Spain's Beckham Law: who qualifies and how to apply

Spain's Beckham Law: who qualifies and how to apply

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Moving to Spain for work raises one question very quickly: what your tax bill will look like. For many incoming professionals, the answer depends on a single regime — the special expat tax regime, better known as the Beckham Law.

The mechanism is simple: instead of being taxed as a Spanish resident on your worldwide income, you are treated as a non-resident for tax purposes on your Spanish-source employment income, at a flat rate of 24 percent on the first 600,000 euros with 47 percent applying beyond that threshold. If your salary is significant, the difference is substantial.

The conditions are strict. In broad terms, you must not have been a Spanish tax resident in the five years before the move, your relocation must be linked to an employment contract or a director role, and the work must be carried out mainly in Spain. Recent reforms have widened the scope to remote workers and certain entrepreneurs.

Timing is the part people get wrong. You have to apply within six months of starting the activity that triggers residence. Miss it and you cannot recover it later. ver más Once granted, it applies for a total of six tax years.

It is not automatically the better option. Where a large part of your wealth sits abroad, the effect on wealth tax and on the 720 declaration needs to be modelled first. A short analysis before applying is usually time well spent.

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