Before 31 December: the moves that still lower a Canary resident's 2026 income tax, and the ones that only look like moves

A retired couple in Costa Calma, an engineer in Caleta de Fuste who pays Spanish income tax on a German pension and a Spanish salary, a self-employed designer in the south of the island with a good year behind her: in the last ten weeks of 2026 each of them can still change the figure that will appear on their 2026 return in the spring. Not by much, and not by magic — Spanish income tax is settled on what the law finds in place on 31 December, and the moves that count are the ones the law itself names: a contribution to a pension plan within the limits of 2026, a loss realised against a gain, a donation with the right certificate, a few receipts that unlock the Canary Islands' own deductions, two state deductions that expire with the year, and a decree-law of 6 October that is in force today and awaits a vote. This piece lists them with their figures, each read in the text in force on 21 October 2026, and says which familiar «moves» are not moves at all.

The date that decides: 31 December

The Spanish income tax, IRPF, runs on the calendar year and accrues on its last day: El Impuesto se devengará el 31 de diciembre de cada año, the tax accrues on 31 December of each year (Ley 35/2006, art. 12). Everything below follows from that date. A contribution received by the plan on 2 January belongs to 2027; a child born on 31 December counts for 2026; the number of days you spent in Spain is counted at the year's end, which is why the question of tax residence and the 183 days comes before any of this. The piece is for residents who file the IRPF. A non-resident owner pays the non-residents' tax on each income as it arises, with modelo 210 and no year-end to plan, and a worker under the Beckham regime is taxed by the non-residents' rules too, outside the reductions and the regional deductions that follow.

Pension plans and the other systems: what still fits in 2026

The oldest year-end move is a contribution to a system of previsión social: a pension plan, a mutualidad, an insured plan, a company plan or a long-term care policy, the five systems that article 51 of the Act lists. The contribution reduces the general taxable base, so the saving is your marginal rate, and the limit is written in article 52. The reduction may not exceed the lower of El 30 por 100 de la suma de los rendimientos netos del trabajo y de actividades económicas percibidos individualmente en el ejercicio, 30 % of your net earnings from work and self-employment in the year, and 1.500 euros anuales, 1,500 euros a year. A pension is work income for this purpose, so a retiree who draws a foreign pension taxed in Spain has a base to reduce; a person whose only income is from capital has not.

Two increases sit on top of the 1,500 euros, and both were kept for 2026. The first is for employees: En 8.500 euros anuales, siempre que tal incremento provenga de contribuciones empresariales, by 8,500 euros a year provided the increase comes from employer contributions, or from the employee's own contributions to the same company instrument up to the amounts of a table that the Act fixes: two and a half times the employer's contribution when that contribution is 500 euros or less, 1,250 euros plus a quarter of the excess over 500 between 500.01 and 1,500 euros, and the same amount as the employer above 1,500 euros; the multiplier is one in every case for an employee who earns more than 60,000 euros from the employer that contributes. The second is for the self-employed: En 4.250 euros anuales, siempre que tal incremento provenga de aportaciones a los planes de pensiones sectoriales, by 4,250 euros a year when the increase comes from contributions to the sectoral plans, to the simplified employment plans for the self-employed, to an employment plan or a mutualidad of which the professional is both promoter and member, or to a company plan or care policy of which he is policyholder and insured. The two increases do not add up without limit: la cuantía máxima de reducción por aplicación de los incrementos previstos en los números 1.º y 2.º anteriores será de 8.500 euros anuales, the maximum reduction from both increases together is 8,500 euros a year. The same figures appear a second time in the Act's sixteenth additional provision as the financial limit of what the plans may accept, which is why a plan refuses a contribution above them.

