Notary and Land Registry Fees in Spain, Itemised

Notary and land registry fees in Spain are two of the smaller, but most misunderstood, lines in a Costa del Sol purchase budget. Unlike estate agent commission or legal fees, they are not negotiable and not set by the market: both are governed by official tariffs (aranceles) published in the Boletin Oficial del Estado in 1989 and still in force today. This guide itemises exactly how notary and land registry fees in Spain are calculated, shows the statutory scale, works through a real example and explains the extras that make your final bill higher than the raw scale suggests. It applies to any foreign buyer anywhere on the Costa del Sol, whether you are buying in Marbella, Estepona, Fuengirola or Mijas.

What notary and land registry fees actually pay for

These are two separate professionals and two separate invoices. The notary (notario) is a public official who drafts and authorises the title deed (escritura publica de compraventa), verifies the identity and capacity of the parties, confirms there are no outstanding charges shown on a fresh nota simple, and formally witnesses the signing. The land registry (Registro de la Propiedad) then records you as the new owner in the public property register, which is what gives your ownership protection against third parties.

You need both. The deed alone proves the sale happened; the registry entry is what makes your title secure and is almost always required by any lender financing the purchase. Neither fee is a tax, so they sit alongside (not inside) the transfer tax or VAT you pay on the property itself.

How notary fees are calculated: the official scale

Notary fees follow the tariff in Real Decreto 1426/1989 ¹. For a deed with a stated value (documento de cuantia), the base charge is built up band by band from the declared price, with a fixed amount for the first tranche and a decreasing rate on each higher band. A 5% reduction is then applied to the total produced by the scale ¹.

Because the rate falls as the price rises, the fee grows much more slowly than the property value. That is why notary fees are a shrinking percentage on more expensive homes.

How land registry fees are calculated: the official scale

Land registry fees follow a parallel tariff in Real Decreto 1427/1989 ². The structure mirrors the notary scale but the rates are lower, and the total is capped so that a single registration cannot exceed 2,181.673939 euros nor fall below 24.040484 euros ².

A worked example: a 300,000 euro new-build

Take a new-build apartment declared at 300,000 euros, a common ticket on the Costa del Sol. Applying the notary scale band by band (90.151816 + 108.18 + 45.08 + 90.15 + 74.87) gives about 408 euros, and after the 5% statutory reduction the base notary charge is roughly 387 euros ¹. Running the same 300,000 euros through the registry scale (24.04 + 42.07 + 37.56 + 67.61 + 44.92) gives about 216 euros ².

So the raw statutory fees on a 300,000 euro deed are only around 387 euros for the notary and 216 euros for the registry, a little over 600 euros combined. The table below shows the base scale results at three typical price points.

These are the amounts produced by the official scales ¹². Your actual invoice will be higher, for the reasons below.

The extras that inflate the final invoice

The scale figure is a starting point, not the total. Several add-ons apply:

• Copies. The notary charges per authorised copy (copia autorizada) and simple copy (copia simple). Your lender, the tax office and the registry each want one, so several copies are routine.
• Extra sheets. Each folio of the deed beyond the first is billed, and a mortgage deed or a long description of annexes adds pages.
• Parking spaces and storerooms. If a garage space or trastero is registered as a separate finca, each generates its own registry line.
• IVA at 21%. Notary and registry charges are professional services, so 21% VAT is added on top of the fee itself. This alone lifts a 387 euro notary charge to about 468 euros.
• The gestoria. Most buyers, and effectively all mortgaged buyers, use a gestoria (administrative agent) to settle taxes and lodge the deed at the registry. This is a separate private fee, commonly a few hundred euros, and is not fixed by any tariff.

Add these together and a real-world combined notary plus registry plus gestoria cost on a mid-range Costa del Sol purchase typically lands between about 0.5% and 1% of the price. On the 300,000 euro example you should budget in the region of 1,200 to 1,800 euros once copies, IVA and the gestoria are included, rather than the bare 600 euros from the scale.

Who pays, and when

By default the Spanish Civil Code allocates the cost of the original deed (escritura matriz) to the seller and the cost of copies to the buyer, but in practice contracts on the Costa del Sol almost always state that the buyer pays all notary and registry costs (gastos a cargo del comprador). Check this clause in your reservation contract and private purchase contract before you sign. If you take a mortgage, the lender pays the notary, registry, gestoria and stamp duty attributable to the mortgage deed itself under current Spanish mortgage rules, but you still pay everything relating to the purchase deed.

Payment is made at completion. In practice the gestoria collects a provision of funds (provision de fondos) before or on the day of signing to cover the notary, the registry and the taxes, then reconciles the final amounts and refunds or bills the difference once every invoice is in.

How these fees fit with the purchase taxes

Notary and registry fees are small next to the tax on the property. On a new-build you pay 10% IVA (VAT) on the price plus Actos Juridicos Documentados (AJD, stamp duty), charged in Andalusia at the general rate of 1.2% on the deed value ³⁴. On a resale you pay Impuesto sobre Transmisiones Patrimoniales (ITP) instead, at the Andalusian general rate of 7%, and no AJD or IVA ⁴. The notary and registry scales above are the same either way, because they depend on the declared value, not on which tax applies.

To see the full completion budget, read our companion guides on transfer tax and stamp duty (ITP and AJD), VAT on new-build homes, and the overall buying costs breakdown. If you are a non-resident, our guides on the 3% retention and Modelo 210 (IRNR) and on plusvalia municipal explain the seller-side and annual taxes, while the guide on IBI and running costs covers what you pay after completion. Buyers financing the purchase should also see our guides on Spanish mortgages for non-residents and on getting an NIE, both of which interact with the notary appointment.

Practical tips to avoid surprises

Ask your lawyer or gestoria for a written completion cost estimate itemising notary, registry, gestoria, IVA or ITP, AJD and any mortgage costs, so you can see each line. Do not assume the agent’s headline percentage covers these. Remember the fees are calculated on the declared price, so an unusually low declared value to save tax is both risky and offers only marginal notary and registry savings. Finally, budget the whole package of completion costs at roughly 10% to 14% of the purchase price on the Costa del Sol, within which notary and registry are a modest, fixed and entirely predictable part.