P2P Lending Tax Guide for Spanish Investors 2026

If you are a Spanish tax resident earning interest on peer-to-peer (P2P) lending platforms, that income is taxable in Spain, whether the platform sits in Madrid or in Tallinn. Most European P2P platforms do not withhold any Spanish tax, which means the responsibility to declare falls entirely on you. This guide explains, in plain English, how P2P interest is taxed, where it goes on your annual return, and the extra reporting duties that apply when your money sits on foreign platforms.

This is general information, not tax advice. Tax rules change and individual situations differ. Always confirm the current rules with the Agencia Tributaria (AEAT) or a qualified Spanish tax adviser before you file.

TL;DR

• P2P interest is taxed as rendimiento del capital mobiliario (movable capital income) under Article 25 of the IRPF law, and it lands in the base del ahorro (savings tax base). Source: AEAT, Manual Practico IRPF 2025, Chapter 5.
• The savings brackets for 2025 income (filed in 2026) are 19% up to 6,000 EUR, 21% from 6,000 to 50,000 EUR, 23% from 50,000 to 200,000 EUR, 27% from 200,000 to 300,000 EUR, and 30% above 300,000 EUR. The top rate rose from 28% to 30% on 1 January 2025. Source: AEAT, savings base rate scale.
• Foreign EU platforms (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and so on) do not apply Spanish withholding. You declare the full gross interest yourself on Modelo 100, the annual IRPF return.
• If your foreign financial assets exceed 50,000 EUR in a reporting category, you may need to file the informational Modelo 720 (deadline 31 March). Source: AEAT, Modelo 720.
• A separate Banco de Espana statistical form, the ETE, can apply once your foreign assets or transactions pass 1,000,000 EUR. Source: Banco de Espana.
• Losses from a defaulted loan are only deductible once the debt is legally confirmed as unrecoverable, not simply because a borrower is late.

1. How P2P interest is taxed in Spain

When you lend money through a P2P platform, the interest the borrower pays you is, in tax terms, income from lending your own capital to a third party. Spanish law calls this rendimiento del capital mobiliario procedente de la cesion a terceros de capitales propios (movable capital income from the transfer of your own capital to third parties). It is defined in Article 25 of Law 35/2006 (the IRPF law) and confirmed in the AEAT Manual Practico de Renta 2025, Chapter 5.

This income does not go into the general tax base with your salary. It goes into the base imponible del ahorro (the savings tax base), which is taxed on its own progressive scale. That scale is usually gentler than the general one, which is good news for most investors.

For the 2025 tax year, declared during the 2026 campaign, the savings brackets published by the AEAT are:

The single most important change to note is the top bracket. Until the 2024 tax year the highest rate was 28%. From 1 January 2025, the portion of your savings base above 300,000 EUR is taxed at 30%. Source: AEAT, “Gravamen de la base liquidable del ahorro”. For the vast majority of retail P2P investors this makes no difference at all, because their total savings income sits comfortably in the first two bands (19% and 21%). If your combined interest, dividends and capital gains for the year are under 6,000 EUR, your marginal rate on P2P interest is simply 19%.

A worked example. Say you earned 2,400 EUR of P2P interest in 2025 and had no other savings income. That 2,400 EUR falls entirely inside the first band, so you owe 19%, which is 456 EUR of tax. If instead you earned 8,000 EUR of savings income in total, the first 6,000 EUR is taxed at 19% (1,140 EUR) and the next 2,000 EUR at 21% (420 EUR), for 1,560 EUR total.

One subtlety worth understanding early: you are taxed on interest when it becomes due and payable to you, not necessarily when you withdraw it to your bank account. Reinvested interest that has already been credited to your P2P account is still taxable in the year it was earned.

2. Reporting on your IRPF return (Modelo 100)

The annual income tax return in Spain is Modelo 100, the Declaracion de la Renta. The filing window normally runs from early April to the end of June for the previous calendar year, so 2025 income is declared during the 2026 campaign.

P2P interest belongs in the part of Modelo 100 dealing with rendimientos del capital mobiliario to be integrated in the savings base, specifically the subsection for cesion a terceros de capitales propios (interest from lending capital). In recent campaigns this has sat around casillas 0027 to 0033 [verify], but the exact box numbers are renumbered by the AEAT every year, so follow the labelled section rather than a memorised number, or use the AEAT’s Renta WEB assistant which routes the figure for you.

You report the gross interest earned during the year. If any tax was withheld, you also report the withholding (retencion) so it is credited against your final bill.