Three rules complete the picture. A spouse without earnings, or with net earnings from work and business below 8,000 euros, may be the holder of a plan to which you contribute con el límite máximo de 1.000 euros anuales, up to 1,000 euros a year, on top of your own limit (art. 51.7). Contributions to a plan held by a relative with a disability of 65 % or more, or 33 % if mental, have their own ceiling, con el límite de 10.000 euros anuales, 10,000 euros a year for each contributor, and a joint ceiling of 24,250 euros for everything that reaches the same person (art. 53). And what the limits do not absorb is not lost: the regulation lets the member ask, in the return of the year in which the contribution could not be reduced, that the excess be reduced en los cinco ejercicios siguientes, in the five following tax years (Real Decreto 439/2007, art. 51). The practical rule is older than all of this: the plan's manager must receive the money within the year, and banks close their windows two or three working days before 31 December. Which plan, which fund and how much of your savings should sit in a product you cannot touch until retirement is a decision for your adviser, not for a tax calendar.

Gains and losses: the two baskets, the 25 % bridge and the two-month rule

The second move is on the savings side. The Act keeps two baskets in the savings base: the income from capital, dividends and interest among it, and Las ganancias y pérdidas patrimoniales que se pongan de manifiesto con ocasión de transmisiones de elementos patrimoniales, the gains and losses that arise on the transfer of assets, a flat, a fund, shares, cryptoassets (art. 46). Within each basket, gains and losses of the year net against each other first. A negative balance left in one basket crosses to the other only in part, con el límite del 25 por ciento de dicho saldo positivo, up to 25 % of the other basket's positive balance, and what is still left su importe se compensará en los cuatro años siguientes en el mismo orden establecido en los párrafos anteriores, carries forward for four years in the same order (art. 49). That is why a sale that closes a losing position before the year ends is a move: a loss realised in December reduces a gain already made in March, or a dividend, within the 25 % bridge, and the rest waits up to four years.

The Act also closes the obvious shortcut. A loss on listed shares does not count cuando el contribuyente hubiera adquirido valores homogéneos dentro de los dos meses anteriores o posteriores a dichas transmisiones, when the taxpayer bought homogeneous securities in the two months before or after the sale (art. 33.5.f); for unlisted shares or holdings the window is a year, cuando el contribuyente hubiera adquirido valores homogéneos en el año anterior o posterior a dichas transmisiones (art. 33.5.g). The loss is not cancelled, it is postponed: in those cases las pérdidas patrimoniales se integrarán a medida que se transmitan los valores o participaciones que permanezcan en el patrimonio del contribuyente, the losses are integrated as the securities still held are sold. Selling in December and buying the same fund back in January is, for the tax, the same position. Selling and staying out for two months, or buying something that is not homogeneous, is a move. What is homogeneous and what is not, and whether the position should be sold at all, is again a decision for your adviser; the tax calendar only says that the sale must be executed within 2026.

Donations: the state scale and the Canary extra

A donation to an entity under the patronage Act, Ley 49/2002, gives a deduction from the tax due on a scale that has not changed since 2024: 80 % of the first 250 euros of the year's donations and 40 % of the rest. The rest rises to 45 % for loyalty: el porcentaje de deducción aplicable a la base de la deducción en favor de esa misma entidad que exceda de 250 euros, será el 45 por ciento, when the same entity received a donation in each of the two previous years and each year's amount was at least the previous year's (Ley 49/2002, art. 19). The base of the deduction no podrá exceder para cada una de ellas del 10 por ciento de la base liquidable del contribuyente, may not exceed 10 % of the taxpayer's net taxable base (Ley 35/2006, art. 69.1). A foundation or public-interest association that is not under the patronage Act gives less: El 10 por ciento de las cantidades donadas a las fundaciones legalmente reconocidas que rindan cuentas al órgano del protectorado correspondiente, 10 % of the amounts donated (art. 68.3.b). None of it exists without the entity's certificate, which the Act describes line by line, down to the Mención expresa del carácter irrevocable de la donación, the express mention that the gift is irrevocable (Ley 49/2002, art. 24), and which the entity also reports to the tax agency in January, so that the figure appears in your draft.

