Spanish Inheritance and Gift Tax: Complete 2026 Guide (Deadlines, Calculation and Valencia Region)

What Spanish Inheritance and Gift Tax (ISD) is, who pays it, which region you file in, the 6-month and 30-working-day deadlines, extensions, the 4-year limitation period and the 99% Valencia rebate. A practical 2026 guide with examples, tables and a free calculator.

1. What Spanish Inheritance and Gift Tax is

Spanish Inheritance and Gift Tax — *Impuesto sobre Sucesiones y Donaciones* (ISD) — is a direct, personal, subjective, progressive and instantaneous tax on wealth acquired gratuitously by individuals: through inheritance, through a gift, or as the beneficiary of a life insurance policy.

Its relationship with personal income tax (IRPF) is one of the least understood points: the two are mutually exclusive. What is taxed under ISD is not taxed again in the recipient's income tax return. A different matter — and a common trap — is the capital gain of the donor, which can indeed be taxable in the donor's income tax return.

At [Bufete Padilla](https://bufetepadillatorrevieja.com/en/contact) we have been handling estates and gifts since 1976 in Torrevieja, Elche, Moraira and across the Costa Blanca, with a very high proportion of international clients (British, Dutch, Belgian, Norwegian, Swedish, German and French), where ISD intersects with the succession law of the client's home country.

2. Legal framework: one national law, seventeen realities

The regime rests on two national instruments:

  1. Law 29/1987 of 18 December, on Inheritance and Gift Tax.
  2. Royal Decree 1629/1991 of 8 November, approving the implementing Regulation.

However, ISD is a tax ceded to the Autonomous Communities (Law 22/2009), both in revenue and in extensive legislative powers. Each region may enact its own reductions, alter the tariff, adjust the multiplier coefficients and grant rebates on the tax due.

That is why the territorial asymmetry is enormous: an identical estate can trigger a bill of thousands of euros in one region and a token amount in another.

> Practical rule: you can never answer "how much is inheritance tax in Spain" without first knowing where the deceased was resident and the family relationship between the parties.

3. Legal nature: five features that explain everything

| Feature | What it means in practice |
|---|---|
| A tax, not a fee | No service is rendered in return. It taxes newly arising economic capacity. |
| Direct | It taxes an immediate manifestation of wealth: the increase in the recipient's net assets. |
| Personal and subjective | The final amount depends on kinship, the heir's pre-existing wealth and personal circumstances (age, disability). |
| Progressive | The tax grows more than proportionally: the state tariff runs from 7.65% to 34%. |
| Instantaneous | It accrues at a single moment: the date of death, or the date the gift is formalised. |