Modelo 720 & Wealth Tax for Spain NLV Holders: What US/UK Retirees Must Declare in 2026

Tax residence comes from your circumstances, not your visa

Move to Spain on the non-lucrative visa and spend more than 183 days here in a calendar year, and Spain generally treats you as an ordinary tax resident. The day count is not the only test: having your main centre of economic interests in Spain can make you resident too, there is a presumption of residence if your spouse and minor children live here, and where two countries both claim you a tax treaty decides it (Personal Income Tax Law, article 9). Residence means tax on worldwide income and, the part most people miss, reporting and sometimes tax on worldwide assets. This page is about the asset side: Modelo 720 and wealth tax. For how your worldwide income and pensions are taxed on the NLV, see our income guide, and for the wider picture there is Spainguru’s overview of taxes for expats in Spain. It is written for retirees living in Spain on the non-lucrative visa and anyone about to become resident.

Asset reporting vs. income tax, two different obligations

Modelo 720 and wealth tax are about what you own, not what you earn. You can owe no wealth tax at all and still be legally required to file Modelo 720, because the report is informational and the tax is a separate calculation. Check the reporting requirement separately from any tax due. One more nuance: being a tax resident does not automatically mean you must file an income-tax return either, as there are income thresholds and exceptions, so treat each obligation on its own terms.

Why the NLV doesn’t get you Beckham

The Beckham regime lets qualifying new residents be taxed broadly as non-residents for several years, with foreign assets left out of Spanish asset reporting and wealth tax. It is built for employment-based moves: the visa category alone doesn’t grant it, and the law also reaches certain family members of someone already on the regime (article 93). In practice the typical NLV retiree living on pensions and investments won’t qualify, so plan on Modelo 720 and wealth tax applying the ordinary way.

Modelo 720: the foreign-asset report, and whether you must file it

Modelo 720 is Spain’s annual report of assets and rights held abroad, filed with the Agencia Tributaria by Spanish tax residents. The question for you is whether your foreign holdings cross the thresholds.

The three €50,000 buckets

The form covers three categories, each with its own independent €50,000 threshold:

1. Bank and financial accounts held abroad.
2. Securities, shares, funds, life-insurance policies, and rights or income managed abroad.
3. Real estate and rights over real estate located abroad.

You test each category on its own. If one bucket clears €50,000, you report every item in that bucket, even the small ones, while the others stay out if they fall below the line. For accounts there are two figures to check, not one: the combined balance at 31 December and the combined average balance over the last quarter. Cross €50,000 on either and the category is triggered (Agencia Tributaria, how the limit is calculated).

Investments need more than the headline account value. A single brokerage account can hold securities and cash that belong to different categories, and the securities are listed one by one rather than reported as a single broker total (Agencia Tributaria, Modelo 720 FAQs). So a retiree with €120,000 of US securities, a €10,000 bank account and no foreign property files the investments category, breaking out the holdings, and reports nothing in the other two.

A few practical points trip people up: joint owners each declare the full account and note their share, authorised signatories have their own duty, balances convert to euros at year-end, and foreign property goes in at its acquisition value. The Agencia Tributaria FAQ covers each of these, and they are worth getting right before you file.

The filing window, and which year you are in

Modelo 720 looks at your position on 31 December and is filed the following 1 January to 31 March, electronically only (Order HAP/72/2013). The window for the 2025 position closed on 31 March 2026. If you become a tax resident during 2026, your first filing covers what you hold at 31 December 2026 and is due between 1 January and 31 March 2027. Keep the filing year and the tax year apart when you read older guidance.

Modelo 721 for crypto

Crypto held abroad goes on a separate report, Modelo 721, not the 720, with the same €50,000 threshold and the same January-to-March window (Agencia Tributaria, Modelo 721). It covers coins in the custody of a third party located abroad; keys you hold yourself are outside its scope. Being under €50,000 is only a guide to your first return, as a later filing can still be required, for example when you give up a holding you had previously declared.

Do you have to file again every year? The €20,000 rule and the penalty reality

When you must re-file

Once you have filed a category, you don’t repeat it every year by default. You re-declare a category in a later year only if its total value rose by more than €20,000 against your last declaration, or if you sold, closed, or otherwise gave up an asset you had reported. For a retiree whose accounts sit roughly flat, that can mean you may not need to file again unless your holdings or ownership change.

