Pamplona and Vitoria pay lowest IBI property tax; Lleida and Tarragona the highest

A recent study by the national tax collection agency in Madrid of Spain's 52 provincial capital cities showed that the mean average in Pamplona (pictured) is €22.69 per year and in Lleida, €140.02.

These figures are in fact strongly skewed, since tax on a small plot of green-belt land may only be a single-figure sum, whilst on a villa with land may be several thousand – also, the figures are taken per head for every member of the population including children, rather than per property.

Also, some provincial capitals have not carried out a catastral, or basic land value review for years or even decades, meaning values are out of date.

Whilst it is the catastral or land registry – part of the ministry for the treasury – which calculates these values, town and city councils have the freedom to decide what percentage of this they will charge as tax within certain limits, normally ranging from 0.6% to 1.1%.

Catastral values may never be more than 50% of the market value of the land or house.

Tarragona has the second-highest IBI at an average of €131, followed by Soria (€128.75), Toledo (€127.76), Ciudad Real (€123.21) and Barcelona (€116.57).

Along with Pamplona, Bilbao and Girona have not carried out a catastral review in many years – Girona has the fifth-lowest rates at €53.25 – and those just behind Pamplona are Vitoria (€43.99) and San Sebastián (€47.10), both in the Basque Country, and A Coruña in Galicia (€50.85).

Barcelona, along with the Spanish-owned city-provinces of Ceuta and Melilla on the northern Moroccan coast, have carried out catastral reviews which automatically increased land and home values for tax purposes, so they have all applied a 50% discount to offset the IBI hike.

Madrid is 16^th from the top of the list, the research shows.