SPAIN’S far-right party VOX has proposed higher taxes on non-Spaniards who purchase homes across the country, insisting that the extra revenue could fund housing benefits for Spanish locals and help to build new homes.
These demands are a necessary step to ‘curb the mass acquisition of housing’ by foreigners, according to Vox.
The proposal forms part of a non-binding motion which the party has registered in the Camara Baja (Lower House) and comes against a backdrop of growing frustration for young Spaniards who believe that they have been locked out of the housing market.
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Home ownership among young Spanish locals and families have fallen from 56% to 27% between 2007 and 2025, while foreign house buyers have increased from 7.6% to 19.3% in the same period.
Santiago Abascal’s party argues that these numbers reveal a deep imbalance and believes that the only way to prevent foreigners from scooping up more Spanish homes is to raise taxes.
They can then reinvest this tax money into housing benefits for locals and help to support first-time home buyers.
This would prevent what Vox describes as ‘the effective expulsion that Spaniards suffer in their own country’.
The party also requests that the government uses taxes associated with buying homes for local housing projects across the country and then makes the necessary modifications to allow for deferred tax payments for Spaniards struggling to purchase a home.
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Finally, Abascal wants to abolish inheritance and gift tax when the money is being used to purchase a primary residence.
In Vox’s vision, the solution to Spain’s housing market issues is to make foreigners pay so that Spaniards can stay and purchase property.
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