Renovating a house in Spain

What it costs, per square metre

These are the ranges Spanish sources publish, in the currency and the units they publish them in. Nothing is converted or averaged: where sources disagree, you see each of them.

Every range on this page is reproduced as its source publishes it, and no VAT is ever added by us. The Spanish sources are not consistent on this point and that is worth knowing before you compare them: the price guides do not state whether their figures include VAT, while the municipal fee schedules state that theirs do not. Which VAT rate applies to a particular job depends on the dwelling, on who is paying and on how much material the builder supplies; this page does not work that out, and the page on IVA sets out what the law says with the article next to each line.

Work it out for your own floor area

Same ranges as the table, applied to the size of your room. The sources and their dates stay with the figure, and nothing here is converted into pounds: this is a Spanish job at Spanish prices.

Comparing this with a figure from an earlier year? The Spanish construction cost index has the year table and brings an old amount up to today.

What an hour of labour costs

This one is deliberately outside the table above, because it is a different kind of number: a price per hour rather than per square metre of finished work.

€18 to €35 per hour, from habitissimo, guía de precios de albañiles (2026-06-18).

What the sources say, in their own words

Each range comes with a note from the source about what it covers. Those notes are Spanish and they stay Spanish: a translated quote is no longer a quote, and you will be reading Spanish quotes anyway once the work starts.

Three things that are different from home

• The tax rate is not one number, and the condition is about you. The reduced rate asks that you are an individual, not acting as a business, using the home privately. Where you live is not one of the conditions. What the law says about IVA.
• Several reliefs are written for Spanish taxpayers. The energy deduction and the national grant attach to a habitual home, which a second home is not. Same page, further down.
• The paperwork is Spanish whoever you hire. The quote, the licence and the final invoice arrive in Spanish, and the language of the site conversation does not change that.

The four questions, each with the law next to it

• IVA on building work: which rate applies to you, and the three conditions attached to the lower one.
• Planning permission in Spain: why there is no Spanish equivalent of permitted development, and what the national law does say.
• Work already done without a licence: what the rules say about legalising it afterwards.
• Checking a builder in Spain: which registers exist, and what they do and do not prove.

Cost figures from the Spanish price data behind this site, each with the source and the date it carries. Buying in France instead? Renovating a house in France.