UK residents who want to buy a home in Spain could be faced with a tax of up to 100% as part of a plan suggested by the country's government.

The move was announced by Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez who said the "unprecedented" measure was necessary to meet the country's housing emergency.

He said: "The West faces a decisive challenge: To not become a society divided into two classes, the rich landlords and poor tenants."

The move will affect non-EU residents, of which the UK is part of, who bought 27,000 properties in Spain in 2023, Sánchez claimed.

He said these properties were purchased "not to live in" but "to make money from them," BBC News reports.

"Which, in the context of shortage that we are in, [we] obviously cannot allow," he added.

The move was therefore designed to "priorit[ise] that the available homes are for residents", he said.

Sánchez did not provide details on how the tax would work nor a timeline for presenting it to parliament for approval, where he has often struggled to gather sufficient votes to pass legislation.

But his government said the proposal would be finalised "after careful study".

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It was one of a dozen planned measures announced by the prime minister on Monday (January 13) aimed at improving housing affordability in the country.

Other measures announced include a tax exemption for landlords who provide affordable housing, transferring more than 3,000 homes to a new public housing body, and tighter regulation and higher taxes on tourist flats.

"It isn't fair that those who have three, four or five apartments as short-term rentals pay less tax than hotels," he said.