The Beckham Law in Spain: who qualifies and how to apply

The Beckham Law in Spain: who qualifies and how to apply

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Taking a job in Spain raises one question very quickly: what your tax bill will look like. For many incoming professionals, the answer comes down to one special rule — the special expat tax regime, better known as the Beckham Law.

The mechanism is simple: rather than paying progressive resident rates on everything you earn globally, you are treated as a non-resident for tax purposes on the income you earn in Spain, at a flat rate of 24 percent on the first 600,000 euros and 47% above that. For higher earners, the special tax regime for expats in Spain saving can be considerable.

Not everyone qualifies. 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 activity must be performed principally on Spanish territory. Recent reforms opened the door to remote workers and certain entrepreneurs.

The deadline is where most applications fail. You have to apply within six months of starting the activity that triggers residence. Let that window close and the regime is lost for the whole assignment. The benefit then runs for the year of arrival and the following five.

It is not automatically the better option. Where a large part of your wealth sits abroad, the interaction with wealth tax and reporting duties needs to be modelled first. Running the numbers in advance avoids an expensive mistake.

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