Madrid scrapped its wealth tax. Its millionaires paid it €643mn anyway

For more than a decade, Madrid has sold itself to Spain’s rich on a simple promise: no wealth tax. Since the tax was revived nationally in 2011, the region has given its residents a full rebate, and it has become the address of choice for many of the country’s largest fortunes.

Figures from Spain’s tax agency, published this month, show how that promise works in practice. In the 2024 tax year, the Community of Madrid collected €643mn in wealth tax, according to Infobae’s analysis of the data. In 2022 it collected nothing.

A tax designed to close a gap

The change was forced from outside. In 2022 the central government created a “temporary solidarity tax” on net fortunes above €3mn. It applies wherever the taxpayer lives, but any regional wealth tax already paid can be deducted. The aim, in the law’s own words, was to reduce the differences in how the regions tax wealth, and it was aimed squarely at Madrid.

Madrid responded in December 2023. Its Law 12/2023 cut the rebate for anyone liable to the state tax, so that they pay the regional wealth tax to Madrid instead of paying the solidarity tax to the state. Those below the €3mn threshold still pay nothing.

The bill for the very rich is roughly the same either way. The difference is where the money goes, and in 2024 it went to Madrid. Only 11,448 residents had to pay, which works out at about €56,000 each.

The €30mn club

Across Spain, wealth tax raised a record €2,153.7mn in 2024, up 9.3 per cent from €1,970.7mn a year earlier. Declared wealth totalled about €987bn.

The top of the distribution grew fastest. The number of people declaring more than €30mn rose from 471 in 2013 to 1,023 in 2024, an increase of 117 per cent. The count has risen in almost every year since, passing 700 in 2019 and 850 in 2022.

Madrid against Barcelona

The regional comparison is the one Spanish politicians argue about. In 2024, 25,524 people filed wealth tax returns in Madrid and declared €297.9bn between them, according to elEconomista’s reading of the figures. In Catalonia 94,875 filed, declaring €268.3bn.

The average Madrid filer declared more than €11.6mn, against €2.82mn in Catalonia, El Debate calculated.

The difference in numbers reflects the rules as much as the people. Catalonia has one of the lowest thresholds in Spain, so many more modestly wealthy households must file and pay there: 92,487 did so in 2024. In Madrid, only the largest fortunes have to file at all.

What the rules cannot explain is the growth. Declared wealth in Madrid rose by about €23.7bn in a single year, or 8.6 per cent, against roughly €8.65bn, or 3.3 per cent, in Catalonia. Since 2019, the fortunes filed in Madrid have grown by 17.8 per cent.

Everyone gets paid

The solidarity tax was supposed to be temporary, covering 2022 and 2023. It has since been extended indefinitely, pending a reform of how Spain’s regions are financed that has not arrived. Its first year raised €623mn from 12,010 taxpayers, who paid an average of €52,000.

The outcome satisfies almost everyone involved. The central government can say the rich in Madrid now pay. Madrid keeps the revenue, and keeps its reputation among everyone below €3mn as the place where wealth is not taxed. And the fortunes above €3mn, which pay about the same wherever they are declared, keep growing faster in Madrid than in Catalonia.

Sources

• Infobae: Spaniards with more than €30mn have doubled since 2013 (3 Sep 2026)
• elEconomista: large fortunes grow more than twice as fast in Madrid as in Catalonia (Sep 2026)
• El Debate: Madrid has a quarter of Catalonia’s declarants, with four times the average wealth (4 Sep 2026)
• BOE: Madrid Law 12/2023 on the wealth tax rebate during the solidarity tax
• La Moncloa: the solidarity tax raises €623mn (20 Sep 2023)
• Agencia Tributaria: statistics on wealth tax declarants

Cover image: Luis García (Zaqarbal), Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0. Cropped.