To prevent that a vendor that is non-resident in Spain leaves the country with outstanding debts to the Tax Authority, the Spanish Government has introduced a 3% Retention, when you are selling a property in Spain. The buyer has the obligation to withhold this 3% retention of the sales price from the vendor, when completing the sale of property at notary. The buyer then has the obligation and a period of 1 month to pay this retention to the Tax Authorities on your behalf. By making the buyer pay this rather than the seller the Tax Authority can make sure that it is paid. The Tax Authority then checks whether there are any outstanding taxes payables by non-resident vendors, for instance, if the seller has paid or not the annual non-resident tax for owning a property in Spain. As this 3% retention is not a tax, but retention, sellers have the possibility to request a refund up to 3 months after it has been paid. If there are no outstanding debts, then the Tax Authority will refund the 3% retention to the vendor.  This process can however take as long as 18 months. Pro Tip:  If you are due to receive the 3% retention back from the Spanish Tax Authority, we recommend leaving your Spanish bank account open and include the details of this account into the 210 reclaim form.