Roughly one in every seven Spanish home sales involves a foreign buyer, and Spanish law does almost nothing to stop them. There's no residency requirement, no citizenship test, no limit on how many properties you can own. What there is instead: a fixed sequence of paperwork that punishes anyone who does it out of order. Skip the NIE and you can't open a bank account. Sign the arras contract carelessly and changing your mind costs you 10% of the purchase price. This guide covers the whole chain, from the first form to the taxes that keep arriving after you own the place.
Step one: the NIE, because nothing happens without it
The NIE (Número de Identidad de Extranjero) is a personal tax number for foreigners. You'll need it to open a bank account, sign the deed, pay purchase taxes, connect the electricity. Everything. Spanish bureaucracy treats a buyer without an NIE as invisible.
Two ways to get one. The first is through a Spanish consulate in your home country: you file form EX-15, pay a fee of around €10 and wait anywhere from two weeks to two months depending on how busy that consulate is. The second is in Spain itself, at a National Police station that handles foreigners' paperwork. That route is faster on paper but depends on booking a cita previa, an appointment slot, and in Madrid, Barcelona or Málaga those can be scarce for weeks at a stretch.
There's a third option worth knowing about. A lawyer holding power of attorney can apply on your behalf, which is how most remote buyers do it. Either way, start early. The NIE is the single most common cause of delayed completions.
Open a Spanish bank account
Strictly speaking, no law forces you to bank in Spain. In practice you won't get far without it. Completion is normally paid with a banker's draft from a Spanish bank, and after the purchase you'll need direct debits for property tax, community fees and utilities, all of which Spanish suppliers expect to pull from a Spanish account.
Take your passport, your NIE and proof of income or employment. Non-residents also sign a certificado de no residente, which the bank often obtains for you for a small charge. And be ready for questions about where your money comes from. Anti-money-laundering rules mean the bank will want payslips, tax returns or the contract from a property you sold at home before it accepts a six-figure transfer.
Move the money before you need it, not in the week of completion. If your savings aren't in euros, compare a currency broker's rate against your bank's. On a €250,000 transfer, the difference between the two can pay for the notary and the registry together.
Hire a lawyer who answers only to you
Spain doesn't oblige buyers to use a lawyer, and plenty of locals complete with just the notary. As a foreign buyer, don't copy them. You want an independent abogado, registered with the local bar association, who works for you alone. Not the one the estate agent recommends, and never the seller's or the developer's lawyer, however friendly the offer sounds.
Why the insistence? Because the notary, who does take part in every Spanish purchase, is a neutral public official. The notary checks that the deed is legal and that both sides understand what they're signing. What the notary won't do is dig into the property's debts, its planning status or the fairness of the contract. That investigation is your lawyer's job, and nobody else in the chain is paid to do it.
Budget around 1% of the purchase price, or a fixed fee for cheaper properties. If you can't travel, your lawyer can act under a power of attorney signed before a notary at home and apostilled, and handle the entire purchase, NIE included, while you stay put.
The reservation contract and the arras deposit
Offers in Spain get formalised fast. First comes a reservation agreement: you pay a holding deposit, usually €3,000 to €6,000, and the property comes off the market for a couple of weeks while your lawyer runs checks. Read even this small contract before signing. It should say clearly that the deposit comes back if the checks turn up problems.
The serious document is the contrato de arras, the private purchase contract, typically signed with 10% of the price handed over. In its usual form (arras penitenciales, under article 1454 of the Civil Code) the deposit is penitential: either side can still walk away, at a cost. If you pull out, you lose the 10%. If the seller pulls out, they must hand you back double what you paid. On a €300,000 home, that's €30,000 gone if you get cold feet, or €60,000 in your pocket if the seller takes a better offer.
If you're buying with a mortgage, have your lawyer write the loan into the arras as a condition. Without that clause, a rejected mortgage application still costs you the full deposit.
Due diligence: what gets checked before the big signature
The first document your lawyer pulls is the nota simple, an extract from the Land Registry that costs a few euros online and lists the registered owner, the exact description of the property, and every charge against it: mortgages, embargoes, court annotations, rights of way.
Why does this matter so much? Because in Spain, debts attach to the property, not to the person who ran them up. Buy a flat with an undischarged mortgage or unpaid taxes and those debts are now your problem. Community fees follow the same rule: the buyer answers for the current year's unpaid fees plus the three previous years. So your lawyer will ask the community administrator for a certificate showing the seller is up to date, and will check IBI receipts for the same reason.
New builds carry their own checklist. The building needs a licence of first occupation (licencia de primera ocupación) before you make the final payment; without it you may be unable to connect utilities or legally live in the home. Buying off-plan? Every stage payment must be protected by a bank guarantee, which returns your money with interest if the developer never delivers. And if you've fallen for a country house, have the land classification checked. Rural Spain is full of charming homes built where nothing should have been.
Mortgages for non-residents: smaller loans, more paperwork
Spanish banks lend to non-residents routinely, just on tighter terms. Expect 60–70% of the property's value at most, against up to 80% for residents. That means finding 30–40% in cash, plus the purchase costs on top. Repayments, together with your existing debts, generally can't exceed about 35% of your net monthly income.
