Money From Family Abroad (2026): Gift Tax in Andalucía, Modelo 651 and What Hacienda Sees

Family money moves around a lot on the Costa. A parent in the UK sends help with a house deposit, a mother in Germany transfers the money for a car, grandparents in the US send a wedding present through PayPal. Spain taxes a gift to the person who receives it. If you are tax resident in Spain and live in Andalucía, that is you, whatever country the money came from and whatever app carried it.

For gifts between parents and children, Andalucía cuts the tax by 99%, and the cut depends on paperwork. On a 20,000-euro gift from a parent, the bill is 16.20 euros when the rules are followed and 1,620 euros when they are not. This guide covers who pays, the conditions for the 99% cut (which changed on 1 January 2026), the return and its two-month deadline, and what Hacienda actually sees when the money lands.

Last verified: 28 September 2026.

Who pays, and whose rules apply

The tax is the Impuesto sobre Sucesiones y Donaciones — inheritance and gift tax. Article 5 of the state law makes the recipient of a gift the taxpayer, and article 6 taxes a Spanish resident on gifts from anywhere in the world. The giver’s country and tax position make no difference to your Spanish bill.

The region’s rules follow where you live. Under Ley 22/2009, a gift of money to a Spanish resident is taxed under the rules of the region where the recipient lives, so a resident of Málaga province files under Andalucía’s rules even when the parent sending the money has never set foot in Spain. One exception to check: if you moved to Andalucía from another Spanish region in the last five years, the law counts the days you spent in each region over those five years, and the region with the most days decides.

Neither the state law nor Andalucía’s has a tax-free amount for gifts. The allowances you may have read about apply to inheritances. A gift is taxed from the first euro.

A gift that falls under this tax is kept out of income tax (article 6.4 of the income tax law). Declaring it is also what protects you on the income tax side, as the section on what Hacienda sees explains.

This guide is for people who are already tax resident in Spain when the money arrives. Different rules apply to a gift received before you become resident.

The 99% cut in Andalucía

Andalucía’s tax law, Ley 5/2021, gives a bonificación — reduction of the tax due of 99% on gifts in two family groups:

• Group I and II: children and grandchildren, spouses, parents and grandparents. Partners in a registered unmarried couple count as spouses. Andalucía’s law accepts its own register and similar registers of other public administrations; whether a register outside Spain counts is not settled in anything we read.
• Group III: brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, nephews and nieces, parents-in-law, sons- and daughters-in-law, and stepchildren. No 99% cut, and the tax is multiplied by 1.5.
• Group IV: cousins, friends and everyone else. No 99% cut, and the tax is multiplied by 1.9.

Ley 8/2025, Andalucía’s budget law for 2026, rewrote the conditions from 1 January 2026. For a gift of money from a parent, grandparent, child or spouse, the cut applies when:

• You declare it before Hacienda asks. The law applies the 99% only to what you declare yourself, with no prior request from the tax office.
• Above 5,000 euros, there is a deed. When the gift, counted together with anything the same person gave you in the previous three years, comes to more than 5,000 euros, it must be put in an escritura pública — deed signed before a notary within one month of the money arriving.
• The deed says where the money came from. The origin of the funds must be stated in the deed and be justified. A 2019 interpretive report from the tax directorate of the Junta de Andalucía, the regional government, says the bank account the money left from is not enough on its own. The deed should name the source, such as savings, a pension, the sale of a house or a business.

At 5,000 euros or less, with the three-year count included, no deed is needed from 2026. You still file the return. The Junta’s documentation guidance says a return without a deed should attach a private written agreement naming the giver, the recipient, what was given and its value.

Money paid in instalments goes in one deed that lists every instalment, signed with the first payment or within a month of it.

If the parent lives abroad, the same 2019 report accepted a deed signed before a foreign notary and legalised with the Hague apostille, or signed at a Spanish consulate. That report predates the 2026 rules, so ask the Agencia Tributaria de Andalucía, known as ATRIAN, before relying on a foreign deed.

One warning about the Junta’s own website. Some of its frequently asked questions pages still describe the pre-2026 rule, under which every gift needed a deed. The law in force is the consolidated text of Ley 5/2021 published in the BOE.

