Cadastral income: what is it?

What is it?

The cadastral income is the net income that your property would generate in one year if you rented it out.
It serves as the basis for calculating property tax, which is a REGIONAL tax on real estate.

By law, cadastral incomes must be reassessed every 10 years. However, as the last reassessment took place in 1980, it was decided that cadastral income would be adjusted annually from 1991 onwards in line with the consumer price index (automatic indexation). That is why we now refer to index-linked cadastral incomes.
To give you an idea, the indexation coefficient for 2020 was 1.8492.

How is it calculated?

Rental value of the property (estimated in 1975) x 12 (annual rental value) – 40% expenses = Net Cadastral Income

Net cadastral income x indexation coefficient for the tax year = Net Cadastral Income Index-Linked

Who must declare it?

The rule is simple: cadastral income must be declared by the person receiving the income from the property. Accordingly: 

• the property owner must declare the cadastral income (not any tenant).
• if the property has only one owner, that owner must declare it; if it has several joint owners, each must declare a share of the cadastral income proportional to their ownership share in the property.
• if bare ownership and usufruct are held separately, it is the usufructuary who benefits from the property and must therefore declare the cadastral income.
• if a sale takes place during the year, the seller and the buyer must each declare a portion of the cadastral income proportional to the period during which they respectively owned the property.