How to Track and Report ETF Dividends on DEGIRO

Investing in distributing ETFs — those that periodically pay out dividends as cash into your brokerage account — is a popular strategy for generating passive income streams.

If you use a low-cost foreign broker like DEGIRO, buying these ETFs is extremely affordable and straightforward. However, when it comes to tracking your income and reporting these dividends to the tax authorities in Spain (or your home country), complexity increases considerably.

In this guide, we explain step by step how to track and report your ETF dividends on DEGIRO, what withholding taxes are, how to avoid double taxation, and how to simplify your financial bookkeeping.

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1. How Does DEGIRO Pay Dividends?

When you hold shares in a distributing ETF (e.g., a Vanguard FTSE All-World High Dividend Yield ETF), on the dividend payment date you will receive a credit in your DEGIRO account.

• Gross amount: The total money distributed by the fund per share.
• Withholding tax: The tax that the country where the asset is domiciled (or where the broker operates) automatically deducts before the money reaches your balance.
• Net amount: The actual cash that ends up in your account and that you can withdraw or reinvest.

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2. The Taxation of Foreign Dividends in Spain

Dividends are taxed in the Spanish income tax return (IRPF) within the savings income base at rates ranging from 19% to 28% on total net gains for the year.

The major problem with investing in international ETFs is international double taxation: you pay taxes in the country of origin of the dividend and then again in Spain.

Source Withholding Tax

• Irish ETFs (UCITS): Ireland has a 0% tax rate on dividends distributed by funds to non-residents. This is why the vast majority of European ETFs are domiciled in Ireland (their ISIN starts with IE). This significantly simplifies the initial withholding.
• US or other-country ETFs: If you invest directly in US-domiciled ETFs or stocks (ISIN US), a 15% withholding will apply (if you have signed the W-8BEN form at DEGIRO) instead of the standard 30%.

How to Declare and Avoid Double Taxation

When filing your tax return in Spain, you must include the gross dividends in Box 029 (Income from movable capital).

To recover taxes paid abroad, you must complete the “International Double Taxation” section (Box 588). The law allows you to deduct the lesser of:

1. The amount of tax withheld abroad.
2. 15% of the gross dividend amount (per most of Spain’s international tax treaties).

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3. How to Track Your DEGIRO Dividends

To keep your tax information organised and avoid surprises in April, follow this workflow:

1. Use DEGIRO’s Annual Report: In late March or early April, DEGIRO publishes a detailed annual report in the Documents section for Spanish tax returns. This PDF contains total gross amounts received and source withholdings already broken down, ready to copy into the relevant boxes.
2. Keep a local transaction log (Ledger): It is strongly recommended to keep a record of each monthly or quarterly payment. Note the ETF’s ISIN, date, gross amount, source withholding, and the applicable exchange rate if the dividend was paid in dollars or another currency.
3. Keep receipts: DEGIRO generates a statement for each dividend credit. Download and save them to justify source withholding in case of an audit or tax authority enquiry.

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4. The Boglehead Alternative: Accumulating ETFs

If calculating source withholdings, filling in Box 588, and declaring gross dividends sounds like unnecessary hassle, the pure passive investing solution is simple: invest in Accumulating (Acc) ETFs.

Accumulating ETFs automatically reinvest all received dividends back into the fund itself.

• Operational advantage: You receive no cash, so there is no taxable event. You don’t have to declare anything annually to the tax authorities.
• Tax advantage: 100% of the gross dividend is reinvested in full, accelerating the compound interest effect. You will only pay taxes when you decide to sell your ETF shares, perhaps decades later at retirement.

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Centralise Your Assets with CoreBalance

Whatever your dividend strategy, CoreBalance helps you stay in control of your investments in a professional, local-first way.

You can record both your accumulating and distributing ETFs alongside your traditional index funds in the tool. CoreBalance calculates the real weight of your assets in seconds and lets you rebalance your portfolio swiftly by adding the dividends you collect from DEGIRO to your monthly savings plan — all with absolute privacy in your own browser, without your confidential information ending up in the cloud.