How to Reduce Tax When You Sell a Property in Mallorca: The 2026 Guide

What sellers actually pay when a property changes hands

Buying a property in Mallorca or Ibiza typically adds 11% to 14% to the purchase price in tax and fees, as we cover in our guide to property tax for non-resident owners. Selling has its own costs, and a few of them can be reduced or avoided entirely if you plan ahead. This guide focuses on what a vendor pays when selling a property in Mallorca and where there is genuine room to save.

Plusvalía Municipal: the tax you might not owe at all

Plusvalía Municipal is a local tax charged by the town hall on the rise in value of the land under a property since it was bought, not on the building itself, and it falls on the seller. Until 2021 it was calculated only one way and had to be paid even when a property sold at a loss, which the Constitutional Court ruled unconstitutional. Since the reform that followed, Real Decreto-ley 26/2021, you can choose whichever of two methods gives the lower bill: an objective method, which multiplies the cadastral value of the land by a coefficient set according to how many years you owned the property, or a real method, based on the actual increase between the cadastral land value at purchase and at sale. Each town hall applies its own tax rate on top, capped by law at 30%.

The practical upshot is that if you can show the property sold for the same price as you paid, or less, no Plusvalía is due at all, and this is no longer something a lawyer has to argue case by case. It is now written into the calculation itself. If you owned the property for many years in an area where land values rose steadily, the bill can still run into several thousand euros, so it is worth having your lawyer or gestor run both methods before the sale completes rather than after.

Capital Gains Tax: what non-residents actually pay

The gain between your purchase price and sale price is taxed at a flat rate for non-residents, not a sliding scale: 19% for tax residents of the EU, Iceland, Norway and Liechtenstein, and 24% for residents of any other country, including the UK since Brexit and the United States. The buyer withholds 3% of the agreed price at completion and pays it to the Spanish tax authorities on your behalf as a payment on account, a mechanism we cover in more detail in our property tax guide for non-residents.

Spanish tax residents pay a different, progressive scale on the same type of gain rather than a flat rate, and the top band rose from 28% to 30% from 2025. The current bands are as follows.

Gain	Rate (residents)
Up to €6,000	19%
From €6,000 to €50,000	21%
From €50,000 to €200,000	23%
From €200,000 to €300,000	27%
Above €300,000	30%

The official rules for how non-residents calculate and declare this gain are set out by the Agencia Tributaria, and it is worth checking this directly if your situation is not straightforward.

Agency and legal fees

Estate agency fees for selling a property are usually around 5% of the price and are payable by the vendor. A lawyer handling the sale typically charges around 1% of the final price. Foreign sellers in particular are advised to use a local lawyer who specialises in real estate transactions, such as Property Lawyers, since they will check the Plusvalía calculation and make sure nothing is missed before completion. The vendor does not pay notary or land registry fees on a sale; those fall to the buyer.

Ways to legally reduce what you owe

Exemptions that mostly do not apply to non-resident sellers

Two well-known Capital Gains Tax exemptions exist in Spain, and both come with restrictions that catch people out.

• The exemption for sellers aged 65 or over applies only to Spanish tax residents selling their habitual residence, regardless of nationality. It does not apply to non-residents at all, whatever their age.
• The reinvestment exemption, where the full proceeds go into a new main home within two years, is available to Spanish tax residents without restriction, but for non-residents it only applies to those who are tax resident in another EU or EEA country with an effective exchange of tax information with Spain. Non-residents from outside the EU and EEA, including UK and US sellers, cannot use it.

Both exemptions also require the property to have genuinely been the seller's main home, not a second residence. Since most of our clients buy in Mallorca or Ibiza as a holiday home rather than relocate permanently, the honest answer for most sellers is that neither exemption applies, whatever their age or nationality. It is still worth checking your specific situation with a gestor, since the rules turn on details like how the property was actually used and for how long.

Deductible costs that reduce your gain

What you actually owe is based on the net gain, not the sale price, so it is worth gathering paperwork for everything that can reduce it:

• The legal, notary, land registry and tax costs you paid when you originally bought the property.
• Costs directly tied to this sale, including agency and legal fees and the cost of documents such as the energy efficiency certificate and the certificate from the community of owners.
• Genuine improvements made during ownership, such as an extension, a new pool or a refitted kitchen, as opposed to routine maintenance, which does not count.

An official invoice showing VAT is the only proof Hacienda accepts for any of these, so receipts without VAT will not help your case.

Get a Valuation Before You Sell in Mallorca or Ibiza

Getting the sale right

None of the taxes above can be skipped, but the amount you pay is not fixed either. A lawyer who specialises in property transactions in Mallorca will run the Plusvalía calculation both ways, confirm whether either Capital Gains Tax exemption genuinely applies to you, and make sure every deductible cost is properly documented before the deeds are signed. Our own tips for selling a property in Mallorca cover the practical side of preparing a sale, alongside the tax planning above.

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Frequently asked questions

Can I avoid Plusvalía Municipal when I sell my property in Mallorca?

How much Capital Gains Tax will I pay as a non-resident selling property in Spain?

Does the over-65 exemption from Capital Gains Tax apply to non-residents?

Can I avoid Capital Gains Tax by reinvesting in another property?

What costs can I deduct from my Capital Gains Tax bill?

Do I need a lawyer to sell my property in Mallorca?