How to look up a property in the Spanish Catastro: by address, cadastral reference or map

Before you start: what the Catastro is, and what it is not

The Catastro is an administrative register that reports to Spain’s Ministry of Finance and describes rural, urban and special-category properties. Registration in it is compulsory and free, which, as the Catastro itself explains, is what sets it apart from the Land Registry (Registro de la Propiedad).

For any property, anyone may consult the non-protected data. The owner, their address and the cadastral value are protected data (art. 51 of the consolidated Cadastre Act) and do not appear in the open lookup.

Step by step: how to find a property

1. Go to the Catastro’s online office

   Open sedecatastro.gob.es (the Sede Electrónica del Catastro). You do not need a digital certificate to consult non-protected data. There are two ways in: the property search and the map viewer.

2. Search by cadastral reference

   If you have it, it is the most precise route. You do not need to type all of it: the first 7 characters are enough for an urban property and the first 14 for a rural one. The reference appears on the IBI (property tax) bill, on the title deed and on the nota simple.

3. Or search by address

   Choose the province, type the municipality and say whether the property is urban or rural. For urban, enter the street and number; for a flat you can narrow it down by block, staircase, floor and door.

4. Or by polygon and plot

   On rural land, instead of street and number you are asked for the polígono (polygon) and parcela (plot) numbers. Choose province and municipality, tick rural and enter both numbers.

5. Or find it on the map

   In the map viewer you can also search by coordinates, or pan around and click on the plot. It is how you find a property when you do not know its exact address.

6. Download the descriptive and graphic report

   From the result, the “Consulta descriptiva y gráfica” link generates a free PDF with the reference, the areas, the use and the plot outline. Keep it — but note the Catastro’s own warning: it is not a certificate and has no legal validity whatsoever.

How to read the 20-character cadastral reference

The cadastral reference (referencia catastral) is the code that identifies each property, and it must appear on documents with economic or tax significance (art. 6.3 of the Cadastre Act). It has 20 characters, split differently for urban and rural property, as the Catastro explains:

• Urban: the first 7 identify the plot; the next 7, the map sheet it sits on; the next 4, the unit within the plot; and the last 2 are control characters.
• Rural: 2 for the province, 3 for the municipality, 1 for the sector, 3 for the polygon, 5 for the plot, 4 for the unit within the plot and 2 control characters.

Either way, the first 14 positions identify the plot and the next 4 distinguish each unit within it. That is why every flat in the same building shares the first 14 characters and only differs from the 15th onwards.

Downloading the plot outline

From the map viewer you can download the plot geometry for free, in formats such as GML, DXF or XML. The INSPIRE GML file is the one used to coordinate the Catastro with the Land Registry, which records the georeferenced outline of properties on the basis of cadastral mapping.

The Basque Country and Navarre have their own cadastre

In the three Basque provinces and in Navarre the cadastre is foral: each territory runs its own, and the Catastro’s online office is not the way in. Lookups are done here:

• Álava, on the Provincial Council’s finance website.
• Bizkaia, at the Bizkaia Cadastre.
• Gipuzkoa, at the provincial online office.
• Navarre, at the Territorial Wealth Registry, with its map viewer at catastro.navarra.es.

What the Catastro does not tell you, and where to look

Who owns it and what is charged on it: the nota simple

Ownership and charges are recorded in the Land Registry. The quick way to see them is the nota simple, requested through the Spanish Association of Registrars at an official cost of €9.02 plus VAT. It contains the property description, the owner and any charges, but it is purely informative: the only way to prove the Registry’s contents with full legal effect is a certificate signed by the registrar.

The Catastro and the Registry do not always match: different areas, boundaries that do not line up, or extensions recorded in one and not the other. Comparing them with the cadastral reference and a nota simple before you commit takes a quarter of an hour; discovering it at the notary can cost you the deal.

What may be built: planning

The use recorded in the Catastro is a tax classification, not a planning one. What may be built is set by the municipal plan and confirmed by the town hall with a planning certificate (cédula or certificado urbanístico). We explain it in the Spanish cadastre is not planning permission.

In Andalusia, the regional government publishes the VITUA viewer with territorial and planning information. It is informative only: where there is a discrepancy, the official planning document always prevails.

On your phone: Catastro_app

The Catastro has an official app, Catastro_app, for Android and iOS. It is designed for your own properties and asks you to identify yourself with Cl@ve, an electronic certificate, or your DNI/NIE plus the cadastral reference of a property you own. To look up someone else’s property, use the online office in your phone’s browser.

If you work with plots every day

The online office is built for looking up one property at a time. On the Domuspace cadastral map you get the official plots for the whole province of Málaga, and all of Estonia, coloured by the outcome at each door in six statuses, so the team can see which areas have been worked.

The twin guide for Estonia is how to use the Estonian cadastral map. If you work on the Costa del Sol, see Domuspace on the Costa del Sol.

This guide is informational and is not legal advice. Data, prices and screens were checked on 28 September 2026 against the official websites linked above.