What Is IEDMT? Spain's Car Registration Tax Explained (2026)

The definition in one sentence

IEDMT is a Spanish state tax levied once, at the moment a car, motorcycle, boat or aircraft is first registered under a Spanish plate. Unlike VAT or ITP, it has nothing to do with who sold you the vehicle or whether the sale was between private parties or through a dealer — it is triggered purely by the act of putting a foreign or previously unregistered vehicle onto Spanish roads with a Spanish matricula.

That single fact trips up a lot of first-time importers: they assume that if they bought from a private individual and therefore don't owe ITP, they are done with taxes. They are not. IEDMT is always due, on top of whatever else applies.

How the CO2 brackets work

IEDMT uses a sliding scale based on the vehicle's official CO2 emissions figure, as printed on its certificate of conformity or type-approval documentation:

• 0 g/km up to 120 g/km of CO2: 0% — no IEDMT payable
• 121 to 160 g/km: 4.75%
• 161 to 200 g/km: 9.75%
• Above 200 g/km: 14.75%

There is no partial or averaged rate: the vehicle's CO2 figure places it in exactly one bracket, and that percentage applies to the entire tax base. This is why two cars that are almost identical in price can end up with very different IEDMT bills if one crosses a bracket threshold — a diesel estate at 119 g/km pays nothing, while the same body style at 122 g/km already owes 4.75%.

Example calculation

Take a used German estate car with an official CO2 rating of 178 g/km and an agreed price of 28,000 EUR, where Spain's official table value for that make, model and age comes out at 26,500 EUR. Since IEDMT uses the higher of the table value and the price paid, the tax base is 28,000 EUR. At the 161-200 g/km bracket (9.75%), the IEDMT due is 2,730 EUR.

Who has to pay it — and when

IEDMT is always due, whether you bought the car from a private seller in Munich, a franchised dealer in Frankfurt, or imported it yourself from outside the EU. There is no exemption tied to the seller's status. The only reductions that exist are structural: zero-emission and certain low-emission vehicles fall in the 0% bracket by virtue of their CO2 figure, and some specific cases (large families, disability, transfer of residence, taxis, rental fleets) carry statutory exemptions or reductions — but the tax itself, as a concept, applies universally to first registration.

The tax is self-assessed by the importer using modelo 576, and it must be filed within 30 working days of the vehicle entering Spanish territory. AEAT (the Spanish tax agency) issues a payment confirmation which is required before the DGT will register the car under a Spanish plate — so in practice, IEDMT payment is a hard gate before you can drive the car legally on Spanish plates.

The golden rule to remember

Private seller or professional dealer, ITP or VAT — none of that changes whether IEDMT applies. IEDMT always applies. It sits alongside ITP or VAT as a separate layer of taxation, calculated on CO2 and the higher of table value or price, and filed through its own form on its own deadline.

Frequently asked questions

Does IEDMT apply if I bought from a private individual?

Yes. IEDMT is triggered by first registration in Spain, not by the seller's tax status. A private sale still owes IEDMT in full, calculated the same way as a dealer purchase.

Can the tax base ever be lower than the price I paid?

No. AEAT always uses the higher of the official table value and the declared price. If you negotiated a bargain price below the table value, IEDMT is still calculated on the table value, not your invoice.