Ida Ismail
For those who plan to sell their property, the best time is the next 12 months. From January 1 to December 2026. From the 15% tax you pay today, with the revaluation you can pay 5%. Interest groups demanded a 3% profit tax, but their request was not taken into account.
This initiative has been assessed as a good opportunity for citizens and businesses to reduce the fiscal burden. Minister of Finance, Petrit Malaj, during a meeting with the Builders Association and Chambers of Commerce, described the process as a necessary reform in the conditions of rising prices in the real estate market.
"From January 1, 2026, new reference prices for districts and the revaluation of real estate will come into effect. The new methodology will give individuals and businesses sufficient time to evaluate their assets and make tax payments on these values," Malaj declared.
How does the reassessment work?
The revaluation is calculated by approximating the registered value of the property in the Cadastre with the current market price. The tax is paid on the difference between the purchase price and the sale price.
If a citizen bought a property for 100 thousand euros and today sells it for 120 thousand euros, the tax on the difference of 20 thousand euros is 3 thousand euros at the current rate of 15%. With the new revaluation, the tax will be only 5% or 1 thousand euros. The savings are significant, but only for those who have certified property and are included in the scheme.
In addition to individuals, businesses can also revalue their properties, including apartments and land, but with a 5% tax. Property revaluation is not new, as 5 such campaigns have been conducted in the last 13 years.
- 2011-2013, 1% tax
- 2016-2017, 2% tax
- 2020-2022, 3% tax
- Currently, tax 15%
- 2026 (planned) 5% tax
In the years 2011-2013, more than 95 thousand properties were revalued, with a tax rate of 1%, and the state budget earned 39.8 million euros in revenue, as a result of the payment made by citizens and businesses for the difference between the value of their property and what emerged after the revaluation.
Three years later, in 2016-2017, the second revaluation campaign was carried out. This time the interest was lower as the interest rate doubled, from 1% to 2%. In total, 64,686 real estate properties were subjected to this process, while the state budget benefited by 56.9 million euros more as a result of the higher tax.
The last revaluation was carried out in the period 2020-2022, with a tax rate of 3%. From 168.200 completed properties, the state collected 12.7 billion lek, thanks to the significant increase in prices in the real estate market.
The next one is expected in January 2026, and based on INSTAT and CENSUS data from 2023, about 500 homes are potentially up for reassessment, most of them over 25 years old. But this cycle has created a new behavior in the market: Waiting. Homeowners keep their homes foreclosed and wait for the next revaluation to sell them.
Frozen market, high prices
In addition to owners and buyers, those who are waiting for the revaluation of real estate are real estate agents and market experts. They confirm that the current rate has directly influenced the freezing of transactions.
"When the tax is 15%, the owner cannot afford it and adds this cost to the final price. This has artificially inflated prices and driven away buyers," says AA, a real estate agent in Tirana.
While real estate expert Ervin Demirxhiu emphasizes that the revaluation may create a temporary normalization effect:
"Over the last six months, many certified properties have not been sold because the owners are waiting for the revaluation. Once they undergo the process, the properties will return en masse to the market, paving the way for buyers with bank loans," explains Demirxhiu.
According to the expert, the revaluation creates benefits for three categories: Citizens who reduce their fiscal burden, the state that collects more revenue even with a low rate, and buyers who are faced with more offers.
However, not all properties can benefit from the revaluation scheme. Excluded are properties undergoing legalization, for which the draft law does not provide a clear solution, although a large part of the housing stock in the suburbs does not yet have a final title.
More problematic is the exclusion of apartments purchased under enterprise contracts, a form of purchase that has become widespread in the last decade. These contracts are registered with the State Cadastre Agency and are used as collateral for bank loans, but are not included in the revaluation.
The paradox is clear: The property is recognized by the bank, but not by the revaluation scheme. The situation has been worsened by the latest Cadastre instruction, which provides for the refusal to register purchase contracts if there are planimetric changes or inaccuracies in the documents, a common problem in construction in recent years.
The National Association of Real Estate Agents (NAREA) has officially submitted a package of proposals for changes to the draft law, where among the main points is the imposition of a 3% profit tax for residential properties and 5% for other properties. NAREA also proposed the inclusion of custom contracts, first home incentives and the correction of capital gains with inflation and financial costs.
Meanwhile, economic expert Romina Radonshiqi said that individuals who own a property and currently have no plans to sell it can choose not to be part of the revaluation. Regarding the 10% reduction in profit tax, Radonshiqi underlined that the current rate has been high and has encouraged under-declaration and inflated real estate prices.
"The revaluation process also serves the government, as it enables the collection of revenue from the payment of the revaluation tax for a short period of time," she says.
Officially, the revaluation aims for fiscal justice and harmonization with the market. In practice, a campaign undertaken several times over the years seems to have also functioned as an instrument for the rapid collection of revenues for the state treasury.acqj.al
