Modelo 720 for Americans: Reporting U.S. Accounts and Assets to Spain

Modelo 720 is the return on which a Spanish tax resident lists assets held outside Spain, and it is owed from the first resident year once accounts, securities or real estate abroad top 50,000 euros. For an American, that covers nearly everything left behind: the checking account, the brokerage account, the IRA, the house kept after the move. It is an information return (a declaración informativa), so no tax is paid with it; a missing one was fined at least 10,000 euros per block until 2022, and now at least 300. This article is for informational purposes only and is not tax or legal advice; verify current requirements with the relevant Spanish authority or a licensed professional.

What happens if you file Modelo 720 late or not at all?

Since Ley 5/2022, a missing Modelo 720 costs 20 euros per item of data, from 300 to 20,000 euros per block, under article 198 of the General Tax Law, halved if the return arrives before the Agencia Tributaria, Spain’s tax agency, asks.

The old regime was of another order. Until 2022, additional provision 18 of the General Tax Law fined each missing item of data 5,000 euros, with a 10,000 euro minimum per block; the income tax law taxed undeclared assets as unjustified gains in the oldest open year, and Ley 7/2012 added a fine of 150 percent of the tax on those gains. On January 27, 2022, the Court of Justice of the European Union held in case C-788/19 that the scheme breached the free movement of capital, and Ley 5/2022, published on March 10, 2022 and in force the next day, repealed the 150 percent fine, rewrote provision 18 without a penalty section and deleted the unjustified-gains rule of article 39.2.

According to the Agency’s answer on penalties, updated February 2025, the Agency applies articles 198 and 199 of the General Tax Law to each block separately and leaves the figures to those articles:

Which paragraph of article 199 governs is a question the Agency leaves unanswered. Article 15.3 of the penalty regulation sends a return carrying both amounts and other data to 199.5, using the linked amount as the base even when only the other data are wrong; no official page, however, applies that rule to Modelo 720 by name. Under article 198.2 of the General Tax Law, an on-time return completed later, before any request, no longer gives rise to an article 199 infraction, so that only what was declared late is fined, and at the halved rate.

Articles 42 bis.6, 42 ter.7 and 54 bis.8 of the tax procedures regulation define what counts as an item. For an account, the bank’s identification and the account’s identification are each a set of data, while the opening date, the December 31 balance and the fourth-quarter average are each a datum. On this guide’s own arithmetic, which is not an official figure, two U.S. accounts at two banks, never filed, make ten items and 200 euros, which the 300 euro minimum then lifts; filed late before any request, the bill is 150 euros.

Article 189.2 of the General Tax Law allows the Agency four years from an infraction to penalize it, although no Agency page applies that clock to Modelo 720. What survived the 2022 reform is the general rule of article 39 of the income tax law: assets that do not match your declared income or wealth are taxed as unjustified gains in the year they are discovered, unless you prove that you owned them before the limitation period. The Agency’s page for earlier years accepts returns for tax years 2020 to 2024 and lists nothing before them.

What do you report on Modelo 720?

Modelo 720 carries three separate obligations, for accounts, securities and real estate abroad, and each block is reported only once its combined value tops 50,000 euros under the tax procedures regulation, whatever the other two contain.

The keys are the letter codes the form assigns to each type of asset.

The valuation of funds, insurance and crypto comes from the same regulation; the Agency’s valuation answers deal with the rest.

Do you have to file Modelo 720 every year?

No: after a first Modelo 720, a block is filed again only when its combined value has risen by more than 20,000 euros since the return that last triggered it, or when something reported in it was closed or sold.

For accounts, either the December 31 total or the fourth quarter average can mark that rise, and currency movements count toward it for every block except real estate, as the Agency’s valuation answers add. Closing an account in a block that never had to be reported, by contrast, calls for no return, as the Agency’s answer on accounts never declared confirms.

Who has to file Modelo 720, and from which year?

Every Spanish tax resident taxed on worldwide income falls under Modelo 720, per the Agencia Tributaria’s taxpayer answers, and files from the first resident year in which a block abroad tops 50,000 euros under the tax procedures regulation; below that, none is due.

For accounts, the regulation reaches holders, authorized persons, beneficiaries, anyone with signing power and beneficial owners (the titulares reales defined by the anti-money-laundering law), and holding any of these roles at any point in the year is enough.