The Canary Islands add a regional deduction on the same donations, in the regional share of the tax: 20 % of the first 150 euros and 15 % of the rest, and for the loyal donor el porcentaje de deducción aplicable a la base de la deducción en favor de esa misma entidad que exceda de 150 euros será el 17,5% (Decreto Legislativo 1/2009, art. 4 ter), with the same 10 % of the net taxable base as a ceiling. Beside it sit three narrower regional deductions: 10 % of donations with an ecological purpose to Canary public bodies or registered environmental charities, 20 % of donations for the restoration of the islands' historic heritage, both capped at 150 euros of deduction, and 15 % of donations for cultural, sporting, research or teaching purposes, capped at 5 % of the regional tax due (arts. 3, 4 and 4 bis). A single donation cannot be counted under two of them.

The Canary deductions you can still trigger before the year ends

The regional deductions are the part of this list most people in Fuerteventura have never claimed. They live in the Canary consolidated text of ceded taxes, Decreto Legislativo 1/2009, whose articles were rewritten for 2026 by the islands' budget law of 23 December 2025, Ley 9/2025, in force since 1 January 2026: most of them now carry the same income ceiling, Que no hayan obtenido rentas superiores a 46.455 euros en el periodo impositivo, no income above 46,455 euros in the year, raised by 15,315 euros in a joint return, that is to 61,770 euros. Three general rules apply to all of them: their sum can never exceed the regional share of the tax (art. 18.1); Sobre un mismo bien, por parte de un mismo contribuyente, no se podrá aplicar más de una de las deducciones previstas en el presente capítulo, one asset gives one deduction (art. 18.2); and the bases se minorarán en el importe de las ayudas concedidas por las Administraciones Públicas en el periodo impositivo de que se trate, are reduced by any public aid received for the same expense (art. 18.3). The ones a resident can still influence before 31 December, with the 2026 figures:

Three of those lines carry the largest sums and the strictest paperwork. The rent deduction needs a landlord who declares the rent, because the islands' tax office matches your 740 euros against his return. The energy-works deduction needs two certificates, one before and one after, both registered, and payments that leave a trace, because the text excludes anything satisfechas mediante entregas de dinero de curso legal, paid in cash. And the studies deduction is lost if the course exists in a public centre on your island, a point the text makes expressly, so a Fuerteventura family with a daughter at the university in Tenerife or Gran Canaria should check the islands' public offer before counting on the 1,800 euros.

Two state deductions with a 2026 deadline: energy works and the electric car

Two deductions in the Act's additional provisions end with this year, and the October decree-law kept their dates. The first is the deduction for works that improve a home's energy efficiency: 20 % of the amounts paid hasta el 31 de diciembre de 2026 for works that cut the heating and cooling demand by at least 7 %, and La base máxima anual de esta deducción será de 5.000 euros anuales, a base of up to 5,000 euros a year; 40 % on a base of 7,500 euros for works that cut non-renewable primary energy by 30 % or lift the home to class A or B; and 60 % for works on the whole building until 31 December 2027 (fiftieth additional provision). The deduction is claimed in the year in which the certificate after the works is issued, so a certificate dated in January 2027 moves the whole deduction to the 2027 return. The second is the deduction for an electric vehicle: 15 % of the purchase price, on a base of up to 20,000 euros, for a new plug-in or fuel-cell car that is not used in a business, and the condition that bites in December: Deberán estar matriculados por primera vez en España a nombre del contribuyente antes de 31 de diciembre de 2026, first registered in Spain in your name before 31 December 2026, unless you pay the dealer at least a quarter of the price before that date and register within the two following tax years (fifty-eighth additional provision). The same provision gives 15 % of the cost of a charging point installed at home until the same date. Both deductions reduce the state share of the tax and are compatible with the Canary deduction for energy works, which applies to the regional share, on the condition of article 18.3: a public grant received for the same works reduces every base.

What is not a year-end move, and what the October decree-law changed

Some of the questions that reach our offices every December concern rules that do not move with the calendar. The deduction for buying a habitual home exists only for Los contribuyentes que hubieran adquirido su vivienda habitual con anterioridad a 1 de enero de 2013, those who bought before 1 January 2013 and deducted at the time (eighteenth transitional provision); the Canary mirror in article 14 of the regional text follows the same condition. Paying extra off the mortgage of a home bought in 2019 changes nothing in the return. The reductions a landlord applies to rental income depend on the contract and the tenant, not on a December decision, with one new date that the next paragraph explains. And the small self-employed moves — a purchase of equipment before the year ends, an invoice paid in December — only matter if the expense is deductible in the first place, which is the subject of our piece on what the tax agency accepts and rejects.

