The Tertulia Letter

Where you live in Spain can triple your wealth tax

Welcome to the first Tertulia Letter. Each issue brings one finding from the Index, what has changed, a closer look at one town, and an answer to a question readers ask. It comes out with each new edition of the Index, a few times a year.

The finding: the region decides the wealth tax

Spain’s income tax and wealth tax are set by each region, and for a retired American couple the two behave very differently.

Income tax barely moves. For a couple aged 65 to 74 with €90,000 a year of income, mostly Social Security and IRA withdrawals, Spanish income tax ranges from €11,808 a year in Madrid to €12,889 in Extremadura. That is a difference of about €1,000 across all 15 regions.

Wealth tax moves a lot. With €3M of net wealth, the same couple pays:

Add it all up and the couple’s total regional tax is €11,808 a year in Madrid and €29,982 in Asturias: two and a half times as much, for the same people with the same money. Over 25 years of retirement, that gap is about €450,000.

If your net wealth is above about €1.5M, the region you choose is the biggest tax decision you will make in Spain.

See every region on the regions page, or enter your own figures on the Index.

What’s new in this edition (Engine v4.1)

• 252 towns, chosen more carefully. The Index now leaves out 54 commuter suburbs of the big cities, mostly industrial towns around Barcelona, Madrid and Valencia, so its rankings focus on places Americans actually consider. How towns are chosen.
• Integration uses the 2025 census, and now counts residents from the UK, western Europe and North America, a better guide to an established international community than the share of foreigners alone.
• Aging & care measures private care homes. Spain’s public dependency-care system needs five years of legal residence, so a newcomer cannot use it.
• New default weights for an affluent American couple over 60: more weight on healthcare, climate and care, less on housing and cost of living.
• Every town and region has its own page, for example Sitges or Andalucía.
• Compare up to five towns side by side: tax, the ten dimensions of daily life and key facts. Try Benalmádena, Sitges and Segovia.

A closer look: Benalmádena

With the new weights, Benalmádena, on the Costa del Sol between Málaga and Fuengirola, is first of the 252 towns, with a liveability score of 70.6.

• Strongest on governance, cost of living and integration: the town hall owes about €6 per resident (the median town owes €182), groceries and private health insurance cost a little less than in most towns, and a large international community is already in place.
• Weakest on housing and long-term care: homes are appraised at about €3,780 per m², against €2,050 in the median town, only 61% of homes are someone’s main residence, and there are about 17 private care-home places per 1,000 residents over 65 within 30 km, against 26 in the median town and 66 in Segovia.
• Tax: about €14,104 a year for the reference couple, property tax included. Andalucía charges no wealth tax.
• Getting home: about five hours from front door to boarding a US flight, connecting through Málaga airport.

If you live in Benalmádena, or anywhere else in the Index, tell us what the numbers miss. It takes five minutes on the Contribute page, and contributors are credited in every edition.

Your question: why isn’t the Basque Country in the Index?

The Basque Country and Navarra collect and set most of their own taxes, under historic agreements with the Spanish state, so their tax systems differ from the 15 regions the Tertulia Engine models. Rather than approximate them, the Index shows their towns’ daily-life scores and leaves the tax figure blank. Ceuta and Melilla also have their own tax rules and are treated the same way.

Modelling these systems is on the list for a future edition. If you are considering San Sebastián, Bilbao or Pamplona, write to us at [email protected]: reader interest decides what comes next.

Until the next edition,

The Tertulia Index

Figures as published in October 2026. For current figures, and your own, see the Index. Research, not tax advice.

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