The paperwork is heavier than at home, because the bank is underwriting income it can't easily verify:
- your last two or three tax returns
- recent payslips, or company accounts if you're self-employed
- six months of bank statements
- a credit report from your home country, translated into Spanish
The bank will also order a tasación, an official valuation by a certified firm, at your expense (€300–600). The loan is calculated on the lower of the valuation and the price, so a low tasación can leave a hole in your budget late in the day.
One protection works in your favour. Since the 2019 mortgage law, the bank must give you a binding offer sheet (the FEIN) at least ten days before signing, and it now pays the stamp duty and most set-up costs on the loan itself. Allow six to eight weeks from application to approval, and don't sign an unconditional arras before the money is certain.
Completion day: the notary, the escritura and the Land Registry
The purchase closes in a notary's office. Buyer and seller, or their attorneys, sit at the same table. The notary confirms everyone's identity, requests a fresh nota simple that same morning to be sure no charge appeared overnight, and reads the deed of sale, the escritura pública, aloud. You pay the balance, almost always by banker's draft, sign, and take the keys. As the buyer, you have the right to choose the notary; the fee follows a regulated scale, roughly €600 to €1,000 for a typical sale.
The escritura isn't the end. Your purchase tax has to be settled within 30 working days, and the deed then goes to the Land Registry for registration, which can take a few weeks. Until registration completes, you own the property but the registry doesn't say so yet. A gestoría, an administrative agency, usually handles both filings; if you have a mortgage, the bank will insist on it.
What the purchase actually costs
Plan for 10–15% on top of the agreed price. Where it goes depends mostly on one question: resale or new build?
- Resale homes pay ITP, the transfer tax, set by each region: 6% in Madrid, 7% in Andalusia, 10% in Valencia and Catalonia. The range across Spain runs 6–10%.
- New builds pay 10% IVA (VAT) instead, plus stamp duty (AJD) of around 1.5% in most regions.
- In the Canary Islands, IGIC at 7% replaces IVA on new homes.
- Notary and Land Registry together: usually €1,000 to €1,700.
- Independent lawyer: about 1% plus VAT.
- With a mortgage: the valuation fee, and often an arrangement fee of 0.5–1%.
Run the numbers on a real case. A €300,000 resale flat in Valencia carries €30,000 of ITP before you've paid a single professional. The same money spent in Madrid saves €12,000 in tax. Regional tax rates are a legitimate reason to compare locations, and one that brochures rarely mention.
The taxes that keep coming after you own it
Ownership has running costs, and one of them surprises nearly everyone. IBI, the annual municipal property tax, lands once a year at roughly 0.4–1.1% of the cadastral value, an administrative figure well below market price. Community fees for shared buildings vary from €40 a month in a small block to several hundred in a resort with pools and gardens.
Then there's the tax most guides skip: the non-resident imputed income tax. If you don't rent the property out, Spain taxes you anyway on a notional income of 1.1% or 2% of the cadastral value, at 19% for EU and EEA residents and 24% for everyone else, filed once a year on Modelo 210. For a typical holiday flat the bill is a few hundred euros. Small, but ignoring it builds up penalties that resurface when you sell. If you do rent the property, actual rental income is taxed instead, and non-EU landlords can't deduct expenses.
One thing the purchase won't buy: residency
Spain's golden visa is gone. The programme that granted residency for a €500,000 property investment closed to new applicants on 3 April 2025, and owning a home now has no effect on your immigration status. As a non-EU citizen, you can use your Spanish property within the standard Schengen limit of 90 days in any 180. Not a day more, however much you paid for it.
If you plan to actually live in Spain, the working routes are the non-lucrative visa, the digital nomad visa, and work or study permits. We've compared them, with income thresholds and timelines, in our guide to moving to Spain after the golden visa.
Where to start looking
The paperwork is identical for a €90,000 village house in Andalusia and a €2 million villa in Marbella, so the interesting decisions are about the property itself. HomeNSearch lists homes across Spain with local market context on our Spain country page, and you can weigh Spanish prices against a dozen other markets in the full property catalogue. If a listing raises questions, ask us before you fly out. It's cheaper than finding out on the ground.
FAQ: buying property in Spain as a foreigner
Are there any restrictions on foreigners buying property in Spain?
Almost none. Any nationality can buy any number of properties with full ownership rights. The one exception: non-EU buyers need prior authorisation from the Ministry of Defence for property in a handful of designated military zones, mostly near borders and some strategic coastline. Your lawyer will know if the address is affected; the vast majority aren't.
Do I have to travel to Spain to complete the purchase?
No. A power of attorney signed before a notary in your home country and apostilled lets your Spanish lawyer obtain your NIE, open the bank account, sign the arras and complete at the notary without you. Plenty of buyers first see their property in person after the keys are already theirs.
How long does buying a property in Spain take?
A cash purchase typically runs eight to twelve weeks from accepted offer to completion. Add a mortgage and you're looking at three to four months. The NIE is the usual bottleneck, so file for it the day you get serious.
Does buying a house in Spain give me residency?
No. The golden visa closed in April 2025, and property ownership carries no immigration rights. Non-EU owners stay within the 90/180-day Schengen rule unless they qualify for a visa on other grounds, such as the non-lucrative or digital nomad routes.