Non-resident tax: Costa Blanca

No Spanish province sells a larger share of its homes to foreign buyers than Alicante, and the 19 municipalities on this page are the reason. Dutch, British and Belgian purchasers lead the regional statistics, followed by Polish, Ukrainian and German buyers; in Rojales foreign residents outnumber Spanish ones and Torrevieja is close to parity. South of the capital, around Torrevieja, Orihuela Costa, Guardamar del Segura, Pilar de la Horadada and Rojales, the stock is bungalows, duplexes and apartments on large urbanisations such as La Zenia, Villamartín, Ciudad Quesada and Mil Palmeras, often bought in joint names and used a few weeks a year.

North of Alicante the coast changes character. Benidorm means high-rise apartments in Levante, Poniente and Rincón de Loix; Altea, Calpe, Moraira, Benissa and Jávea are villa country, with Cap de la Nau, El Portet and Altea Hills among the most expensive addresses in the province; Dénia and Alfaz del Pi mix a settled international community with holiday flats. Alicante and Elche add city apartments bought by owners who fly in for long weekends.

The imputed income declared on Modelo 210 is a percentage of the cadastral value, and that percentage depends on when the municipality last had a general revision of its values. Here the answer is nearly always "long ago": Dénia's values date from 1989, Benidorm's and Rojales's from 1990, Orihuela's from 1994, Alicante's from 1996. Even the later revisions, Torrevieja and La Nucía in 2004, Benissa in 2005, Villajoyosa in 2006 and Altea in 2010, fall before the 2012 threshold that the 2023–2026 rule sets for the reduced 1.1 % coefficient. Eighteen of the 19 towns therefore use 2 %.

The exception is Santa Pola, whose new ponencia de valores took effect in 2025 and moved the municipality, Gran Alacant included, to 1.1 %. Everyone else has a consolation: old revisions mean low cadastral values, so the base stays well under market prices. UK owners pay 24 % on that base since Brexit with no deductions, Irish owners stay at 19 %, and the tax is due even for a home that stood empty all year, one return per co-owner.

Seventeen of the 19 councils have delegated IBI collection to Suma Gestión Tributaria, the Diputación de Alicante's agency, which bills the IBI together with the waste fee in a single late-summer voluntary period, running from late July to early October in 2026. Two collect for themselves: Alicante, whose Tesorería Municipal opens a spring window, and Xàbia, whose online tax service issues Jávea's receipts. A SUMA direct debit can be set up from any SEPA account, Dutch, Belgian or Irish included, and is the easiest protection against the surcharges that follow a missed receipt. Whoever collects it, the receipt carries the valor catastral that feeds your Modelo 210.

Holiday lets here fall under the Comunitat Valenciana tourism registry, and Decreto Ley 9/2024 raised the bar: a municipal urban-compatibility report is required, registrations last five years, and a stay of more than ten days by the same guest no longer counts as a tourist let. Benidorm, Torrevieja and Dénia add planning limits by zone, and since July 2025 every advert needs the national rental register number. For the tax, let days come off the imputed income and the rent goes on a separate annual Modelo 210, net of pro-rata expenses for EU and EEA owners, gross for everyone else. Rules change often; check before you accept bookings.

• Alicante-Elche airport serves the whole coast; many owners time an autumn visit to the SUMA payment period and deal with the Modelo 210 on the same trip.
• One urbanisation can straddle two municipalities (Orihuela Costa and Pilar de la Horadada, Finestrat and Benidorm): the IBI receipt, not the postal address, tells you which rate applies.
• Fiscasa retrieves the cadastral data from the SUMA reference, prepares one return per owner and provides payment instructions; a fiscal representative is optional for EU and EEA residents.
• Never filed? Spain can claim the last four years, and coming forward before any notice keeps the surcharge to 1 % plus 1 % per month, capped at twelve months.