At the start of 2025, all Madrid residents who own a home or premises will receive a new receipt from Madrid City Hall for their home. There will be 1.7 million letters with the cost of the garbage tax, which the municipality recovers after ten years of absence, thanks to a state law that requires all municipalities to collect it.
The amount of each receipt is still unknown and the State Treasury has so far only proposed the average amount of the tax, around 140 euros throughout the city. But the figures from the budget project for next year allow us to put forward the average costs that the tariff will have in each of the 131 districts of the capital.
According to calculations carried out by Más Madrid using the average cadastral values per neighborhood in 2023 and applying the formula for calculating the tax rate, the opposition party estimated an average waste rate, with significant variations depending on the neighborhoods .
The price includes a basic part, linked to the cadastral value of each dwelling, and another complementary part, which takes into account the quantity of waste generated and the percentage of quality of the separation of each of the neighborhoods, according to data from Valdemingómez . Technology park.
In this way, the neighborhoods that pay the most will be those where housing is the most expensive in Madrid, although in some cases the additional share varies considerably. The most expensive place is El Plantío (Moncloa-Aravaca district), with an average revenue of 574 euros, followed by El Viso (Chamartín) with 457 euros, Recoletos (Salamanca) with 430 euros and Los Jerónimos (Retiro) with 427 euros.
At the bottom of the statistics are the neighborhoods of San Cristóbal (Villaverde) with 45 euros, Pradolongo and Zofío (Usera) with 59.34 euros and Amposta (San Blas-Canillejas) with almost 62 euros.
The criterion for calculating the tariff was constructed by adding a base tariff, which all properties will pay for the availability of the waste collection and treatment service, and a tariff per generation. The first part (which weighs 81% on average, according to the Town Hall) takes into account the cadastral value of the house and for the second generation (the remaining 19%), it examines the quantity of waste generated and the quality percentage of the separation of each neighborhood.
The number of properties that will pay the rate is around 1.7 million, but garages and storage rooms associated with a home are exempt from paying as they do not generate waste and land and buildings are also not in ruin. Empty accommodation and premises where no activity is carried out will only pay the part corresponding to the basic rate of availability of the service, but will have to prove annually that they remain in this situation.
In the case of housing, the average bill to pay is 141 euros, while properties for commercial use will have an average fee of 310 euros. The first receipt will reach each taxpayer in the first months of 2025, in the form of a notification of registration of the rate with its corresponding statement, with a payment deadline of two months from receipt. In subsequent years, this individualized notification will no longer be necessary as it is managed through the registration system, just as is the case with the IBI.
Inequality in the complementary part
The calculations carried out by Más Madrid show significant differences between neighborhoods in the calculation of the additional tariff, which the party calculated on the basis of waste per person registered in the neighborhood (production rate), multiplied by a quality coefficient, based on waste sorting by district.
The result of the calculation indicates that the most vulnerable neighborhoods in the city will be those that contribute the most to variable costs. If we only look at this part of the payment, the list of contributions is very different from the final sum:
“Neighborhoods that are less cleaned and have more waste pay more, because the Almeida tax has no way of differentiating the management carried out by each Madrid resident,” laments Rita Maestre. “Simply by living in a neighborhood where there is more waste and less cleaning, you will pay more. Because inequalities in cleaning are a reality in Madrid.”
Maestre also assures that “the amount of the fee is directly linked to the management and treatment of waste that Almeida has done in the city of Madrid, which has been a disaster and has a negative impact on the southern neighborhoods. This rate is the result of this mayor’s worst garbage management. »
Más Madrid denounces the fact that southern neighborhoods have to pay more additional tax, in proportion, than those living in the north. “In addition, these are the neighborhoods that house all the city’s waste, that transport the incinerator, the sewage treatment plants, the landfills…” explains Maestre. “It should be the opposite, these neighborhoods should have bonuses or exemptions for to welcome “infrastructure linked to waste management and the treatment of contaminated water. »
His advisor for Finance and Economy, Sara Ladra, questions the very conception of the rate, verifying that the 80/20 proportion described by the mayor “is not true”. “There are neighborhoods in which the percentage of the rate they will pay for the kilos of waste generated by their neighborhood, modulated by the quality coefficient (depending on the quality of sorting) exceeds 50% of the total rate. this is the case of Entrevías or Aeropuerto,” he adds.
Finally, he indicates that the current calculation “is not rigorous and contains serious errors because there are obvious inconsistencies”. What Más Madrid believes is that “non-residential waste is clearly taken into account in the residential quota” and they demand that the figures be revised.
