San Sebastián hikes property tax on empty homes

War on empty flats in San Sebastián: IBI costs 150% more

An empty flat in San Sebastián will pay a 150% surcharge on its IBI (Impuesto sobre Bienes Inmuebles, or property tax) starting in January. One rented to tourists pays nothing. This paradox is explicitly stated in the fiscal ordinances approved by the Donostia City Council, led by Eneko Goia of the PNV party, for 2024: a 150% surcharge for uninhabited dwellings—about 1,500 in the municipality—and an express exemption for tourist apartments and student housing. The two categories often blamed for driving up prices are precisely those excluded from the penalty. Bilbao has moved in parallel with a 25% IBI surcharge applied only to tourist flats. Each council taxes what it can, not always what hurts most.

How much the bill rises and who it affects

Context matters to understand the scale of the measure. Debate highlights that San Sebastián is one of Spain's capitals with the highest price per square meter, around €5,800, and that rent for a flat doubles compared to Bilbao and Vitoria, the other two Basque capitals. At these prices, the owner of a closed home doesn't live off rent; they live off brick value appreciation.

The amount helps calibrate the impact. In a case cited in discussion—a flat in Bidebieta la Paz with an IBI fee of €183.07—calculations circulating suggest the current 50% surcharge amounts to €91. With the jump to 150%, the owner would pay €274.60 more annually, bringing their final fee to €457.67. The full breakdown, line by line, leaves a figure that will surprise many readers for being so small.

The surcharge owners barely notice

Here appears the first sustancia ilegal in the official narrative. A 150% surcharge sounds like expropriation but, translated into euros, costs less than a month of cigarettes, as one participant summarizes. Some argue that for an owner with a closed flat, paying €183 or €457 makes no difference: the measure doesn't change their decision, it just pads the city council's accounts. "A revenue-raising measure by a tight-fisted council," summarize those defending this view.

The official reply is different: you have to start somewhere, and the surcharge is the warm-up before the match. It goes up little by little, first 50%, now 150%. The doubt is whether the match ever arrives.

No legal certainty means no supply

The second front of the debate isn't fiscal, it's procedural. The thesis that reappears most often is that homes won't hit the market due to a surcharge, but when the owner stops antiestéticaring the tenant. If they don't feel secure, they'll pay €1,500 in IBI instead of €1,000 and move on.

Public rental agencies are the evidence cited. Those calling to offer a flat find, according to several accounts, that they don't want more housing: they have plenty and lack solvent tenants. Default ends up covered with public money, according to these same versions, while private owners watch from the sidelines. Added to this, according to one participant, banks no longer grant 30-year mortgages, meaning buying as a savings refuge loses some of its sense.

Inherited studios and retirees in the crosshairs

There is a third block of cases the debate brings to light: inherited flats, unrenovated for decades, which aren't rented because they don't meet minimum standards. And retirees with modest pensions who need rental income to make ends meet, lumped together with investors holding real estate portfolios. Generalizations about this group are the hottest point of conversation and also the most unfair: not all owners are large holders, and not all pensions cover two lives.

The movement demanding public housing argues the goal should be expanding the social stock, not punishing neighbors with a flat. Those demanding intervention respond that the market doesn't correct itself. And in the middle, the stubborn data: the measure affects 1,500 homes in a city where rent has become a luxury.

Can you tax empty flats and spare tourist ones?

That is the question dividing opinion. The ordinance exempts tourist use and student housing, and the most repeated argument is that this is where the problem originates. The council defends that tourist apartment regulation is "balanced," in the words of its mayor, aiming to reconcile conflicting interests. With one figure: 1,500 homes affected versus a tourist sector continuing to operate normally.

If the surcharge barely moves the needle on wallets and the tenant remains the risk nobody wants to take, what exactly changes when the clock strikes January?