Car tax in Spain - ITP, IVTM and registration tax

Two separate taxes apply to a car in Spain, and they are collected by different bodies. IEDMT, the registration tax, is paid once to the state when the car is first registered here. IVTM, the road tax, is paid every year to the town hall where the car is registered. If you buy privately, a third tax — ITP — applies to the sale itself.

Registration tax (IEDMT)

IEDMT — Impuesto Especial sobre Determinados Medios de Transporte, usually just called the impuesto de matriculación — is a one-off tax due on the first definitive registration of a vehicle in Spain, whether it is new or used.

It is charged as a percentage of the vehicle's value, and the percentage depends entirely on official CO₂ emissions. Since 2021 those emissions are measured under WLTP.

Not every vehicle is caught. Vans and lorries in categories N1, N2 and N3 are outside the tax, as long as an N1 is genuinely used in a business; so are buses, motorcycles up to 250 cm³ or 16 kW, mopeds and light quadricycles, and vehicles for people with reduced mobility.

The emission bands

Rates for cars, where the autonomous community has not set its own:

0% — up to 120 gCO₂/km, and any vehicle with a single motor that is not an internal combustion engine, which is why a battery electric car pays nothing
4.75% — above 120 and below 160 gCO₂/km
9.75% — 160 or above and below 200 gCO₂/km
14.75% — 200 gCO₂/km or above; the same rate applies to a vehicle whose emissions ought to be certified but are not, so missing paperwork costs you the top band

A separate 12% band covers vehicles that fall outside all of the above. Motorcycles have their own four bands, set at 100, 120 and 140 gCO₂/km.

Rates vary by region

The percentages above are the state defaults. Each autonomous community may approve its own rates, and the bill follows the community you register the car in, not where you bought it.

The Canary Islands have their own lower defaults — 0%, 3.75%, 8.75%, 13.75% and 11%. In Ceuta and Melilla the rate is 0% in every band. Move a car registered in Ceuta or Melilla to the mainland within four years and the tax is settled at the mainland rate, scaled by how long you waited.

Importing a used car

The taxable base for a used vehicle is its market value on the day the tax falls due. You may use the official average sale prices published by the Ministry of Finance each December, and if you do, the tax office cannot challenge the figure by other means.

Those prices are then reduced by age. The scale for cars runs 100% up to a year old, 84% in the second year, 67% in the third, 56%, 47%, 39%, 34%, 28%, 24%, 19%, 17%, 13%, and 10% for anything over twelve years old. Motorhomes depreciate on a slower scale.

For a car previously registered abroad, the residual indirect tax already built into its market value is deducted before IEDMT is worked out.

The deadline is the thing to watch. You have 30 days from the day you start using the vehicle in Spain to apply for its registration. That stretches to 60 days if you are moving your residence here and qualify for the exemption below. Miss it and the tax becomes payable on the mere fact of using the car.

Annual road tax (IVTM)

IVTM — Impuesto sobre Vehículos de Tracción Mecánica — is a municipal tax on owning a vehicle fit to be driven on public roads. Your town hall sets it, collects it, and keeps it.

For cars it is charged on fiscal horsepower (caballos fiscales), a calculated figure printed on the vehicle's technical sheet. It is not the engine's kW or its advertised horsepower, and it takes no account of emissions.

The statutory minimum yearly amounts are:

Under 8 fiscal horsepower — €12.62
8 to 11.99 — €34.08
12 to 15.99 — €71.94
16 to 19.99 — €89.61
20 and above — €112.00

Every town hall may multiply these by a coefficient of up to 2, and may set a different coefficient for each class of vehicle. So the same car costs a different amount in two neighbouring towns, and the figures above are the floor, not the going rate.

The tax year is the calendar year and the tax falls due on 1 January. It is charged by whole quarters only when a vehicle is first acquired, permanently deregistered, or temporarily deregistered after theft.

Municipal discounts

Town halls may — but need not — grant reductions in their own tax by-laws:

Up to 75% according to the fuel the vehicle burns and its effect on the environment
Up to 75% according to the characteristics of the engine and its effect on the environment
Up to 100% for historic vehicles, or any vehicle at least 25 years old

Whether these exist at all, and how large they are, is decided town by town. Check the local by-law before assuming an electric car is cheap to tax where you live.

Exemptions and reductions

Exempt from IEDMT: taxis, driving-school cars, and cars genuinely used for hire — hire excludes anything let to the same person for more than three months in a year. Cars registered to a disabled person for their exclusive use are also exempt, provided at least four years have passed since another car was registered on the same basis and the car is not sold on within four years.

Moving to Spain from abroad exempts the car you bring with you, if you lived outside Spain for at least twelve consecutive months, the car was taxed normally in the country you left, you used it there for at least six months before leaving, you apply within the deadline, and you keep it for twelve months after registering.

Two reductions cut the taxable base rather than the rate: 50% for a car of five to nine seats registered to a parent in a recognised large family, and 30% for a motorhome.

IVTM has its own exemptions: ambulances, urban public transport with more than nine seats, tractors with an agricultural inspection record, diplomatic vehicles, and vehicles registered to a person with a recognised disability of 33% or more — for one vehicle at a time, and only on application to the town hall.

Buying used: transfer tax (ITP)

Buying a used car from a private seller is a transfer of movable property, so it attracts ITP — Impuesto sobre Transmisiones Patrimoniales. The buyer pays it, using form 620 or 621, to the autonomous community.

The default rate is 4%, but each community sets its own, so check the rate where you live. The value is worked out from the same official average prices and the same age percentages as above. Buying from a dealer instead means VAT, not ITP.

The DGT will not register the change of ownership without proof that ITP has been paid, is exempt, or does not apply — and it will not process the transfer at all unless the previous year's IVTM has been paid.

What you will need

Tax number — NIF for a Spanish national, NIE for a foreign resident
The technical sheet (ficha técnica), which carries both the fiscal horsepower and the CO₂ figure the two taxes depend on
A Certificate of Conformity for a vehicle brought in from abroad
Proof of the first registration date, which sets the age percentage
The purchase invoice or contract

Before you buy

IEDMT is charged once, on first registration in Spain, so a car already on Spanish plates has paid it and will not pay it again. What you will pay on a private used purchase is ITP, and on an import it is IEDMT on the depreciated value — worth calculating before you commit, because the emission band is a cliff edge rather than a slope. One gram over 120 gCO₂/km moves a car from nothing to 4.75% of its value.

IVTM is the smaller number but the recurring one, and it depends on where you live as much as on what you drive.

The average-price tables are replaced each January, and the current ones took effect on 1 January 2026. The rates themselves change only when the law, your community or your town hall changes them.

Vehicle tax in Spain