What it costs to buy, own and sell a house in Slovenia

Citizens and companies of EU, OECD and EFTA countries buy in Slovenia on the same terms as Slovenians, with no reciprocity procedure. For anyone buying property in Slovenia as a foreigner, the tax side of a resale house then comes down to one levy: the davek na promet nepremičnin (DPN), 2% of the price (ZDPN-2, art. 9). The law puts it on the seller (art. 5); the buyer pays it only if the contract says so (art. 6). On the coast that clause is common: many listings ask the buyer to take over the DPN instead of paying an agent.

If you take it over, three details matter:

• The seller remains the debtor. If you do not pay, FURS charges interest and enforces against the seller, who can then claim it from you under the contract.
• The base is everything the seller receives, including any debts of the old owner you assume. If the price is below the market, FURS may use a value of its own, which you can contest with an expert's report. The GURS generalised value is no longer the base (Constitutional Court, U-I-168/15).
• The timetable is short. The seller files within 15 days of the contract, and the tax is due within 30 days of the assessment. Without FURS's confirmation of payment, no notary authenticates the signatures and the land registry does not move.

New builds follow another rule. If the seller is VAT-registered (a developer, a builder) and the sale comes before first occupation or within two years of it, the price carries Slovenian VAT (DDV) instead of DPN: 22%, or 9.5% for a permanent home of up to 120 m² of useful area in an apartment building, or 250 m² in a single-family house, counting habitable rooms only. A new house sold by a private owner pays DPN. When a business sells a building it has renovated so substantially that its use or condition changes, the sale can fall back into VAT (FURS clarification 4230-98/2026, after the EU Court's C-239/22). FURS judges it case by case, and not every renovation qualifies: worth checking on houses refurbished by investors.

A Slovenian purchase is a private written contract, not a notarial deed as in Italy or Germany. The notary's core task is narrow: to authenticate the seller's signature on the authorisation to register the transfer, the zemljiškoknjižno dovolilo (Zakon o notariatu, art. 64), without answering for the content of the contract unless the parties choose a full notarial deed (notarski zapis). The checks a notary makes in Italy are the buyer's job here: budget for a lawyer of your own. The steps are in the buying guide.

The official fees, on the €600,000 example:

• Signature authentication: €52 in the band from €68,850 to €150,000, plus €11 for each further €50,000, capped at €114; plus €16 because on a property sale the notary must check FURS's confirmation (art. 64(9)). With 22% DDV, €159, plus office expenses of 2% (at most €523); a 25% surcharge, which can rise to 100%, may apply for a foreign language or foreign law (tariff, art. 3).
• Land-registry application prepared by the notary: €42 plus DDV, €51. Even when the application is filed online by the buyer, a lawyer or an agency, the originals must reach a notary within three working days; only an application made in person at the court registry, for your own entry, avoids the notary.
• Court fee for the registration (ZST-1, tariff 91011): €80 from €70,000 to €300,000, rising by bands to €250 at €1,000,000; at the example price, €200. Unpaid within 8 days, the application counts as withdrawn.
• Optional: a full notarial deed, €576 plus DDV between €367,200 and €750,000; keeping the price in the notary's escrow account, out of reach of the notary's creditors, €510 in the band ending at €550,000, €521 up to €575,000 and so on, to at most €912: here €649 with DDV.

A full deed with a party who does not master the official language needs two witnesses or a second notary, plus a sworn interpreter unless the notary and the witnesses (or the second notary) speak the party's language. In the bilingual coastal area, which is defined settlement by settlement rather than by whole municipality, Italian speakers are entitled to the deed in both languages (art. 13).

Since 3 October 2025 Slovenian law sets no ceiling on agents' commission: the Constitutional Court struck down the old 4% limit (UL 76/2025), and guides that still quote it, the state's SPOT portal among them, are out of date. From the coastal listings and agency price lists we read on 1 October 2026:

• Sellers pay in practice 3%–4%, usually plus DDV.
• Buyers, in most listings that say anything, are offered one of two formulas: 2% + 22% DDV (€14,640 on €600,000), often worded as a reimbursement of the seller's selling costs, or taking over the DPN with no commission. A handful ask nothing; very few ask more than 2%.

