Buying a home in Spain from abroad is, in payment terms, four transactions dressed as one. Each stage has its own timing pressure, its own documentation requirements and its own currency exposure. Mishandled, any of them can add tens of thousands of euros to the final cost of the property. Handled well, the process is orderly and predictable.
This briefing walks through each stage — reserva, arras, escritura and post-completion — from the point of view of a non-resident buyer moving funds from outside the euro area. Its intent is not to replace legal advice, which every serious buyer should take independently in Spain, but to give the practical shape of the money side of the transaction so that a buyer can prepare with time in hand.
Stage one — Reserva
The reservation deposit takes the property off the market for a short period, usually two to four weeks, so that the buyer's lawyer can complete due diligence: title check at the Land Registry, community charges, urban planning position, and any encumbrances. The amount is small in the context of the overall purchase — typically €3,000 to €10,000 — and is normally paid by card or instant bank transfer to the estate agent or to the seller's lawyer.
Currency exposure at this stage is limited but not zero: the payment is generally non-refundable if the buyer withdraws for reasons other than a material title problem, so a buyer should not pay a reserva before at least a preliminary title check has been completed. This is also the point at which onboarding with a payment provider should already be in motion — leaving it until arras compresses the timetable uncomfortably.
Stage two — Arras
The private purchase contract, or contrato de arras, is signed a few weeks after reservation. Ten per cent of the purchase price is the market convention, though the exact figure and the type of arras (penitenciales, confirmatorias or penales) can be negotiated. This is the first materially large cross-border transfer for most non-resident buyers and, as such, the first point at which an ill-timed FX conversion can meaningfully change the final cost of the property.
Two operational decisions matter here. First, whether to lock the rate for the arras payment and the subsequent completion payment together via a forward contract with a regulated FX broker — a common approach for buyers whose completion date is more than a few weeks out. Second, whether the funds should be transferred directly to the seller's account or to the buyer's lawyer's client account and then on to the seller. The lawyer's-client-account route is standard practice in Spain and provides an extra check that the funds are received before the contract is signed.
Stage three — Escritura (notary)
Completion happens at the notary's office with the signing of the escritura pública, the public deed. The remaining balance of the purchase price — typically 90 per cent — is paid at this appointment. Two payment methods dominate: a banker's draft (cheque bancario) drawn on a Spanish account, or a pre-coordinated international transfer that has cleared into either the seller's or the lawyer's Spanish account before the appointment.
Timing is exacting. A notary appointment cannot proceed if the funds are not visibly available. This is where the choice of payment provider stops being a matter of cost and starts being a matter of reliability — the ability to guarantee cleared euros in a Spanish account by a specific date, with a specific contact if anything goes wrong, is more valuable at this point than a marginally better rate.
Also settled at the notary appointment, or in the days immediately around it, are the estate agent's fee (paid by the seller in most transactions), the notary's fee itself, and the initial Land Registry fee. Small in the context of the property but frequent enough that they contribute to the case for a low-margin payment provider.
Stage four — Post-completion
The post-completion phase runs for two to three months after the escritura and covers the transaction's tax and administrative settlement:
- ITP (Impuesto sobre Transmisiones Patrimoniales) on resale properties, or VAT and AJD on new builds. Rates vary by region and typically fall between six and ten per cent.
- Plusvalía municipal, the municipal capital-gains-on-land tax, which is technically the seller's obligation but is worth confirming has been paid.
- Land Registry inscription of the new ownership.
- Utility and community set-up: electricity, water, community fees, IBI (annual local property tax) direct debits.
- Lawyer settlement and any residual escrow returns.
Individually these are smaller sums, but there are a lot of them, and they compound the case made at earlier stages for a provider with tight margins on smaller euro payments. A buyer who has selected well at the arras stage rarely has to reconsider it here.
Buyer checklist
- Begin payment-provider onboarding before paying any reserva.
- Obtain a NIE (Spanish foreigner tax identifier) early — several weeks' lead time is normal.
- Prepare source-of-funds evidence in a single package so it can be shared with both the payment provider and the notary.
- Ask the payment provider, in writing, for a rate quote and a margin range specific to your amount.
- Consider a forward contract for the gap between arras and escritura if that gap is more than three weeks.
- Have the lawyer confirm the funds-flow route — direct to the seller, or via the lawyer's client account — well before the notary appointment is booked.
Where currency exposure builds up
The largest exposure is not the amount of money moved but the length of time it is unhedged. A GBP buyer who signed arras at one rate and completes eight weeks later at another can find that a two-per-cent move in the exchange rate is worth more than every fee they paid along the way. This is why the professional practice on larger transactions is to fix the rate at arras via a forward contract rather than optimise for the last basis point of margin at completion. Cost, in cross-border property purchases, is a function of timing far more than of headline pricing.