A new app brings home just how wildly the cost of buying property varies across Spain. For a €1m resale, taxes and fees differ by as much as €65,000 depending on which region you buy in.

A new app and website called CasaTab, designed to help home buyers calculate and keep track of all the costs involved in a purchase, recently brought an interesting piece of research to my attention. It looks like a useful tool for anyone buying property in Spain, where purchase costs have a habit of being higher than expected. CasaTab’s comparison and buying-cost calculator are worth a look if you want to run the numbers before making an offer.

A €65,000 regional tax gap

I knew there were big regional differences in property transfer tax, but seeing them laid out in one table really brings the point home.

CasaTab has compared the taxes and typical fees on resale purchases of €250,000 and €1m across Spain, using the general tax rates and excluding special reductions. On a €250,000 property, total costs range from €11,950 in the Basque Country to €26,950 in Catalonia. Madrid comes in at €16,950.

So buying the same €250,000 property in Catalonia costs almost 60% more than in Madrid.

At €1m the disparity gets even bigger:

Catalonia is therefore around 72% more expensive than Madrid and 152% more expensive than the Basque Country on a €1m purchase.

Unfortunately for foreign buyers, two of the most heavily taxed regions – Catalonia and Valencia – are also amongst their favourite destinations.

Catalonia is the standout. Its general transfer-tax scale now starts at 10% (excluding exemptions) and rises progressively to a top marginal rate of 13%, following changes introduced in 2025.

A bad tax for a mobile society

There is also a wider economic problem here. Property transaction taxes are particularly harmful because they tax people for moving.

The OECD has repeatedly argued that high transaction taxes discourage housing transactions and reduce residential mobility, with possible knock-on effects on labour mobility. It has advocated shifting taxation away from transaction taxes towards less economically distortive alternatives.

They can also discourage downsizing, trading up or relocating for work. And every €10,000 handed over in transaction tax is €10,000 that cannot be spent renovating the property, improving its energy efficiency, buying furniture or employing local trades.

In other words, high transaction taxes don’t just make buying more expensive. They reduce liquidity and mobility and, at the margin, divert capital away from improving the housing stock.

The investment hurdle

CasaTab’s figures imply acquisition costs of almost 11% on a standard Catalan resale purchase at both €250,000 and €1m. Before considering estate-agent fees when you eventually sell, capital-gains taxes or inflation, your investment therefore has to appreciate substantially just to recover its initial transaction costs. So high transactions costs also raise the investment risk.

The practical lesson for buyers is simple: don’t assume that buying costs are broadly the same throughout Spain. Where you buy can make a difference of tens of thousands of euros, so make sure you know the full cost before committing.

Implications for sellers

High buying costs have consequences for sellers too. Buyers do not look at the asking price in isolation; they look at the total amount of cash required to acquire the property. In a high-tax region, every extra euro swallowed up by transfer tax and other transaction costs is a euro that cannot be paid to the seller for the land, bricks and mortar.

That can reduce the pool of buyers able or willing to stretch to a particular price, especially when mortgage rates are high or financing conditions are tight. It can also make buyers more price-sensitive and more inclined to walk away if negotiations become difficult. Someone already facing a six-figure tax and transaction bill on a €1m purchase may have less appetite for digging deeper over the last €20,000 or €30,000 of the asking price.

High purchase costs can also affect how buyers compare properties. A home in a lower-tax region may become relatively more attractive even if the headline price is similar, whilst buyers in expensive regions may become more demanding about condition because they have less money left over for renovation, decoration and repairs after completion.

For sellers in high-cost regions, the lesson is to keep the buyer’s total acquisition cost in mind. Pricing realistically, leaving some room for negotiation and handling credible buyers carefully may matter more when the taxman is already taking such a large slice of their budget. It is one of several costs and market factors worth considering when selling property in Spain.