What the ECJ ruling actually changed

You will still find horror stories online: fixed fines, a 150% charge, and no statute of limitations. Note what that 150% was, 150% of the tax calculated on the undeclared assets, not 150% of the assets themselves. On 27 January 2022 the Court of Justice of the European Union (Case C-788/19) ruled that penalty regime disproportionate and contrary to the free movement of capital. Spain’s Law 5/2022 then repealed it, leaving the ordinary sanctions of the General Tax Law. The obligation is real and worth taking seriously, but it is no longer the confiscatory trap older pages describe.

Spanish wealth tax: do you even owe it?

The €700,000 and €300,000 allowances

Spain’s wealth tax (Impuesto sobre el Patrimonio) is charged on net assets (Wealth Tax Law), and the state rules give generous shelter. There is a tax-free minimum of €700,000 per taxpayer, and your habitual home is exempt up to a further €300,000. Residents are assessed on worldwide net assets, and a couple who own assets jointly each get their own allowance, so a married pair shelters €1,400,000 before the home exemption even enters the picture. For a lot of NLV retirees, that math produces a bill of €0 under the state rules.

Filing is not the same as paying, though. You can be required to file Modelo 714, even with nothing to pay, if your assets and rights exceed €2 million, and for that €2 million test you count exempt assets and do not subtract your debts (Agencia Tributaria, who must file wealth tax). A €0 bill does not always mean no return.

How net worth is valued

Net worth is your assets minus deductible debts at the 31 December accrual date, but not everything is taken at its closing figure. Bank deposits can be valued at the higher of the year-end balance or the last-quarter average, and some listed shares use their average fourth-quarter price (Wealth Tax Law, articles 12 to 15). The state progressive scale runs across eight brackets:

The six brackets in between step up gradually. The base is what is left after the €700,000 allowance and the home exemption, so the scale only starts to bite once your net worth clears those shelters, and only if your region has not waived the tax.

Wealth tax by autonomous region (and the Solidarity Tax)

Region is the single biggest variable in whether you pay. Autonomous communities set their own minimum, rates and reliefs, and where they leave it alone the €700,000 state minimum applies (Ministry of Finance, 2026 regional tax measures).

Region comparison

Several regions apply a 100% bonificación, which cancels the regional wealth tax up to the point the State’s Solidarity Tax starts. Others levy it on the state-style scale. The two interact through coordinated transitional rules: Madrid, for example, suspends its 100% bonificación for residents who would otherwise fall within the Solidarity Tax, so they pay regional wealth tax (credited against the State tax) and the revenue stays in Madrid rather than going to the State (Comunidad de Madrid).

These rules move. Murcia brought in its differential bonificación from the 2025 tax year (Agencia Tributaria, Región de Murcia), and the Valencian Community raised its exempt minimum to €1 million for 2025 and then to €2 million from 11 August 2026 (Valencian Law 5/2026). Confirm your region for the year you are actually filing.

The Solidarity Tax on Large Fortunes

The State’s Solidarity Tax on Large Fortunes (Law 38/2022) has a taxable event of net wealth above €3 million at 31 December, with brackets of 1.7%, 2.1% and 3.5%. The taxable event is not the same as a bill, though: resident taxpayers also get the €700,000 exempt minimum, and the first €3 million of taxable base is charged at 0%, so without other exemptions an actual charge generally starts above roughly €3.7 million per person, and higher if more exemptions apply. It came in as a temporary measure for 2022 and 2023 and has since been extended pending a wider review of how wealth is taxed, rather than written in as permanent. Any wealth tax you have already paid in your region is credited against it.

Choosing a region on tax grounds, with caution

Region clearly matters, and it is fair to weigh when you choose where to live. Treat it as a planning input, not a guarantee. Bonificaciones are politically volatile and shift from one tax year to the next, as Valencia and Murcia both show. And you cannot sidestep the question by spending fewer days here: renewing the NLV requires effective residence of more than 183 days a year, so staying under the line to dodge tax residence puts the visa itself at risk (Ministry of Inclusion, NLV renewal). Confirm your region and your year with an advisor before you build a move around it.

How your foreign pensions and brokerage accounts are actually treated

Reporting an asset on Modelo 720 does not create tax. Income tax on your pensions is decided separately, mostly by the relevant double-tax treaty, and the treaty distinguishes between the pension types below.

