CASE STUDY – Spanish Road Tax

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ROAD TAX IN SPAIN WHAT DO YOU HAVE TO PAY FOR YOUR CAR?

All Spanish-registered vehicle owners (including motorcycle owners) must pay an annual road tax.

The amount of tax payable varies with the ‘fiscal horsepower’ ( potencia fiscal or caballos fiscales) of your car, which is a nominal amount not necessarily related to the engine power of a vehicle.

Payment

Road tax must be paid to your local authority, usually sometime between March and May. Announcements are made on municipal notice boards and in local newspapers and banks, and you may receive a reminder (but don’t count on it!). Tax can be paid in person at the SUMA office near the Town Hall on the N332, directly via certain local banks, direct debit from your account or by post. 

When a vehicle is purchased, the owner in January pays the suma for the year, so if it is sold in February the owner will have to pay the suma for that year.

If a car is unused for a whole calendar year, you can have its registration temporarily suspended ( baja temporal) at your provincial traffic department. However, if a vehicle is used for just one month in a year, the tax must be paid for the whole year.

There’s a late payment surcharge and the unpaid sum is also liable to interest. Some people have been able to avoid paying road tax for many years, although municipalities are now clamping down on non-payers, whose vehicles can be impounded by local police. Note that a Spanish-registered car is automatically logged by your local municipality when you register your ownership with the provincial traffic department.

A Spanish road tax certificate isn’t displayed inside your car’s windscreen or on your registration plates. However, you should keep the receipt in your car with your other vehicle documents, as the local police may ask to see it.

2 Comments

  • Mr John Myler

    I need to pay my road tax urgently.Please can you send me a PDF form so I can pay it in the bank.

    • Nicola Ryan

      Good Morning John,

      To obtain the road tax bill for you, we would need some further details (NIE, Passport vehicle regsitration number ect), the other option and possibly quicker, would be to visit your local road tax office, in the Alicante región it is called SUMA, with your Passport and vehicle registration documents and they can arrange the invoice and allow you to pay the bill. We hope this helps.

      Kind regards
      Nicola

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