Here is the practical split that trips people up:

• Spanish-resident platforms (for example MytripleA, StockCrowdIN or Housers) apply an automatic withholding of 19% on the interest they pay you, as a payment on account. They report it to the AEAT, and it often appears in your datos fiscales (the tax data the AEAT pre-loads). You still declare the income, but part of the tax is already paid. Source: sector guidance on Spanish crowdlending platforms.
• Foreign EU platforms (Mintos in Latvia, PeerBerry, and Baltic or Estonian platforms generally) apply no Spanish withholding at all. Nothing is pre-loaded for you. You must add the full gross interest yourself. This is the single most common reason Spanish P2P investors under-declare by accident.

Because foreign platforms report nothing to the AEAT, keep clean annual records. Download each platform’s yearly tax or account statement, note the interest earned in euros, and keep it with your filing paperwork. If a platform reports in another currency, convert to euros using an accepted exchange rate for the year.

3. Foreign platforms and reporting duties

Holding money on non-Spanish platforms can trigger two extra, purely informational filings. Neither is a tax in itself, but skipping them can be costly.

Modelo 720. This is the informational declaration of assets and rights held abroad. You must file it if the total value in any single reporting category exceeds 50,000 EUR. The categories are counted separately: (1) foreign bank accounts, (2) securities, rights, insurance and income deposited or managed abroad, and (3) foreign real estate. Money and loan claims held on a foreign P2P platform generally fall into the securities and rights category. The filing window is 1 January to 31 March of the year following the one being reported, so 2025 balances are declared by 31 March 2026. Source: AEAT, Modelo 720, and Banco de Espana guidance.

Once you have filed a first Modelo 720, you only need to file again in later years if a category grows by more than 20,000 EUR versus your last declaration, or if you closed, sold or transferred an asset you previously reported. Source: AEAT.

A note on penalties. The old Modelo 720 penalty regime was struck down as disproportionate by the Court of Justice of the European Union in its judgment of 27 January 2022 (case C-788/19), and Spain has since softened the penalties (Ley 5/2022) [verify]. The obligation to file still stands, so treat it as mandatory, but the previously terrifying fixed fines no longer apply in the same way.

The Banco de Espana ETE form. Separate from the tax system, the Banco de Espana requires an informational statistical return, the ETE (Encuesta sobre Transacciones Exteriores), from residents whose foreign financial assets, liabilities or transactions exceed 1,000,000 EUR at year end. Below that figure there is no obligation unless the Banco de Espana specifically requests it. The annual version is filed between 1 and 20 January. Source: Banco de Espana, ETE form. For a typical retail P2P investor with a few thousand euros spread across platforms, the ETE is not relevant, but it is worth knowing the threshold exists.

What about Modelo D-6? The old Modelo D-6, for foreign investments, was reformed by Real Decreto 571/2023 and Orden ECM/57/2024 and now targets significant participations (broadly a 10% or larger stake in a foreign company). Ordinary minority P2P lending, which is portfolio-style debt rather than a controlling equity stake, generally does not trigger a D-6. Source: Orden ICT/1408/2021 and RD 571/2023.

No Spanish withholding, but watch foreign withholding. Most Baltic and Estonian P2P platforms do not withhold tax from non-resident lenders, so you receive the gross interest. If a foreign platform or jurisdiction ever does withhold at source, Spain lets you claim the deduccion por doble imposicion internacional (relief for international double taxation) on Modelo 100, up to the limits set by the relevant double-tax treaty, so you are not taxed twice on the same euro.

4. Default losses and how they are treated

P2P lending carries real credit risk, and sooner or later a borrower defaults. The tax treatment here is stricter than many investors expect, so it deserves careful reading.

First, a distinction. The interest you earned is movable capital income (Section 1 above). The loss of the principal when a loan goes bad is a different thing: it is a capital loss (perdida patrimonial), not negative interest. You cannot simply net a defaulted loan against your interest income line.

Second, and this is the key rule, a defaulted loan is not deductible just because the borrower is late. Under Spanish practice, an unpaid credit can only be recognised as a capital loss once it is legally confirmed as unrecoverable. The IRPF law (Article 14.2.k of Law 35/2006) sets out when that moment arrives, broadly:

• the borrower enters an insolvency process (concurso) and a court-approved arrangement reduces the debt (a quita), in which case the reduced part is the loss; or
• the insolvency process concludes without you being paid; or
• one year passes from the start of a judicial or notarial procedure to collect the debt, without payment.

In everyday P2P terms, this means a loan sitting at “60 days late” or even “in recovery” on your dashboard is usually not yet a deductible loss. You typically have to wait until the recovery process is legally exhausted or the one-year clock has run. Source: sector tax guidance citing the IRPF unpaid-credit rules.