What it costs

Andalucía’s scale starts at 7% and rises by bracket. These figures apply that scale, the group multipliers and the 99% cut to a single gift, with no other reductions. Confirmed September 2026.

Gift	Parent or child, rules followed	Parent or child, rules missed	Sibling or in-law	Friend or cousin
1,000 euros	0.70	70	105	133
5,000 euros	3.50	350	525	665
20,000 euros	16.20	1,620	2,430	3,078
50,000 euros	50.20	5,020	7,530	9,538
100,000 euros	126.20	12,620	18,930	23,978

The 100,000-euro row matches the worked example in ATRIAN’s own gift tax guide. The online form may round differently.

The deed has its own cost. The official notary tariff (Real Decreto 1426/1989) puts the scale fee for the deed itself at about 145 euros on a 20,000-euro gift. Copies and VAT come on top.

Money towards a home

Andalucía has a second, separate relief for money from parents or grandparents used to buy your main home. Article 32 of Ley 5/2021 reduces the taxable amount by 99%, up to 150,000 euros of gift (250,000 euros for a person with a recognised disability). The conditions are:

• you are under 35 or have a recognised disability;
• your existing wealth is under 402,678.11 euros;
• the whole gift goes into the purchase of your main home, in Andalucía;
• you buy within the two-month filing period for the gift;
• the purchase deed records the gift and that it was used to pay the price;
• you keep the home as your main home for three years.

If a parent pays the seller directly instead of giving you the money, we found no ruling on how that is treated. Either way, the purchase deed has to record the gift for this relief to apply.

Filing modelo 651

The return is modelo 651, Andalucía’s own version. File it online through ATRIAN’s virtual office, or in person by appointment at the tax office in Málaga. The recipient signs it. When a married couple gives money they own jointly, the Junta’s guidance asks for two returns, one for each giver.

The deadline is two months from the day after the gift, under article 68 of Ley 5/2021. You will see 30 working days in older articles and in the state rules; for gifts to Andalucía residents that period ended with 2021.

If a Spanish notary signed the deed, you do not have to attach it. The notary sends ATRIAN an electronic copy of every gift deed that concerns Andalucía within 15 days in any case. You can pay by card at the tax offices, by Bizum up to 1,500 euros, by direct debit or by transfer.

Late, or after Hacienda asks

Filing late of your own accord brings a surcharge on the tax due under article 27 of the general tax law: 1% plus 1% for each full month late, or 15% after twelve months, with no penalty. On a 16.20-euro bill, that is small change. The law’s condition for the 99% cut is that you declare before Hacienda asks, and it does not say an unprompted late return loses the cut. We have not seen ATRIAN state how it treats one.

The one-month deadline for the deed on gifts over 5,000 euros is a different matter. Nothing in the law lets you sign it later, so missing that month means paying the full tax, 1,620 euros on 20,000.

If Hacienda finds the gift before you declare it, the 99% cut does not apply to it. You pay the full tax, and a penalty for unpaid tax can follow.

What Hacienda sees when the money arrives

No automatic report sends Hacienda a line for a single family payment. That holds for a bank transfer from a parent, a PayPal payment and a Bizum between two people. Here is what does reach it:

• Your accounts, including PayPal, Wise and Revolut. Banks and payment firms report every account monthly on Modelo 196. Once a year, in the December return, that includes the year’s total paid in and paid out and the year-end balance. From January 2026 the monthly return also covers payment and e-money firms, including PayPal, a Luxembourg bank that serves Spain without a branch, and Wise and Revolut through their Spanish branches.
• Bizum. Payments between private people are not reported. Only businesses and professionals have their Bizum takings reported.
• Payments from other EU countries. The EU system that records individual cross-border payments applies only when the payer is in an EU country and the same person receives more than 25 such payments in a quarter. A parent in the UK or the US never meets it. A parent in France sending one transfer does not either.
• Cash. Every cash deposit or withdrawal over 3,000 euros is reported on Modelo 171. Carrying 10,000 euros or more in cash into or out of Spain has to be declared.
• Notary deeds. A Spanish notary sends ATRIAN every gift deed that concerns Andalucía within 15 days.

None of this makes the money invisible. The general tax law lets Hacienda ask your bank about individual movements at any time. A year-end total paid in that runs well ahead of your declared income is the kind of gap that prompts a question.

