ZONA MALLORCA
Mallorca/Buyer guides

PUBLIC DATA GUIDE · REVIEWED SEPTEMBER 2026

Catastro in Spain, explained for Mallorca property buyers

What cadastral information can tell you, what it cannot prove, and why it should be compared with the Property Registry and the real building.

In brief

Catastro is Spain’s administrative record and map of real estate. It helps identify and describe a property for public and tax purposes, but it does not by itself prove ownership, planning legality or the absence of charges.

What is the Catastro?

The Dirección General del Catastro maintains descriptive and graphical information about urban and rural property. Every property has a unique 20-character referencia catastral. The official Catastro guidance explains that the reference identifies the property unambiguously in cadastral mapping and appears in many property-related documents.

Public consultation may show location, use, constructed area, plot, map geometry and cadastral value information. The precise data available depends on access and authentication.

Catastro versus the Property Registry

Catastro

Administrative, descriptive, graphical and fiscal. Useful for identifying parcels, buildings and recorded measurements.

Registro de la Propiedad

Legal record of ownership and registered rights or charges. A nota simple can show title, mortgages, embargoes and other relevant entries.

They describe the same real-world property from different perspectives. Differences in area, boundaries or buildings are not automatically harmless; they are a prompt for professional investigation.

A buyer’s four-way comparison

  1. Catastro: What does the cadastral record and map describe?
  2. Registry: What is legally registered, owned and charged?
  3. Town hall: What planning permissions, licences and files exist?
  4. Physical reality: What has actually been built and where are the boundaries?

Your lawyer and architect should interpret the combined picture. A matching square-metre figure alone does not answer every planning or title question.

What is the cadastral reference value?

Do not confuse the referencia catastral—the property identifier—with the valor de referencia, a value that can be relevant to the tax base for certain transactions. Confirm the current value and tax treatment for the exact property before signing. Rates and rules can change.

Questions to ask

  • Does the cadastral plan match the site and title plan?
  • Are the house, pool, terraces and outbuildings represented?
  • Is the Registry coordinated with Catastro?
  • Which discrepancy, if any, should be corrected and by whom?
  • Could the reference value affect the expected tax base?

Continue with legal checks before buying and our finca guide.

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