run your own numbers at a different price, our property cost estimator does this calculation for you.

Okay, Daniel, but what if I buy a new-build?

Well, the structure changes completely. A new-build bought from the developer pays 10% VAT instead of ITP, and here stamp duty does apply, at 1.4% in the Valencia region for deeds signed from 1 June 2026. So on the same 500,000 euros: 50,000 of VAT plus 7,000 of AJD, which is 57,000 euros of tax. That is 12,000 euros more than the resale. Same price, same town, very different tax bill.

Here is the table I wish every buyer saw before making an offer:

Two footnotes on the new-build route. The 10% VAT covers the home plus up to two garage spaces and its annexes, only if they are sold together with it. A third parking space, or a garage bought separately, is taxed at 21%. And the third row exists because company-to-company sales can sometimes opt back into VAT; if that appears in your paperwork, the stamp duty jumps to 2%, so ask before you sign.

The mortgage myth

If you are financing the purchase, you will sign a second deed, the mortgage deed, and it carries its own stamp duty of 2%. Here is the part that still catches almost everyone out: since the end of 2018, the taxpayer on that deed is the lender. The bank pays the 2%, not you. The bank also pays the cost of registering its own mortgage at the Land Registry. If a cost sheet charges you either of those, someone is billing you for the bank's obligations.

Buying from a non-resident seller: two things to know

In towns like Moraira, Denia or Javea, there is a good chance your seller is a non-resident too. That changes two things on completion day.

First, the 3% retention. When the seller is a non-resident, you as the buyer must withhold 3% of the price, 15,000 euros here, and pay it directly to the Spanish tax office on the seller's account. It is not an extra cost, it comes out of the price, but it is your legal obligation, and getting it wrong is your problem, not the seller's.

Second, the municipal plusvalia. That tax on the increase in land value is normally the seller's to pay. But when the seller is a non-resident individual, the law makes the buyer the substitute taxpayer, meaning the town hall can claim it from you if the seller flies home without paying. The standard fix: your lawyer retains the plusvalia amount at the notary and settles it. This is exactly the kind of detail Juan has been catching for foreign buyers for three decades.

One last thing

If you are earlier in the process, start with our full guide to buying property in Spain as a non-resident. And if you want these numbers checked against a real property, with the reference value pulled and the retention handled, contact us and we will quote the fee before we start. If you accept it, we help you. If not, no problem.

One closing line, because Juan makes me say it, and he is right to: this is a law firm, and this article is general orientation, not advice on your specific purchase. The rates shown apply to purchases completed from 1 June 2026 in the Valencia region.

Daniel Bertomeu, tax advisor, AEDAF #06838. The legal side of this site is written and reviewed by my father, Juan Antonio Bertomeu Valles, abogado, ICALI #4643, in practice on the Costa Blanca since 1991.