Under article 9 of the income tax law, you are resident for a calendar year if you spend more than 183 days in Spain or if your main economic interests are there, and residence is also presumed when your spouse and dependent minor children live in Spain. There is no split year. Someone who arrives in May 2026 and stays would, if a block tops 50,000 euros, file a first Modelo 720 covering December 31, 2026, due between January 1 and March 31, 2027, shortly before the first Spanish income tax return, the Renta. Forgetting Modelo 720 on becoming resident is one of the mistakes Americans make when moving to Spain. Residents under the Basque Country or Navarre systems file with their hacienda foral, the provincial or regional treasury, and the dates differ: Bizkaia and Navarre keep January 1 to March 31, while Gipuzkoa takes the return from April 1 to June 30 and asks for it again every year for each category above 50,000 euros, with only real estate kept to the rise of more than 20,000 euros (unless another category must be reported that year). The January 1 to March 31 window and the later-year rule in the rest of this article are those of the State return; the rules of Álava are not covered here.

For the main taxpayer under the Beckham law, the special regime for workers who move to Spain, the working assumption is no Modelo 720. The Agency’s taxpayer answers, updated February 2025, say no for a regime taxpayer, spouse and children in a single question, then add that the regime does not extend to other family members, who may have to file. Since January 1, 2023, article 93.3 of the income tax law has allowed the spouse, children under 25 (or of any age if disabled) and, for an unmarried taxpayer, the children’s other parent to opt in, a change that answer does not mention. How the regime works is explained under the Beckham law for Americans in Spain.

Which U.S. accounts and assets go on Modelo 720?

U.S. bank accounts you hold, sign on or benefit from, brokerage positions and a house you kept go on Modelo 720 once their block tops 50,000 euros under the tax procedures regulation; a 401(k) only after a covered event or with a surrender right.

Bank accounts, joint or not

A joint account is reported at its full balance, together with your percentage, under the Agency’s shared ownership answers. Under gananciales, the Spanish community property regime, both spouses file for ganancial assets titled to one of them, such as shares bought after the wedding, when both reside in Spain, the other as beneficial owner of half; the Dirección General de Tributos (DGT), which answers taxpayers’ questions in binding rulings, applied this in ruling V2514-18 of September 18, 2018 to shares held at a U.S. broker. How the marital property systems of U.S. states fit into this, no official page says.

A brokerage account

Each security or deposit in a U.S. brokerage account is reported on its own and may land in a different block, according to the Agency’s other answers, with ETFs under key I as its answers on scope specify. The broker’s side of the matter is covered under keeping a U.S. brokerage account after moving to Spain.

For securities you stopped owning during the year, articles 42 ter.1 and 42 ter.5 of the regulation require a return, whatever the rise in value, once the block has been reportable. If the 50,000 euro exemption applied while you held the assets, the Agency’s answer on accounts never declared says a sale needs none. The Agency’s other answers say that when the whole proceeds were reinvested in other reportable securities, only the December 31 balances are reported. Neither the 2012 nor the 2023 text of the regulation contains that exception. Reporting each sale is the cautious course, as the regulation has no such exception.

Do IRAs, a 401(k) and pensions count?

The Agency’s general answer keeps pension plan rights off the form until the event that triggers the pension, unless the plan allows a surrender like life insurance. In ruling V1291-22 of June 7, 2022, concerning a U.S. national resident in Spain, the DGT held that a traditional IRA and a Roth IRA carry such a right, since both allow withdrawals at any time; both are therefore reported under article 42 ter.3 of the regulation, whether or not a covered event such as retirement has occurred.

A September 27, 2026 search of the DGT’s database found no ruling applying Modelo 720 to a 401(k), so the general rule governs, which is not a safe harbor: once a contingency covered by the plan has occurred, the participant reports the rights, and a 401(k) may pay out after you leave the employer or reach 59½. Ruling V0890-24 of April 23, 2024 illustrates the rule by keeping a U.K. workplace pension off the form while no covered event had occurred and no surrender right existed. Whether limited in-service withdrawals amount to a surrender right is a question no official text has answered. Nor does any official page say whether U.S. Social Security goes on the form: ruling V2449-24 of December 4, 2024, on such a pension, deals only with income tax, and the regulation’s annuity rule targets annuities bought with capital handed to a foreign entity. How Spain taxes 401(k) and IRA withdrawals is a separate subject.

A house you kept, or sold

A house you kept is valued as the table describes, and an inherited one at its real value on the day you acquired it, per the valuation answers. If a house is sold while its block was above 50,000 euros, article 54 bis of the regulation requires a return for that year, showing the sale price and date, and DGT ruling V1051-26 of May 13, 2026 converts that price at the European Central Bank rate of the sale date. The same ruling requires no return for the sale if the real estate block never topped 50,000 euros while you held the house, and it moves any proceeds left in an account abroad, a U.S. one included, into the accounts block.

