Irish on the coast · 1 October 2026 · 5 min read
Your Irish savings when you move to Spain.
It comes up on nearly every call with people planning to move over for good: we have savings in Ireland, will Spain tax them? The short answer is that Spain doesn't tax the money for sitting in an account. It taxes what the money earns, once you're Spanish tax resident, and above a certain amount it wants to know the money is there. None of this applies while you're only visiting.
It starts when you become resident
A Spanish tax resident is taxed on their income from everywhere, not only from Spain. So the day you become resident, the interest on your Irish deposit account, dividends on shares and gains when you sell investments all belong on your Spanish return. If you're only wintering and your life stays centred in Ireland, you'd normally stay Irish tax resident and nothing here changes. Where the line falls is in the 183-day guide.
What the earnings are taxed at
Interest, dividends and gains go into what Spain calls the savings base, which has its own rates, separate from tax on a salary or a pension. For 2025 the combined rates are 19% on the first €6,000, 21% up to €50,000, 23% up to €200,000, 27% up to €300,000 and 30% above that. For most people with money on deposit, that means 19% on the interest.
Interest from an Irish bank
The Ireland–Spain tax treaty says interest paid to a resident of Spain is taxable only in Spain. Your Irish bank will still take DIRT off the interest unless you tell it you're no longer resident. Revenue lets non-residents be paid without DIRT once they've completed a non-resident declaration with the bank, provided they meet its conditions, one of which is not having a joint account with someone who is still Irish resident. Sort that with the bank once you've moved, so the same interest isn't taxed twice and then left to be reclaimed.
Declaring isn't the same as paying
Separately from the tax, Spain asks residents to declare what they hold abroad on a form called the Modelo 720. It's needed once the total on 31 December in any one category passes €50,000: bank accounts abroad, investments abroad, or property abroad, each counted on its own. It's filed between January and March for the year before, and after the first one you only file again if a category has gone up by more than €20,000. It isn't a tax, but the penalties for missing it were severe enough that the EU Court of Justice ruled them out of proportion in January 2022. The obligation itself is still there, so get it right the first year. A couple keeping a house and savings in Ireland can easily cross €50,000 in two categories.
Wealth tax, briefly
Spain also has a wealth tax, set region by region, and it only starts once your net wealth passes a tax-free allowance. For 2025 that allowance is €700,000 wherever the region hasn't set its own figure, and the Valencian Community set €1 million. For most people moving over to buy a home on the coast it never comes into it, but if your savings and investments are anywhere near those figures, take advice before you move.
Pensions and the house you keep
Pensions follow their own rules under the treaty, and which pension you hold matters: that's in living on an Irish pension. If you keep your home in Ireland, whether it's let, lent to family or left empty also changes what you declare in Spain, so put it on the list for your adviser.
The order of things
Most of the cost of getting this wrong comes from doing things in the wrong order. Talk to an adviser who does both Irish and Spanish tax before you move, while you can still choose when to sell investments or move money, not after. Then use a gestor or asesor for your first Spanish returns. It isn't expensive, and the Spanish tax office matches data well, so the first year is the one to get right. Moving the money itself is in moving money to Spain.
Spending part of the year here?
Our free Wintering in Spain guide covers the tax days, pensions, healthcare, running costs and the car, checked against the official sources.