Spain plans to levy a tax of up to 100% on property bought by non-residents from countries outside the EU, such as the UK.
Announcing the move, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said this “unprecedented” approach is necessary to meet the country's housing emergency.
“The Western world is facing a big challenge: Not to be a society divided into two classes, rich landlords and poor renters,” he said.
Non-EU citizens bought 27,000 properties in Spain by 2023, he told an economic forum in Madrid, “not to live” but “to make money from them”.
“That is, in the state of scarcity that we are in, [we] obviously we will not allow it,” he added.
The move was therefore designed to “put it first[ise] that the existing houses belong to the residents,” he said.
Sánchez did not provide details on how the tax would work or a timeline for introducing it to parliament for approval, where he often struggles to muster enough votes to pass legislation.
But his government said the proposal would be finalized “after extensive research”.
It is one of the planned measures announced by the prime minister on Monday aimed at improving housing availability in the country.
Other measures announced include tax exemptions for landlords who provide affordable housing, transferring more than 3,000 homes to a new public housing association, and stricter regulations and higher taxes for guest apartments.
“It is not fair that those who have three, four or five temporary rental houses pay less tax than hotels,” he said.
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