The Beckham Law in Spain: requirements, deadlines and what it actually saves you

The Beckham Law in Spain: requirements, deadlines and what it actually saves you

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Moving to Spain for work raises one question very quickly: what your tax bill will look like. For a lot of expats, the answer comes down to one special rule — 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 taxed like a non-resident on the income you earn in Spain, at a flat rate of 24 percent on the first 600,000 euros with 47 percent applying beyond that threshold. For higher earners, the difference is substantial.

The conditions are strict. In broad terms, you must have been non-resident in Spain for the previous five tax years, the move has to be tied to a job offer, aquí a posting or a company directorship, and the activity must be performed principally on Spanish territory. Recent reforms have widened the scope to remote workers and certain entrepreneurs.

The deadline is where most applications fail. The election must be filed within six months of registering with Spanish social security. Let that window close and the regime is lost for the whole assignment. Once granted, it applies for a total of six tax years.

It does not suit every case. 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 is usually time well spent.

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