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Accounts in Spain

Every kind of account and pension the planner offers in Spain: what each one is, when money can come out, how it is taxed, and the pages we read the rules from.

Engine 2026Reviewed

Outside the state pension, Spanish retirement savings sit mostly in bank deposits, investment funds (fondos de inversión) and pension plans (planes de pensiones). Spain has no tax-free investment account, so the money step offers two rows: the ordinary account, and the pension plan, whose withdrawals are taxed as income.

An annuity bought from an insurer pays you an income instead, so it goes in the pension step, where three kinds of Spanish annuity can be chosen.

Rules as of the 2026 tax year, read from the authorities on 2026-07-30. Each account lists the pages we read it from.

Accounts you can enter

A new plan starts with 95% in Fondo de inversion or ordinary account, 5% in Plan de pensiones, until you replace it with your own accounts. Where that split comes from: Banco de España household financial accounts, 2024, and INVERCO pension plan figures.

Fondo de inversion or ordinary account

Moving between funds is not a taxable event in Spain, so nothing is due until you actually take money out, and then only on the profit. Savings insurance, unit-linked policies, a PIAS you have not turned into a pension, and a SIALP go here too.

Funds, ETFs, shares and deposits held at a bank or broker. The plan treats all of it as a Spanish investment fund that reinvests what it earns: nothing is taxed while it grows, moving from one fund to another (a traspaso) is not a sale, and when you take money out the profit in it is taxed as savings income, at 19% to 30%.

Deposits, ETFs and shares are taxed sooner in law: interest and dividends every year, and an ETF on every sale. The plan does not charge that yearly tax, which is listed with the tax page's simplifications. This account also counts towards the yearly wealth tax, where a pension plan does not.

How it is taxed, rate by rate, is on the tax page.

In the withdrawal orders
With the ordinary accounts
Pays out
Whenever you like
At the first death
Your partner takes it over, and the gain built up in it is wiped for tax

Plan de pensiones

You got tax relief on the way in, so the whole withdrawal counts as work income. Nothing comes out before you retire and turn 60, except money paid in at least ten years ago. A PPA or an employer plan goes here too.

A plan de pensiones is Spain's personal and workplace pension: a plan from a bank or insurer, a plan through your employer (plan de empleo) and the insured version (PPA) follow the same rules. What you paid in was deducted from your income, so every euro that comes out is work income, taxed on the same scale as the state pension, whether you take it as a lump, in instalments or as you need it. It does not count towards the wealth tax.

It opens when you retire, and not before 60. Until then only money paid in at least ten years ago can come out, which is why the planner asks what share of the plan that is. Early access for long unemployment or a serious illness is not modelled.

Money paid in before 2007 keeps an old relief: taken as a lump in the year you retire or the two years after, 40% of it is free of tax. Tell the planner that share and it takes it as a lump in the year you retire, into your ordinary account, with that 40% left out of your income. The rest of the plan stays and is taxed as you draw it.

In the withdrawal orders
With the accounts taxed on the way out
Before the earliest age
Nothing comes out before 60
Pays out
Whenever you like
In a couple
Whose it is changes the tax, so the planner asks
At the first death
Your partner takes it over as it stands
What the planner asks about it
  • Share paid in at least ten years ago From 0% to 100%. We assume 0%.
  • Share paid in before 2007 From 0% to 100%. We assume 0%.
Where the model simplifies

  • Money paid into a pension plan before 2007 can be taken as a lump with 40 percent of it tax free, if you take it in the year you retire or the two years after. When you tell us that share, we take it as a lump in the year you retire, once the plan is open to you, and tax the rest of the plan as you draw it. We do not check whether you retired more than two years before the plan starts, and only your first plan takes the lump.

    Could go either way/someone with pension plan money paid in before 2007 who states that share

The law behind it
LIRPF art. 17.2.a.3; TRLPFP art. 8.5, 8.6, 8.8

Kinds of pension

A pension paid to you as an income goes in the pension step, not here. Choose its kind there and the plan taxes it by that kind's rules; leave it on standard and it is taxed like a state or workplace pension.

Life annuity (renta vitalicia, including from a PIAS)

Only part of each payment is taxed, as savings income, set by your age when it starts: 20% if you start between 66 and 69.

An income for life bought from an insurer with a single sum, or the income a PIAS savings insurance ends in. If a PIAS's first premium is more than five years old when the income starts, the growth built up until then is never taxed. Most of each payment is your own money coming back, so only a share is taxed, as savings income rather than on the income scale. The share is fixed for life by your age when the annuity starts: 24% from 60 to 65, 20% from 66 to 69 and 8% from 70.

Where the model simplifies

  • Spain's yearly wealth tax counts the value of an annuity you own, and we leave it out. An annuity paid by an insurer counts at what you could cash it in for, and one bought outside an insurance contract at a capitalised value. Only people already above the 700,000 wealth tax allowance are affected, and for them we show less wealth tax than they would pay.

    Your real tax is higher/anyone with an annuity whose other wealth already exceeds the 700,000 per person wealth tax allowance

  • Cashing in a Spanish annuity early is taxed on what you get back plus the payments already received, minus the premiums you paid and the part of those payments already taxed. We cannot model cashing an annuity in, so it shows no tax at all.

    Your real tax is higher/anyone who cashes in an annuity they hold

The law behind it
LIRPF (Ley 35/2006) art. 25.3.a.2o and 25.3.b; art. 46.a

Retirement annuity from a life insurance policy

Payments are tax-free until they add up to the premiums you paid, and taxed as savings income after that.

A retirement income from a life insurance policy taken out at least two years before you retired and never moved to another insurer. Because payments only become taxable once they have repaid the premiums, the planner asks what you paid in premiums. Left empty, every payment is taxed.

Where the model simplifies

  • Spain's yearly wealth tax counts the value of an annuity you own, and we leave it out. An annuity paid by an insurer counts at what you could cash it in for, and one bought outside an insurance contract at a capitalised value. Only people already above the 700,000 wealth tax allowance are affected, and for them we show less wealth tax than they would pay.

    Your real tax is higher/anyone with an annuity whose other wealth already exceeds the 700,000 per person wealth tax allowance

  • Cashing in a Spanish annuity early is taxed on what you get back plus the payments already received, minus the premiums you paid and the part of those payments already taxed. We cannot model cashing an annuity in, so it shows no tax at all.

    Your real tax is higher/anyone who cashes in an annuity they hold

The law behind it
LIRPF (Ley 35/2006) art. 25.3.a.4o second paragraph; RIRPF art. 19; art. 46.a

Where other things you hold go

PPA, workplace plan or pan-European personal pension (PEPP)
Enter it in the plan de pensiones row. The law taxes all of them the same way.
Savings insurance, unit-linked policies, a SIALP, or a PIAS that has not started paying
Enter them in the ordinary account. Their growth is taxed as savings income when you cash them in, as a fund's is. A SIALP held five years with nothing taken out pays no tax on its growth at all, so for one we show too much.
An income for a fixed number of years bought with savings (renta temporal)
Enter it in the pension step. It has no kind of its own yet: the law taxes only 12% to 25% of each payment, and as a standard pension it would be taxed in full, so enter what reaches you after tax.
Social Security pension
Enter it in the pension step as a standard pension.

New rules not in the model yet

A savings and investment account (Cuenta de Ahorro e Inversión Financia Europa)
A decree of 30 September 2026 created a savings account that would have left part of its growth untaxed, together with a new long-term savings insurance. Congress voted the decree down, and it was repealed on 2 October 2026, so neither exists and the plan uses today's rules.