Selling to a foreign buyer in Alicante: 44.65% and 90 days

Nine at night in Rotterdam, a Tuesday in November. Someone is holding a phone sideways, propped against the kitchen counter, and on the other side of the screen an agent lifts a blind on the Costa Blanca so the sea can be heard. There is nobody in that living room. The viewing lasts about as long as an episode of a series.

It is a scene that repeats every week across Alicante province, in different accents, and it ends more often than an owner imagines in a deed signed by someone who has never set foot in the building. It is no longer the exception in this market. It is close to half of it.

The figure that explains everything else

According to the Estadística Registral Inmobiliaria published by Spain’s Colegio de Registradores, foreign buyers signed 44.65% of the homes sold in Alicante province in the first quarter of 2026. That is the highest share in the country, ahead of Malaga (34.3%) and the Balearics (28.89%), and a long way from the other two Valencian provinces: Castellon sits at 14.04% and Valencia at 13.05%. The national average is 13.92%.

Put another way: in Castellon, selling to a foreigner is a statistical oddity. Here, in the same autonomous community, it is the most likely thing that will happen to you.

Within the Valencian Community, 16.52% of purchases are signed by European Union citizens and 5.7% by buyers from the rest of Europe. Different passports, different working calendars, different school holidays, different ideas of what an offer actually means. El Altet confirms it without any registry data: 88% of the traffic at Alicante-Elche airport is international, and this winter it flies to 120 direct destinations in 29 countries, with the United Kingdom as its first market, Belgium fourth and Poland now settled among the top five. This province does not sell houses to people who live here. It sells them to people who land.

The viewing that never happens

The hardest part for an owner to believe is that someone can buy without coming. A sector analysis published in Alicante Plaza puts at more than 25% the share of foreign transactions on the Mediterranean coast that close entirely remotely, without a single in-person visit. Among North American investors and Scandinavian buyers the figure is higher still.

That forces a different craft. The viewing happens on live video, at the hour that suits the person on the other side, which is usually a weekday evening in their country rather than a Saturday morning here. You record the street noise at eight in the evening, not at midday. You show the damp patch on the garage ceiling before it turns up in a survey, because anyone who finds a defect at a distance assumes there are three more nobody mentioned. And you send a second pass from the terrace with no commentary over it, so the sound of the sea is the only argument.

A flat that shows well remotely is not a prettier flat. It is a flat that leaves no open questions.

Why the deposit contract runs to ninety days

This is where a local seller gets impatient and a deal breaks. Between signing the arras and signing the deed, the usual window in Spain is 30 to 90 days, and in 2026 at least 45 to 60 are recommended when a mortgage is involved. With a buyer who lives abroad, the clock stretches by accumulation:

• The NIE, which costs a €9.84 fee and without which no notary will sign a deed, depends on a consular appointment that can carry a waiting list.
• The Spanish bank account comes after the NIE, never before.
• The non-resident mortgage is assessed on payslips, tax returns and certificates issued in another language, with another tax system behind them.
• The international transfer needs its working days and has to be in Spain before the signing, not on the day.

None of those four steps is optional and none of them is in the seller’s hands. That is why an agent who has done this before asks for ninety days from the start, rather than sixty with a promised extension. The extension is exactly the moment somebody starts having doubts.

The power of attorney, the piece that saves the date

When the buyer cannot fly on the day of signing, the deal is not postponed: it is signed by a representative. The power of attorney is granted at the Spanish consulate in the buyer’s country, where personal appearance on the day of signature is always compulsory, or before a local notary, in which case the document then needs the Hague Apostille and, if it is not drafted in Spanish, a sworn translation.

The rule that kills the most powers of attorney is a small one: the document must expressly name the act. A broad general power gets rejected. And it is worth looking closely at anyone promising to arrange it one hundred per cent online. Since 9 November 2023, Ley 11/2023 allows powers of representation before public administrations to be granted by videoconference, but the Portal Notarial del Ciudadano requires you to show a Spanish DNI or a TIE to the camera, and a buyer who does not yet have a NIE has neither.

The language of the deed

Signing day is different too, and almost nobody plans for it. Article 150 of the Reglamento Notarial settles the language question in three ways. The notary can authorise the deed if they know the buyer’s language, recording that they have translated the content verbally. They can authorise it in two columns in both languages, a right the foreign party keeps even when their Spanish is perfect. Or an interpreter appointed by the buyer takes part, declares that the translation matches the original and signs the deed as well.

None of the three is quick. A double-column deed, or one with an interpreter, can double the time spent at the notary. Booking the nine in the morning slot rather than the one o’clock one is the difference between signing calmly and signing while the notary watches the clock.

The money: where it comes from and how it is proved

Ley 10/2010 on the prevention of money laundering and Royal Decree 304/2014 require the notary to identify in the deed the means of payment used: cheque, transfer or cash, and whether the price was paid before, at the signing or deferred. When the money arrives from outside Spain, that identification stops being a formality.

Two concrete details that move dates. The cash payment ceiling, which is €1,000 for a resident, rises to €10,000 when the payer is a non-resident individual. And non-resident status is proved with the corresponding tax certificate, issued by the bank and subject to expiry: you request it the week of the signing, not two months earlier.

What an agent looks at when the buyer lives abroad

The trade ends up reading the same four signals before telling an owner to accept an offer that arrived from abroad. If the buyer already has a NIE, they have been at this for months and they are serious. If they also have an account open at a Spanish bank, better still. If they have hired a lawyer in Spain, the deal has someone awake to talk to while the buyer sleeps in another time zone. And if they have been here at least once, even on holiday, the risk of cold feet drops sharply.

An offer from someone who has done none of those four things is not a bad offer. It simply needs a longer window and someone to start with the beginning of the paperwork rather than with the price. Most sales that fall through before the notary do not fall through over money. They fall through over the calendar.

The home that gets bought from far away

The product that gets signed unseen most often is the one that leaves the fewest open questions: a new build, completed, with the specification sheet on the table and no renovation to imagine through a screen. A two-bedroom new-build apartment in Villajoyosa is exactly that kind of home, the sort someone signs for by power of attorney from their own city and meets in person on the day they collect the keys.

If you want to see what is moving in the parts of the province with the most international demand, you can explore our properties or contact us and we will talk it through.