Notes related to ARCO

SPAIN’S 21% VAT ON ART IS PUTTING GALLERIES AT A COMPETITIVE DISADVANTAGE

Spain applies a 21% VAT to gallery sales of artworks, a rate in place since 2012. In contrast, other cultural sectors benefit from reduced rates: cinema, theatre and concerts are taxed at 10%, and books at 4%. Contemporary art galleries, however, remain subject to the general rate.

By Sancho-Arroyo, María
MARKET

SPAIN’S 21% VAT ON ART IS PUTTING GALLERIES AT A COMPETITIVE DISADVANTAGE

By Sancho-Arroyo, María

Spain applies a 21% VAT to gallery sales of artworks, a rate in place since 2012. In contrast, other cultural sectors benefit from reduced rates: cinema, theatre and concerts are taxed at 10%, and books at 4%. Contemporary art galleries, however, remain subject to the general rate.

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eZ debug

Timing: Feb 26 2026 20:54:05
Script start
Timing: Feb 26 2026 20:54:05
Module start 'content'
Timing: Feb 26 2026 20:54:05
Module end 'content'
Timing: Feb 26 2026 20:54:06
Script end

Main resources:

Total runtime0.1026 sec
Peak memory usage4,352.0000 KB
Database Queries63

Timing points:

CheckpointStart (sec)Duration (sec)Memory at start (KB)Memory used (KB)
Script start 0.00000.0089 912.7422607.4766
Module start 'content' 0.00900.0104 1,520.2188602.3438
Module end 'content' 0.01940.0832 2,122.56251,649.7109
Script end 0.1026  3,772.2734 

Time accumulators:

 Accumulator Duration (sec) Duration (%) Count Average (sec)
Ini load
Load cache0.00222.1887150.0001
Mysql Total
Database connection0.00131.270610.0013
Mysqli_queries0.023122.5334630.0004
Looping result0.00060.5866630.0000
TS translator
TS init0.00191.835630.0006
TS cache load0.00100.970630.0003
TS context load0.00080.817530.0003
Template Total0.082580.310.0825
Template load0.00282.686310.0028
Template processing0.079777.641710.0797
Template load and register function0.00040.390810.0004
Override
Cache load0.00100.925820.0005
Sytem overhead
Fetch class attribute name0.00060.588510.0006
Fetch class attribute can translate value0.00000.026310.0000
class_abstraction
Instantiating content class attribute0.00000.011610.0000
XML
Image XML parsing0.00363.525510.0036
states
state_id_array0.00181.748050.0004
state_identifier_array0.00181.757850.0004
General
dbfile0.013413.0770210.0006
String conversion0.00000.009820.0000
Note: percentages do not add up to 100% because some accumulators overlap

Time used to render debug report: 0.0003 secs