When that happens, money you cannot explain is the expensive kind. Article 39 of the income tax law treats assets you cannot match to your declared income or wealth as an unexplained gain, taxed at income tax rates in the year it is found. A gift you declared and documented stays out of income tax. The return and the deed are what let you show that a deposit was a gift.

Hacienda can also presume a gift. Article 4 of the gift tax law allows it to treat a fall in one person’s wealth and a matching rise in a child’s or spouse’s as a gift, within the limitation period.

Wedding gifts

The law treats each wedding present as a separate gift from that guest. Gifts are added together only when they come from the same giver to the same recipient, so guests’ gifts are never pooled.

• A gift from your own parents or grandparents is Group I or II, with the 99% cut.
• A gift from your spouse’s parents to you is Group III, because they are your parents-in-law. How a single gift made to both of you is split between the two groups is not set out in anything we found.
• A gift from a friend or cousin is Group IV. In law, a 200-euro present carries 26.60 euros of tax.

We found no binding ruling from the Ministry of Finance’s tax directorate on wedding gifts.

The giver’s side

What the person sending the money owes at home is a separate question, and nothing they file there replaces your return in Spain.

• UK. There is no separate gift tax. A lifetime gift is an inheritance tax question, and no tax is due if the giver lives for seven years after it. The giver also has a 3,000-pound annual exemption, and a wedding gift of up to 5,000 pounds to a child (2,500 to a grandchild, 1,000 to anyone else) is exempt.
• US. The giver is generally responsible for any gift tax. Gifts over 19,000 dollars to one person in 2026 need a Form 709, and the 15-million-dollar lifetime exclusion usually means none is paid.
• Anywhere else. Check the giver’s own country’s rules. Spain has inheritance tax treaties only with France, Greece and Sweden, and none with the UK or the US.

Shared accounts and forgiven loans

• A shared account. Money paid into an account that you hold jointly with a parent is not, by that fact alone, a gift. The Ministry’s tax directorate said so in binding ruling V0498-22.
• A family loan that is forgiven is a gift when it is forgiven. The Junta’s 2019 report treats it as one, needing the same deed to get the 99% cut.

The five-minute version

• If you live in Andalucía and are tax resident in Spain, you pay Spanish gift tax on money family send you from anywhere, under Andalucía’s rules.
• There is no tax-free amount. Gifts from parents, grandparents, children and spouses get a 99% cut, and siblings, in-laws, cousins and friends get none.
• To keep the cut, declare before Hacienda asks. From 2026, gifts over 5,000 euros from one person (counting the previous three years) need a notary deed within one month, stating where the money came from.
• File modelo 651 within two months. On 20,000 euros from a parent, the tax is 16.20 euros with the cut and 1,620 without it.
• Hacienda gets no line for a single PayPal, Bizum or bank transfer, but it sees year-end account totals and every notary gift deed, and it can ask your bank at any time.
• A declared, documented gift stays out of income tax; money you cannot explain can be taxed as income.

Related guides

• What Hacienda Sees About Your Cards and Bank Accounts (2026): Modelo 174, 196 and Foreign Cards
• Spanish Inheritance Tax in Andalucía: Regional Rates and Bonifications
• Proof of Funds When Buying Property in Spain (2026): What You Need
• Why Everything in Spain Goes Through a Notary (and Why That Protects You)
• Cash Payment Rules in Spain: What Hacienda Can See (And What They’re Watching)
• Tax Residency in Spain: Complete Guide for Expats (2026)

General information, not legal advice, current as of 28 September 2026. Primary sources: Ley 29/1987 (arts. 3, 4, 5, 6, 20 and 30), Ley 22/2009 (arts. 28 and 32), Ley 5/2021 de Tributos Cedidos de Andalucía (arts. 26, 32, 37, 38, 40, 63 and 68) as amended by Ley 8/2025, Ley 35/2006 (arts. 6 and 39), Ley 58/2003 (arts. 27 and 93), Real Decreto 253/2025, Real Decreto 1426/1989, the Junta de Andalucía’s ATRIAN guidance and its tax directorate report of 20 December 2019, DGT ruling V0498-22, the Agencia Tributaria’s list of inheritance tax treaties, GOV.UK guidance on gifts and inheritance tax, and IRS guidance on gift tax.