An LLC or a trust

For U.S. federal tax, a single-member U.S. LLC is disregarded by default, per the Form 8832 instructions. Ruling V0848-26 of April 21, 2026 nonetheless proceeds on the assumption that the LLC has legal personality of its own and puts the owner’s interest in the securities block. That interest is valued under article 16 of the Wealth Tax law: book value on the last approved balance sheet if it was audited with a favorable report, and otherwise the highest of par value, that book value, or the average profits of the last three closed years capitalized at 20 percent. On the words of article 42 bis of the regulation, a signer with powers of disposition over the LLC’s bank account falls inside the rule, since only Spanish resident entities recording the account are exempt; no ruling found covers a U.S. LLC.

For trusts, the Agency’s other answers have a resident settlor report the trust’s assets as holder, while actual, not potential, resident beneficiaries report its accounts and annuities. The DGT went further in ruling V3394-19 of December 11, 2019, treating the beneficiary of an irrevocable, discretionary Florida trust as beneficial owner of all its foreign assets. No Agency answer or ruling read for this guide names a revocable living trust, for which the settlor answer is the closest fit.

What stays off the form

Accounts and real estate of a resident business owner stay off when recorded one by one in Commercial Code books, under articles 42 bis.4 and 54 bis.6 of the regulation; securities do not. Anything located in Spain stays off, including an account already reported that migrates to a Spanish bank without being closed. Art, physical gold, jewelry, cash outside an account and stock options are not reported as such, according to the answers on scope, and foreign shares held with a depository in Spain are left off as well when it reports you to the Agency, per the exemption answers.

When is Modelo 720 due, and how do you file it?

Modelo 720 is due between January 1 and March 31 of the year after the one reported, under article 7 of Orden HAP/72/2013, so the return for 2026 is filed between January 1 and March 31, 2027.

On November 9, 2026, the Agency’s deadline page still showed January 1 to March 31, 2026 for tax year 2025, and its filing page offered only tax year 2025. If technical problems prevent online filing, that page, updated September 8, 2026, and article 17.2 of Orden HAP/2194/2013 allow four calendar days after the deadline, whereas article 6.2 of Orden HAP/72/2013, unchanged since 2013, says three. Treat March 31 as the deadline; the extra days are better read as a remedy for an outage than as part of the window.

Filing is online only, on the Modelo 720 page, with an electronic certificate or, for individuals, Cl@ve, the Spanish government’s login system, as the help page and article 12 of Orden HAP/2194/2013 allow, although article 5 of Orden HAP/72/2013 still names only a certificate. The web form takes up to 40,000 records, and a filed return is corrected by reloading it there.

Under article 42 ter.6 of the regulation, securities are valued by Wealth Tax rules, and that tax has a return of its own. The U.S. returns still owed as a citizen are covered under U.S. expat taxes in Spain.

Does crypto go on Modelo 720 or Modelo 721?

Crypto held by a custodian outside Spain goes on Modelo 721, not Modelo 720, once its combined December 31 value tops 50,000 euros under the tax procedures regulation, with the same January 1 to March 31 window.

Modelo 721, created by Orden HFP/886/2023, applies when a custodian that safeguards private keys for others holds the coins and is neither resident nor established in Spain, per the Agency’s Modelo 721 answers; wallets whose keys you control, hot or cold, are left off. The 20,000 euro rule for later years carries over as well, per the answer on deadlines, and the first return, for 2023, was filed between January 1 and March 31, 2024. What a missing return costs is less clear: since 2022, additional provision 18 has had no penalty section, and no Modelo 721 page states a figure.

How do you complete Modelo 720 before March 31?

Completing Modelo 720 takes three steps: list every asset abroad and your role on each, value each by its block’s rules, then, by March 31, report each block that first tops 50,000 euros, or later rises by over 20,000 euros or loses a reported asset.

The list is best made while December 31 is still ahead: every account, brokerage position, IRA, property, company interest and custodial crypto account outside Spain. Early January then supplies the December 31 balances, the fourth-quarter averages and the exchange rate.

With U.S. bank and brokerage accounts in your own name, an IRA and perhaps a house, filing alone with Cl@ve or a certificate is within reach. A Spanish tax adviser earns a place when an LLC, a trust or a 401(k) with withdrawal features is involved, when earlier years went unfiled, or when someone in the family is on the Beckham regime.

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