Two rules protect the buyer. An agent is paid only by a party that has signed a brokerage contract with it (ZNPosr, art. 5(3)), and a clause in the sale contract that shifts the seller's agent fee onto you may not hold up (art. 5(5)): before agreeing to any reimbursement, ask in writing who your contract is with. And the agent must explain the purchase costs to the buyer (art. 17(1) p. 3). Without a cap, the only brake on an excessive commission is a court (OZ, art. 849(3)).

TriesteVillas does not broker property in Slovenia today: these figures describe the market, not an offer.

A house bought from a private owner for €600,000 by an individual, without a mortgage. The price is chosen for comparison, not because it is typical: the median recorded house sale, from 2023 to August 2026, was €250,000 in the municipality of Koper and €428,000 in Piran (real sale prices). The percentages travel better than the totals; the purchase cost calculator redoes every line at your price.

Scenario	Taxes, notary, registry	Buyer's agent share	Total	Share of price
Slovenia, as the law reads: DPN with the seller, no agent	about €410	none	about €410	0.1%
Slovenia, buyer takes over the DPN, no agent	about €12,410	none	about €12,410	2.1%
Slovenia, DPN with the seller, agent 2% + DDV	about €410	€14,640	about €15,050	2.5%
Italy (Trieste), second home, cadastral income €2,000	€25,708–€27,904	€21,960	€47,668–€49,864	7.9%–8.3%
Italy, same house with first-home relief	€7,648–€9,844	€21,960	€29,608–€31,804	4.9%–5.3%
Austria	€27,661 + lawyer	€21,600	€49,261 + lawyer	8.2% + lawyer
Germany, Bavaria	about €26,588	€21,420	about €48,008	8%
Germany, North Rhine-Westphalia or Brandenburg	about €44,588	€21,420	about €66,008	11%

In the two formulas seen in coastal listings, Slovenia costs between a fifth and a third of a second home in Trieste, Austria or Germany bought through an agent, and between two fifths and half of an Italian first-home purchase. Without agents the gap narrows but stays: 2.1% in Slovenia even with the DPN, against 4.3%–4.7% for a second home in Trieste, 4.4% in Bavaria, 4.6% plus the lawyer in Austria and 7.4% in North Rhine-Westphalia. The exception is Italy's first-home relief, which requires moving your residence to the municipality within 18 months of the purchase, or working there: 1.3%–1.6% before agents.

The first Slovenian line is the law, not the market: coastal listings that state terms usually ask the buyer to cover either the DPN or the agent. Paying both, which we did not see in the listings, would bring the total to about 4.5%. Left out everywhere: the Slovenian notary's office expenses, translators and your own lawyer.

Italy. When an individual buys a home from a seller who does not charge VAT, the tax can be calculated on the cadastral value instead of the price (the prezzo-valore rule): cadastral income raised by 5% and multiplied by 120 for a second home, by 110 for a first home. Registration tax is 9% of that value (2% with first-home relief), at least €1,000, plus €100 of fixed mortgage and cadastral taxes. The €2,000 income is an example, not a data point: at €1,500 the registration tax would be €17,010, at €3,000 €34,020. A company buyer pays 9% of the price itself. Notary roughly 0.4%–0.7% of the price plus 22% VAT (€2,928–€5,124 here), an estimate rather than a tariff; agent typically 3% + VAT per party.

Austria. Transfer tax (Grunderwerbsteuer) 3.5%; land-register entry fee 1.1% plus a €61 filing fee for an electronic application, the temporary exemption having expired on 30 June 2026; agent at most 3% + 20% VAT per party. A lawyer or notary drafts the contract and holds the money in trust, for a fee we have not found documented.

