Spain: most ordinary cars now pay no registration tax at all
Spain's registration tax looks like a headline cost and increasingly is not one. The impuesto de matriculación is charged in four CO2 bands, and the first of them is zero:
| CO2 | Rate, mainland and Balearics |
|---|---|
| 120 g/km or less | 0% |
| over 120 and under 160 | 4.75% |
| 160 to under 200 | 9.75% |
| 200 or more | 14.75% |
The Canaries pay one point less in each band, and Ceuta and Melilla pay nothing in any of them. Battery electric cars are exempt outright, by a separate route, so the zero band is reached two independent ways.
The practical effect is a cliff edge rather than a slope. A car at 119 g/km pays nothing; the same car at 121 g/km pays 4.75% of its pre-tax value. That single gram is worth more than most option packs.
The tax is charged on the price before IVA, not on itself
Worth stating because the Irish system on this site works the opposite way. In Spain the taxable base for a new vehicle is the same base as IVA, meaning the pre-tax price. Matriculación and IVA are then both charged on it, side by side.
So Spanish car tax is not circular. Ireland charges VRT on a retail price that already contains VRT and VAT; Spain does not, and the total tax burden is correspondingly easier to predict.
On a EUR 28,000 sticker, the difference across the bands is stark:
- at or below 120 g/km: no matriculación, total tax about EUR 4,860, some 17.4% of the price
- at 130 g/km: matriculación about EUR 1,058, total tax about EUR 5,734, or 20.5%
- at 200 g/km or more: matriculación about EUR 3,042, total tax about EUR 7,373, or 26.3%
What to enter here
Both taxes are already inside the advertised price, so there is no tax field on this page and nothing to add on top. A trade-in reduces the loan euro for euro of its equity and carries no tax consequence in either direction.
One caveat before you rely on a band. The rates above are the national defaults, and an autonomous community may set its own, so confirm the figure for the region you are registering in rather than assuming the national scale applies.