Third, once a loss is recognised, the way it offsets other income is limited. Within the savings base, negative results can be offset against positive ones, but only up to 25% of the positive balance in a given year, with any excess carried forward to the following four years. Whether a defaulted-principal loss integrates in the savings base or the general base is a technical point that is genuinely debated among advisers [verify], so this is exactly the kind of case where a professional review pays for itself.

The practical takeaway: diversify hard so that no single default is material, and do not assume you can write off bad loans quickly. For most investors the tax value of a default is modest and slow to arrive, which is another reason to focus on platform quality up front. Our Diversified P2P Portfolio guide covers spreading risk across borrowers and platforms.

5. Resources: where to verify current rules

Rates and thresholds are updated regularly, so confirm the current numbers before you file:

• Agencia Tributaria (AEAT), Manual Practico de Renta 2025, Chapter 5 (Rendimientos del capital mobiliario), at sede.agenciatributaria.gob.es, for how interest is classified.
• AEAT, “Gravamen de la base liquidable del ahorro”, for the current savings brackets.
• AEAT, Modelo 720 section, for foreign-asset reporting thresholds and deadlines.
• Banco de Espana, ETE form pages at sedeelectronica.bde.es, for the 1,000,000 EUR statistical threshold.
• The AEAT Renta WEB assistant and asistente virtual de Renta, which walk you through the boxes interactively.

For how these platforms are supervised across Europe, and why a licence is not the same as investor protection, see P2P Regulation Explained.

6. Frequently Asked Questions

Do I pay tax on P2P interest even if I leave it on the platform and reinvest it? Yes. You are taxed when the interest is credited and becomes yours, not only when you withdraw it to your bank. Reinvested interest is still income for the year it was earned.

My Latvian platform did not send anything to the AEAT. Do I still declare? Yes. Foreign platforms do not report to the Spanish tax office and apply no Spanish withholding. You must add the gross interest yourself on Modelo 100. Keep the platform’s annual statement as your evidence.

I have 30,000 EUR spread across three foreign platforms. Do I need Modelo 720? The 50,000 EUR threshold is measured per category, not per platform, and it aggregates your holdings. If your total foreign securities and rights across all platforms and accounts stay under 50,000 EUR in that category, you generally do not file Modelo 720, but you still declare the interest on Modelo 100. Confirm your exact category totals with the AEAT.

A borrower defaulted and I lost 500 EUR of principal. Can I deduct it this year? Usually not immediately. The loss is a capital loss that is only deductible once the debt is legally confirmed as unrecoverable, for example after an insolvency process concludes or one year after a formal collection procedure begins. Late or in-recovery loans do not qualify yet.

Is P2P interest taxed at my salary rate? No. It goes in the savings base, taxed at 19% to 30%, separate from your salary. Most retail investors pay 19% on the first 6,000 EUR of total savings income.

What if a foreign country withheld tax on my interest? You can claim relief for international double taxation on Modelo 100, up to treaty limits, so you are not taxed twice. Most Baltic platforms do not withhold from non-residents, so this rarely comes up.

7. Bottom Line

For a Spanish tax resident, P2P lending is refreshingly simple on paper and easy to get wrong in practice. The income is movable capital income, taxed in the savings base at 19% to 30%, with most investors paying 19% or 21%. The trap is that foreign platforms hand you the gross interest and report nothing, so you have to declare it yourself on Modelo 100. On top of that sit two informational duties: Modelo 720 once foreign assets in a category pass 50,000 EUR, and the Banco de Espana ETE form far higher up at 1,000,000 EUR. Default losses are real but slow and strict to claim. Keep clean annual statements from every platform, declare the full gross interest, and confirm the current figures with the AEAT or an adviser each year.

Top platform on CrowdIndex

If you want to start with the platform we rank highest, that is Maclear, our current number one across the CrowdIndex network. Maclear is a Swiss platform supervised under a self-regulatory organisation (SRO) framework for anti-money-laundering purposes, and it advertises target returns of roughly 14.5% to 14.9% on its business-lending projects, with a 30 EUR welcome bonus on a first qualifying deposit.

Two honest caveats a tax guide should make plainly. First, the Swiss SRO model is an AML supervision framework: it is not an EU investor compensation scheme, so it does not guarantee your capital the way deposit insurance protects a bank account. Second, Maclear is a foreign platform, so everything in this guide about self-declaring gross interest on Modelo 100, and potentially Modelo 720, applies to any interest you earn there. Read the full review and current terms on our platform page at /platforms/maclear/ before you commit capital.

Not tax advice. Rules change; confirm your position with the AEAT or a qualified adviser.