For anyone who has just sold as a non-resident
Reclaiming the 3 % withholding after a sale
The buyer kept 3 %, and there is a deadline to get it back
If you sold a Spanish house without being resident, the buyer withheld 3 % of the price and paid it to the tax office in your name. That money is an advance, not a tax: if your gain was small, or if you lost money, it comes back. But only if it is claimed, and in time.
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What you get
- The arithmetic of your real gain: purchase price, sale price, and everything the law lets you deduct.
- The hunt for the deductible costs almost nobody keeps: notary, land registry, purchase tax, agency commission, invoiced works.
- The buyer's modelo 211 receipt, tracked down, because its code has to go into your own return.
- The complete file, with the calculation done and the documents numbered, ready for the gestoría.
- Your deadline written out, and a reminder when it enters its final month.
Why this matters now
Spain's non-resident income tax act obliges the buyer to withhold 3 % of the price when the seller is non-resident, and gives them one month to pay it over on form 211. The seller then has THREE MONTHS, counted from the end of that month, to declare the gain on form 210 and claim back the excess. Four months from signing, in total. That is a short window in which to find fifteen-year-old invoices, and that is why money is lost: not to the law, to the filing cabinet.
What this service is NOT
We do not file tax returns. The person who signs and files your form 210 is a gestoría or our partner tax adviser, and they quote their fee before starting. We build the file and do the arithmetic, which is where the money is: one forgotten deductible cost is worth more than any fee. Nor do we guess: if an invoice cannot be found we do not invent it, and we tell you which ones can be reissued and where.
Questions about this service
I sold at a loss. Do I get the whole 3 % back?
In principle yes: with no gain there is no tax to pay and the withholding is refunded in full. It has to be proved with both prices and the costs, and it has to be claimed. The tax office does not refund it by itself.
How long does the refund take?
Months, and sometimes more than a year. We do not give a date because it depends neither on us nor on your gestoría. What does depend on you is filing on time and well documented: a thin file is what triggers the query that stretches everything out.
The deadline has already passed. Is it lost?
Not necessarily. There is a separate route for reclaiming undue payments, with longer limits, but that is a tax adviser's territory rather than a file's. We will tell you plainly instead of charging you to try.
And the agency?
HolaOwners does not sell your home and does not look for a buyer. If you are looking for an agency, HolaBlanca (same publisher) forwards your request free of charge to at most three agencies listed in the RAICV register of your municipality; you decide whether one is enough.
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This page was last checked on 4 September 2026
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