The new date comes from Real Decreto-ley 29/2026 of 6 October, published on 7 October and in force since 8 October 2026. The Government re-enacted in it most of the tax measures of the housing decree-law that the Congress had refused to convalidate on 2 October, and the Cortes being dissolved since 6 October, the vote on this one belongs to the Congress's standing committee, which must decide within thirty days of its promulgation. Until that vote the decree-law is law, and four of its measures touch a 2026 return. A tenant with a general taxable base below 33,007.20 euros has a new state deduction: Los contribuyentes cuya base imponible sea inferior a 33.007,20 euros anuales podrán deducirse el 10 por ciento de las cantidades satisfechas en el período impositivo por el alquiler de su vivienda habitual, 10 % of the year's rent, on a base of 11,630 euros that shrinks between 23,007.20 and 33,007.20 euros of base, provided neither the tenant nor his family unit owns another home within fifty kilometres (art. 68.6); it sits beside the Canary 24 %, which belongs to the other share of the tax. A landlord who signs a new lease sees a new scale of reductions, from 70 % to 100 % of the net rent according to the rent cut, the area and the tenant's age (art. 23.2), but the transitional rule keeps the 2025 scale for the contracts signed until the first day of December: the leases se les aplicará la reducción prevista en el apartado 2 del artículo 23 de esta ley en su redacción vigente a 31 de diciembre de 2025 when signed between the housing Act of 2023 and 1 December 2026 (thirty-eighth transitional provision). An owner of a second home in a municipality whose cadastral values were revised since 2012 keeps the lower imputed income for 2026: El porcentaje de imputación del 1,1 por ciento previsto en el artículo 85 de esta ley resultará de aplicación to those properties in 2023, 2024, 2025 and 2026 (fifty-fifth additional provision). And the «Financia Europa» savings and investment account is back in the Act, in article 95 ter, with its deferral of gains until money is withdrawn, its 150,000 euros of contributions and its exemption after five years, but it is not a 2026 move: the decree-law itself says that the account no podrá ser objeto de comercialización ni de contratación hasta la entrada en vigor de la orden ministerial that sets its reporting rules (final provision eleven), and no bank can open one yet. The same text exempts, until 31 December 2027, the gain on selling a home for less than 800,000 euros to a public housing body, in full up to 200,000 euros (sixty-fifth additional provision). If the standing committee rejects the decree-law in November, all of it falls on the day of the vote, as the September decree fell on 2 October; what was in force until that day keeps its effects for that period, and we will update this piece the same week.

The calendar: October to June

• Now: read your fiscal data of 2025 and your payslips of 2026 and estimate the general base; the 30 % limit of article 52, the income ceiling of 46,455 euros and the base of 33,007.20 euros of the new rent deduction all turn on figures you can approximate in October.
• By mid-November: the standing committee's vote on Real Decreto-ley 29/2026; a landlord or tenant in Fuerteventura should know its result before signing anything.
• Before 1 December: a new lease signed until that day keeps the 2025 scale of reductions for the landlord; a lease signed later takes the new one.
• Before the plan's window closes: the contribution to a pension plan, a mutualidad or an insured plan, within the lower of 30 % of your earnings and 1,500 euros, plus 4,250 euros of own contributions if you are self-employed and the employer's part if you are employed; the 1,000 euros for a spouse without earnings; ask the manager for its last date, which is rarely 31 December.
• Before the last trading session of the year: the sale that realises a loss against this year's gains, and no purchase of homogeneous securities two months before or after it.
• Before 31 December: the donation to an entity under Ley 49/2002, by transfer, with the certificate that names you; a third consecutive year to the same entity lifts the rate on the amount above 250 euros to 45 %.
• Before 31 December: the energy works paid by card or transfer, the energy certificate after the works, and the electric car registered in your name; a certificate or a registration in January belongs to 2027.
• Before 31 December: the Canary receipts — the nursery's invoices and NIF, the school invoices, the medical invoices with each provider's NIF, the rent receipts with the landlord's NIF and the cadastral reference, the large-family title in force on that day.
• On 31 December: the facts the tax reads — where you lived for more than 183 days, who lived with you, which home was your habitual one, the age or disability that a deduction requires.
• April to June 2027: the return, filed on the dates the tax agency publishes in March; the request to carry forward the contributions that exceeded the limit, which is made in that return and lasts five years.