Germany. Grunderwerbsteuer set by each Land, from 3.5% in Bavaria to 6.5% in North Rhine-Westphalia and Brandenburg. The notarial deed is compulsory (§311b BGB) and priced by the GNotKG: at €600,000 one fee unit is €1,095, so the deed with execution and supervision (3.0 units) comes to about €3,945 with expenses and VAT, and the land register (1.5 units) to about €1,643. The buyer's half of the commission, typically 3% + 19% VAT (€21,420 here), is market practice, not a legal rate.

The Austrian and German figures are estimates from official tariffs and statutes that this site is still re-reading; the German transfer tax depends on the Land where the house stands.

Slovenia's unified property tax never arrived: the 2013 law was annulled by the Constitutional Court in 2014 (U-I-313/13), and in September 2026 FURS still describes the two older levies:

• Davek od premoženja, a tax on buildings, owed by foreign owners too, and also when the house is let. The base is a points value (floor area, quality, age) and the rate is progressive. If the owner or family lives there permanently, the value of 160 m² is deducted; a non-resident's second home gets no deduction. First owners of a new building are exempt for ten years.
• NUSZ (nadomestilo za uporabo stavbnega zemljišča), a charge for the use of building land, set by each municipality by decree and collected by FURS from the direct user, owner or tenant. Buyers of a new flat can ask for a five-year exemption.

We have not yet read the decrees of Koper, Izola, Piran, Ankaran or the Karst municipalities, so we print no amounts. After buying, file the property-tax return within 15 days and notify the municipality.

Italian tax residents owe IVIE: 1.06% a year since 2024, in proportion to share and months owned. For property in the EU the base is the cadastral value set abroad for income or property tax purposes or, failing that, the purchase cost. Nothing is due below €200, and the Slovenian property tax paid is deducted. In the worst case, on a cost base of €600,000, that is €6,360 a year. While the house is not let, IVIE replaces Italian income tax on it (DL 201/2011, art. 19, c. 15-ter).

Residence. More than 183 days a year in Slovenia, or a habitual abode or centre of interests there, makes you tax-resident and taxable on worldwide income: count the days before buying to live there half the year.

Long lets are taxed in Slovenia at a final 25% (ZDoh-2, art. 135.č) on the rent minus a flat 10% allowance, or minus documented maintenance costs. Non-residents pay it too: rent from a Slovenian property is Slovenian income wherever the owner lives. With the flat allowance the tax comes to an effective 22.5% of the gross rent. With a private tenant, the owner files by 28 February for the previous year.

Slovenia taxes first: under the treaty with Austria, FURS notes, the country where the property lies has the priority right to tax rents and gains; treaties with Germany and Italy are also in force. How your home country then avoids taxing the same income twice is a question for an adviser there. For Italian residents, a let property enters IRPEF at the net amount assessed in Slovenia, the rent minus the 10% allowance, with a credit for the Slovenian tax (TUIR, art. 70(2) and art. 165).

Short lets through Airbnb or Booking are business income, declared by 31 March. Since 1 January 2026 the ZGos-1 requires registration with AJPES and an ID number in every listing, limits private hosts to 180 days a year and counts a single-family house as one unit; in high-pressure municipalities, the coastal ones among them, it sets a lower base limit that each municipality can move within a range fixed by the law. Koper voted on 29 September 2026 for 270 days from the following year, not yet seen in the Official Gazette, and an emergency law (ZIURS), which would suspend the rules until the end of 2026 and cut the tax on rent, awaits a referendum not before 22 November 2026. Details in the short-term rental guide.

Slovenia taxes the gain on a sale at 25% in the first five years of ownership, 20% from five to ten, 15% from ten to fifteen and nothing after 15 years (until the end of 2021 the exemption came only after 20). The seller files within 15 days of the sale contract and also owes the 2% DPN on the sale, unless the new buyer takes it over.

The acquisition cost includes value-adding investments, the DPN paid on purchase, any inheritance or gift tax paid, and an expert's report up to €188. If you took over the DPN when you bought, keep the proof of payment. The gain is then reduced by flat costs of 1% of the purchase value plus 1% of the sale price. Example: a house sold after six years pays 20% on what remains.

The exemption for one's own home (a house with at most two dwellings, registered residence, owned and lived in for at least three years) rarely helps a non-resident.