Impuesto de Sucesiones in Andalucía 2026: What an Inherited Costa del Sol Home Really Costs to Keep or Sell

For a spouse, child, grandchild or parent, inheritance tax on a Costa del Sol home is close to zero in 2026: Andalucía applies a reduction of one million euros per heir, then a 99 percent bonus on whatever tax is left. The tax that does bite is the municipal plusvalía, and the thing that actually blocks the sale is the six-month deadline and the paperwork behind it. Here is what an inherited home really costs to keep or sell, and what has to happen before you can sign anything.

Inheriting a Costa del Sol home, in numbers

Which situation is yours?

• Spouse, children or parents inheriting, with a will. Low tax, mostly paperwork. The clock is the problem, not the bill.
• Siblings, nephews, nieces or an unrelated heir. Groups III and IV get far less relief and the 99 percent bonus does not apply. Get the number calculated before you accept.
• No will, or a will made abroad. A declaration of heirs before a Spanish notary, and a question about which country’s law applies at all.
• Heirs in different countries who do not agree, or a mortgage still running. The deed cannot be signed until they do, and the bank does not wait. Our inherited property page covers that stage.

How Andalucía’s inheritance tax works in 2026

Spain’s inheritance tax is a state tax run by the regions, and Andalucía has chosen to all but remove it for close family. Each heir in group I or II, descendants, ascendants and the spouse, deducts one million euros from what they receive. Whatever tax the state scale then produces on the rest is cut by 99 percent. A daughter inheriting a 700,000 euro apartment in Estepona pays nothing in inheritance tax. Two children inheriting a 2.4 million euro villa each deduct a million, pay tax on 200,000 at the state scale, and then pay one percent of that. The return is filed either way, within six months, with the valuation and the property documents attached.

Non-residents inside or outside the EU are entitled to the Andalucían rules rather than the harsher state scale. That has been settled since the European Court cases and the 2021 reform, but it is applied for on the return, not automatic, and we still see families pay the state scale because nobody told them.

Group III and IV heirs: where the real bill is

Siblings, nephews, nieces, uncles, in-laws and unrelated heirs do not get the million-euro reduction or the 99 percent bonus. Their reductions are a fraction of the size and the state scale applies with a multiplier for distance of kinship and for the heir’s existing wealth. A nephew inheriting a 500,000 euro townhouse can face a six-figure bill, due inside six months, on a property he cannot sell until the inheritance is registered. That is the case where accepting a beneficio de inventario, selling fast, or in some cases renouncing, has to be decided with a calculator before the deed is signed.

What may change in 2027. On 30 October 2026 the Junta approved its 2027 budget bill, which includes a 99 percent bonus for a sibling who inherits a home and makes it their main residence. Until the Andalusian Parliament passes it, it is a proposal, and the exact conditions have not been published. The Junta wants the budget in force from 1 January 2027 (Junta de Andalucía, 30 October 2026). The tax follows the date of death, so if you are inheriting from a brother or sister, check which side of the start date the death falls on.

Plusvalía: the tax that is still real

The town hall charges tax on the increase in the land’s official value during the deceased’s ownership. Since 2021 heirs can choose between the cadastral coefficient method and the real gain method and pay whichever is lower, and a property that has not gained value pays nothing. Many councils give a bonus of up to 95 percent when the property was the deceased’s habitual home, but it has to be requested. The deadline is six months from death, extendable to a year if the heirs ask before the six months run out. Estepona, Marbella and Benahavís each have their own ordinance and their own bonus.

The six-month clock

Both taxes count from the date of death, not from the day you found out or the day the will was read. The inheritance tax extension of six more months has to be requested inside the first five, and interest runs on it. Miss the deadline with no extension and the surcharge starts at one percent and climbs a point a month to twelve, then jumps to fifteen percent plus interest. Families living abroad routinely lose the first three months to grief and logistics, which is why the first practical step after a death is to get the Spanish side moving in parallel with everything at home.

What has to happen before you can sell

Death certificate, apostilled and translated if foreign. Certificate from the Registro de Últimas Voluntades saying whether there is a Spanish will. The will, or a declaración de herederos abintestato before a notary if there is none. An NIE for every heir. A deed of acceptance and adjudication signed by every heir or their attorney before a notary. The inheritance tax return and the plusvalía filed. Then the Land Registry. Only then can a sale be signed. The notary records what the heirs agree; nobody at that table checks whether the house was ever registered in the deceased’s name or whether the mortgage is being paid, and those are the two things that stall most inheritances on this coast.

No will, or a foreign will

Without a will, Spanish intestate succession runs to children, then parents, then the spouse, then siblings and their children, and on to fourth-degree relatives before the State. For a foreign owner the EU Succession Regulation applies the law of the country where they habitually lived, unless their will chose their national law. A British owner who lived in Marbella full-time and left an English will without that choice can find Spanish forced-heirship rules applied to the Spanish house. If nobody knows who inherits at all, that is a separate job.

Heirs abroad

Nobody needs to fly in. A power of attorney signed at home, apostilled and translated, lets someone in Spain sign the acceptance deed, the tax returns and later the sale. Each heir still needs an NIE, which the Spanish consulate issues. Where heirs disagree on the value or the split, nothing moves, and much of the work in those cases is sitting between siblings in three countries with a realistic valuation.

Where Santina fits

Santina Property Solutions coordinates the notary, the lawyer and the tax adviser so the chain closes in one pass, keeps the bank and the community of owners talking if money is owed, and when the family wants to sell, Santina Homes handles the sale and the non-resident retention that comes with it. The Cancelada townhouse we wrote up started with an heir in France, a mortgage in arrears and tenants who would not leave, and sold six months after we took it on. What the sale itself costs is in our break-even post, and the wider Andalucía tax picture for 2026 is here.

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