News
News
Assoimmobiliare

News / Insights

Friday, october 24, 2025

EPRA. The impact of European REITs on countries' tax revenues.

EPRA. The impact of European REITs on countries' tax revenues.

The EPRA study analyzes the total tax contribution of 48 listed European REITs, comparing it for the first time with that of 46 large European multinationals included in PwC’s European Business Tax Forum. The REITs analyzed, spread across eleven countries, generated a total of approximately €4 billion in taxes, of which 43% were direct taxes and 57% were collected—as withholding taxes—on behalf of the government. REITs pay an average of 32.8% of their revenue in taxes, more than double that of large multinational groups (approximately 15.5%), and well above the levels of the financial or public services sectors, which stand at around 17%. This highlights how, for companies of comparable size, REITs offer a significantly higher tax yield than other economic sectors. The composition of the tax burden shows that REITs bear a higher share of taxes compared to other sectors, primarily through property taxes and payroll taxes. On average, 63% of the taxes paid come from property taxes and taxes on property transactions, while only 12% consists of income taxes. In contrast, for large European multinationals, property taxes account for just 8% of the total, and income taxes for about 40%. This reflects the unique nature of REITs, which by their very nature distribute approximately 90% of taxable profits to shareholders—and are therefore subject to lower direct taxation—though this is offset by indirect taxation on dividends and a significant contribution in terms of property and consumption taxes. In terms of contributions collected as withholding taxes, REITs act as significant intermediaries for tax revenues derived from withholding taxes on dividends (34%) and taxes on goods and services such as VAT on rents or sales (51%). A further indicator of the tax impact of REITs concerns the contribution per employee: the 48 REITs considered employ a total of approximately 10,900 people and generate about €369,000 in taxes per worker, a figure second only to the energy sector and nearly double the financial sector’s average of €180,000. This figure reflects the sector’s capital intensity and its structural role in generating local and national tax revenue. This data, combined with the stability of property taxes and the ability to generate consistent revenue even during economic downturns, confirms that having a well-designed and stabilized REIT market does not reduce tax revenue but makes it more predictable and resilient.