Spain taxes an unrented Golden Visa home on income it never earns

A home bought for residence by investment keeps costing tax after the purchase, even if nobody lives in it or rents it. Spain charges an owner resident in Vietnam income tax on deemed income that the home never produced. Portugal and Greece tax the property each year, Cyprus abolished its national property tax in 2017, and no yearly tax on ownership was found in the Maltese laws read.

The owner in every case is a Vietnamese national, tax resident in Vietnam, not resident where the home stands, and does not let the home.

Spain: charges on a home bought before the route closed

Spain closed its investor residence routes to new applicants on 3 April 2025, under Organic Law 1/2025. Permits valid on that date keep their validity for the period issued, and the homes behind them remain taxable.

The municipal property tax, IBI, is charged on the cadastral value. Each council sets its rate within the range in the local finance law, generally 0.4% to 1.10% for urban property, which the law lets councils widen in listed cases. The owner pays it each calendar year, with no condition on residence.

Non-resident income tax applies to deemed income as well. Where an urban home is not let, the non-resident income tax law treats 2% of its cadastral value as income, or 1.1% where the values were revised within the previous ten tax periods.

The rate is 24%; the 19% rate applies only to residents of the European Union or the European Economic Area. Income deemed for 2025 is filed between 1 January and 31 December 2026, according to the Spanish tax agency, AEAT. From 2026 income, the window runs from 1 April to 31 December of the following year.

Wealth tax reaches assets located in Spain. The wealth tax law values a home at the highest of its cadastral value, a value assessed for other taxes and its purchase price.

Unless a region sets its own minimum, the first EUR 700,000 of the taxable base is exempt. Above that, the state scale runs from 0.2% to 3.5%, and a non-resident may apply the rules of the region holding most of the Spanish assets instead.

A temporary solidarity tax adds to the wealth tax above EUR 3 million of net wealth, at 1.7% to 3.5%, with wealth tax paid credited against it. A decree-law of 2023 extended it until wealth taxation is revised; its status for 2026 was not established.

Spain: rules in a decree-law not yet validated

Royal Decree-law 29/2026, in force since 8 October 2026, rewrites the rules on a surcharge for empty homes. In stressed housing zones, councils may add up to 50% to the IBI on residential property left unoccupied for over two years without justified cause, and second homes count as justified for up to four years of continuous non-occupation.

The surcharge rules apply to tax periods beginning on or after 8 October 2026. This means the first IBI year affected is 2027.

From 2027 the decree also replaces the 2% and 1.1% deemed-income rates with a scale of 1.1% to 3% on the owner’s combined cadastral values. A transitional rule of the personal income tax law, in wording from the same decree, widens the 1.1% test for 2023 to 2026 to revised values that took effect from 1 January 2012; whether this applies to non-resident income tax was not established.

The Congress of Deputies had not validated that decree as of 15 October 2026, and on 2 October it repealed the decree’s previous version, Royal Decree-law 26/2026. The surcharge rules, the 2027 scale and the wording of the transitional test therefore rest on a decree-law that is in force but not yet validated.

Portugal: IMI, and AIMI above EUR 600,000

The municipal property tax, IMI, falls on whoever owns the home on 31 December, at a rate each municipal assembly fixes yearly between 0.3% and 0.45% of the tax-registered value, or up to 0.5% in municipalities under listed support or adjustment programmes.

Under article 112 of the IMI code, municipalities may raise the rate by up to 25% in urban-pressure zones for homes that are neither let nor the owner’s permanent home. The rate is tripled for urban buildings vacant for more than a year, as defined in a separate decree.

The 7.5% rate for owners domiciled in listed low-tax jurisdictions does not apply to individuals, and Vietnam is not on Portugal’s list. The tax is assessed between February and April of the following year and paid in up to three instalments from May.

The state surcharge, AIMI, applies to residential property. An individual deducts EUR 600,000 from the combined tax-registered values held on 1 January and pays 0.7% on the remainder.

Marginal rates of 1% apply to combined value between EUR 1 million and EUR 2 million, and 1.5% above EUR 2 million, measured before the deduction. AIMI is paid in September.

Greece: ENFIA, rising with total value

Greece levies ENFIA each year on property owned on 1 January, under the Property Tax Code ratified by Law 5219/2025. For a building, the basic tax runs from EUR 2.00 to EUR 16.20 per square metre by tax zone, adjusted for use, age, floor and frontage.

Where the owner’s total property exceeds EUR 300,000, a tax on each property’s value is added, from 0% up to EUR 400,000 rising to 1% above EUR 2 million. Where it exceeds EUR 500,000, the whole tax is raised by 5% to 20%.

Under the Code as read, supplementary ENFIA is levied only on legal persons and legal entities. The tax can be paid in up to 12 monthly instalments, the last by the last working day of February of the following year.

Cyprus and Malta

Cyprus abolished its national immovable property tax from 1 January 2017, under the Immovable Property Tax Law as amended. Municipalities may still levy an annual fee on the general-valuation value, capped at 0.5 per thousand under the 2022 municipalities law or 0.24 per thousand under the 1985 law, and sewerage boards may charge a levy on the same value.

In Malta, no annual tax on owning a home was found in the Income Tax Act, the Local Government Act or the Duty on Documents and Transfers Act. Transfers are taxed: a 5% duty when a home changes hands, and a final tax on property transfers.

What this article has not established

No totals were computed, because rates in Spain, Portugal and Cyprus are set locally. Actual municipal rates and payment calendars were not read.

Spanish regional wealth-tax rules and the wealth-tax filing window were not read, and how the wealth-tax cap in article 31 of the wealth tax law works for a non-resident was not established. The rules on the empty-home surcharge before 8 October 2026 were not read.

The Greek text read is the gazette version of 18 July 2025; later amendments and the full building coefficients were not checked. Which Cypriot fee ceiling applies, from when, was not established, and Malta’s subsidiary legislation was not read.

Portugal’s definition of a vacant building and its lists of urban-pressure zones were not opened, and how the AIMI marginal bands combine with the 0.7% rate was not worked out. How Vietnam taxes a resident who owns these homes, and whether a double-tax treaty changes these charges, is outside this comparison.