US retirees: Social Security, government pensions, IRAs

Under the US-Spain tax treaty, US Social Security has shared taxing rights. The US may tax it, and Spain, as your country of residence, also taxes it and gives a credit. It is not automatically tax-free in Spain, whatever you have read. US government-service pensions are generally taxable only in the US, with an exception where you are both resident and a Spanish national, and Spain still counts them to set the rate on your other income. Distributions from IRAs, 401(k)s and private pensions are taxed in Spain, though the treaty separates the money you draw from internal growth inside the plan and transfers between retirement funds, which can be deferred under its conditions. The actual numbers depend on your specific accounts, so this is a question for a specialist.

UK retirees: State Pension vs. civil-service pensions

Under the UK-Spain treaty, the UK State Pension and occupational or personal pensions are taxable only in Spain for Spanish residents. UK government and civil-service pensions are taxable only in the UK, with one exception for Spanish nationals. So a retired British civil servant’s pension stays with HMRC, while their workplace or private pension is taxed in Spain.

Brokerage and investment accounts

Foreign shares and funds do double duty: they count toward Modelo 720 category two and toward the wealth-tax base. Pension-plan rights can be treated differently from an ordinary brokerage account for both reporting and valuation, so flag those for your advisor rather than guessing. The key point stays the same: showing an account on the 720 is a disclosure, not a tax charge.

“Do I even need to file?” A decision tree

Work through these in order.

1. Are you a Spanish tax resident? More than 183 days in Spain, your centre of economic interests here, or the family presumption. If yes, Modelo 720 and wealth tax look at your worldwide assets. If no, note that a non-resident can still owe Spanish wealth tax on assets located in Spain, such as a property here, so that question does not simply disappear.
2. Is any single foreign category over €50,000? Test accounts (on the year-end and last-quarter-average balances), investments, and real estate separately. If one clears €50,000, file Modelo 720 for that category, and Modelo 721 if crypto in third-party custody abroad clears €50,000.
3. Do your net assets exceed the allowances in your region? Subtract the €700,000 per-person minimum and up to €300,000 on your home, then check your region’s bonificación. Remember Modelo 714 can be due at €0 tax if your assets and rights top €2 million.
4. Is your net worth into Solidarity-Tax territory? That is generally above roughly €3.7 million per person once the minimum and 0% band are applied. If so, the State tax likely applies whatever your region.

The output is a short list: which forms, by when, and whether your position is simple enough to handle or complex enough to get help.

NLV vs Digital Nomad Visa: why Beckham holders escape this

This is where the two visas genuinely diverge. Digital Nomad Visa holders who elect the Beckham regime are taxed at a flat 24% on Spanish income up to €600,000 (47% on anything above), with foreign income generally outside Spanish tax and no Modelo 720 or wealth tax on their foreign assets. NLV holders get none of that. For an asset-heavy retiree the DNV route is not an option, since it needs active remote work, but if you are weighing the two visas, the asset-reporting difference is a real trade-off to put on the table.

US citizens: FBAR and Form 8938 still apply (and don’t confuse them with 720)

If you are American, Spanish residency does not switch off your US obligations. FBAR (FinCEN Form 114) applies when your aggregate foreign accounts top $10,000 at any point in the year. Form 8938 (FATCA) applies at higher thresholds for those living abroad: $200,000 on the last day of the year or $300,000 at any point during it if you do not file jointly, and $400,000 or $600,000 on those same dates if you file jointly (IRS, FATCA reporting). Both are US filings, entirely separate from Spain’s Modelo 720. Keeping the US and Spanish reports consistent, so the same accounts do not look mismatched across tax authorities, is where a US cross-border tax specialist who coordinates FBAR, FATCA and Spanish filings earns their fee.

When to hand this to a cross-border tax advisor

Some situations are fine to self-manage; others are not. Treat these as signals to get help now: net worth near or over €700,000, property owned abroad, several brokerage accounts, your first year of residency, or living in a region that actually levies wealth tax. In any of those cases, a mistake is easy to make and expensive to unwind.

When you are ready, bring in a cross-border advisor who handles Modelo 720 filings and understands both your home-country and Spanish obligations. For a retiree with modest assets this is often just one 720 filing and no wealth tax, so check your filing obligations before calculating any tax due, and confirm the treaty treatment of your specific income. None of this is personal tax advice, so check your own position with a professional before you file.

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Frequently asked questions

Disclaimer: general information only — not legal, tax or immigration advice. Requirements change and vary by consulate; verify with your consulate or a qualified professional before acting.