What our team does

Our tax advisory in Caleta de Fuste prepares the year-end review for residents of Fuerteventura and the other islands in the firm's twelve working languages: an estimate of the 2026 bases from your payslips, pensions and bank statements, the contribution and loss figures that fit your limits, the donations and Canary deductions you can still document before the year ends, and the two October rules on rent explained for your own lease. The same review feeds the return we file for you between April and June. Book a consultation and bring last year's return and this year's figures.

Common questions

Can I still open a pension plan in December and deduct the contribution in 2026?

Yes, if the plan receives the money within 2026 and the amount fits the lower of 30 % of your net earnings from work and self-employment and 1,500 euros, plus the increases for employer contributions or for the self-employed's own plans; what exceeds the limit can be carried forward for five years on request in the return. Banks and managers close their windows days before 31 December, so ask for the date. Whether a plan suits you is a separate question for your adviser.

I made a gain on shares in the spring. Does selling a losing fund in December cancel it?

Within the same basket, yes: gains and losses on transfers of the year net against each other in full. A loss can also absorb up to 25 % of your dividends and interest of the year, and what is left carries forward for four years. The loss does not count if you buy the same or homogeneous securities in the two months before or after the sale; it is only deferred until those securities are sold.

Which Canary deductions are open to me if my income is above 46,455 euros?

The large-family deduction, the energy-works deduction on your own home, the adaptation of the home for a disability, the deduction for the social-security contributions of a domestic employee from the age of 75, the donations and the investment in a new Canary company carry no income ceiling in the 2026 text. The birth or adoption deduction, the rent, the studies, the school costs, the nursery, the disability and age amounts and the dependant deduction stop at 46,455 euros, or 61,770 in a joint return, and the medical-expenses deduction shrinks to 150 euros above that line.

I rent in Caleta de Fuste. Can I use both the Canary 24 % and the new state 10 %?

They belong to different shares of the tax and the October decree-law does not exclude one for the other: the Canary deduction needs income of 46,455 euros or less, 61,770 in a joint return, and a rent above 10 % of that income; the state deduction needs a general taxable base below 33,007.20 euros and no other home within fifty kilometres. Both need the landlord's NIF in your return, and the state one depends on the standing committee's vote in November.

I arrived in Fuerteventura in 2026. Does any of this apply to me?

Only if you are a Spanish tax resident for 2026, which usually means more than 183 days in Spain during the year, counted on 31 December. If you are, the whole year's income is taxed here and every move above is open to you; if you are not, you pay the non-residents' tax on each Spanish income as it arises and none of the reductions or deductions applies. A worker who opted for the Beckham regime is in the second group for six years.

Facts verified in October 2026 (Ley 35/2006, articles 12, 33.5, 46, 49, 51, 52, 53, 67, 68, 69, 85 and 95 ter, its sixteenth, fiftieth, fifty-fifth, fifty-eighth and sixty-fifth additional provisions and its eighteenth and thirty-eighth transitional provisions, in the text in force on 21 October 2026; Real Decreto-ley 29/2026, of 6 October, in force since 8 October 2026 and pending convalidation; Ley 49/2002, articles 17 to 19 and 24; Real Decreto 439/2007, article 51; Decreto Legislativo 1/2009 of the Canary Islands, articles 2 to 18, in the version given by Ley 9/2025 for 2026; the tax agency's practical manual for the 2025 return, read on 21 October 2026). It is not advice for your case: your bases, your contract and your receipts decide what applies, and the October decree-law awaits its vote.