Spain's special regime for inbound workers —popularly known as the Beckham Law— allows the taxpayer to be taxed as a non-resident during the year of the move and the following five. The attraction is a flat 24% on the first €600,000 of Spanish-source income. Anything above that threshold jumps to 47%. The door closes to anyone who has been a Spanish tax resident in any of the five tax years preceding the move.
Statutory basis
The governing rule is Article 93 LIRPF (Law 35/2006, as amended by Law 28/2022 on Startups, in force since 1 January 2023). The regulatory build-out sits in Articles 113 onwards of Royal Decree 439/2007. Put plainly: Spanish personal income tax runs on a general regime and a special one, and whoever meets the entry conditions opts into the latter for six tax years. The 2022 reform widened the subjective scope —directors with holdings below 25%, digital nomads and highly-qualified professionals came in— and opened the door for the spouse and minor children to join under certain conditions.
Entry conditions (2026)
- No Spanish tax residence in the 5 tax years preceding the move (before the reform, the lookback was 10 years).
- Trigger for the move: (a) employment contract with a Spanish employer or secondment letter from a foreign company; (b) appointment as director of a Spanish entity (provided the entity is not an asset-holding vehicle and the holding does not exceed 25%); (c) entrepreneurial activity under Art. 70 Law 14/2013; or (d) highly-qualified professional servicing startups.
- Filing window: Form 149 before the AEAT within 6 months of registration with Social Security or of the activity start date.
- No income obtained through a permanent establishment in Spain (except in the Startup-Law-defined scenarios).
Comparative taxation
| Gross annual income | General IRPF (approx.) | Beckham Law (24%) | Estimated saving |
|---|---|---|---|
| €100,000 | ~€37,000 | €24,000 | ~€13,000 |
| €200,000 | ~€82,000 | €48,000 | ~€34,000 |
| €300,000 | ~€128,000 | €72,000 | ~€56,000 |
| €500,000 | ~€218,000 | €120,000 | ~€98,000 |
Estimates for tax year 2026, not factoring in regional deductions. Income above €600,000 is taxed at 47%.
Savings income under the Beckham Law
The point that generates the most client queries is the treatment of savings income. Foreign-source dividends, interest and capital gains fall outside Spanish taxation while the regime is in force, because the taxpayer files as non-resident (only Spanish-source income is taxed). Spanish-source savings income is taxed at the IRNR rate —19% as a general matter, subject to the withholding adjustments each Double Tax Treaty (DTT) imposes at source. The operational consequence is direct: well-structured international portfolios can cross the six years of the regime without Spanish taxation on foreign returns, provided there is no permanent establishment and no Spanish underlying asset.
Formal obligations
- Form 149 (application for the regime)
- Form 151 (annual return under the special regime, in place of Form 100)
- Form 720 (declaration of assets held abroad): not required while the regime is in force, because the taxpayer files as non-resident
- Wealth Tax / Solidarity Tax on Large Fortunes: real obligation (Spanish-situs assets only)
Where the regime is lost
The six-month window to file Form 149 admits no extension and no correction after the fact. The AEAT, which routinely takes eighteen months to rule on an appeal, grants the taxpayer one hundred and eighty days to get it right. It follows that the formal error is the most frequent reason for exclusion. Setting aside the missed deadline, three other fault lines remain:
- Supervening loss of the entry conditions: termination of the employment that justified the move, loss of the secondment letter, or the director appointment mutating into a holding above 25% in an asset-holding entity.
- DTT residence conflict: if the taxpayer acquires tax residence in a third country with a treaty in force and that treaty allocates residence away from Spain under the Article 4.2 tie-breaker of the OECD Model, the regime falls.
- Inheritance and Gift Tax: filing as non-resident places the inpatriate under real obligation (Spanish-situs assets only), which in cross-border succession scenarios may cut either way depending on the autonomous region and the jurisdiction of the assets.
Typical collision: Spain against Germany
An inpatriate electing Art. 93 LIRPF who keeps ties to Germany remains unbeschränkt steuerpflichtig —subject to unlimited German tax liability— if a Wohnsitz (dwelling kept available) or gewöhnlicher Aufenthalt (habitual abode above six months) persists, under §§ 8 and 9 of the Abgabenordnung. Against that backdrop, the Spain–Germany DTT of 3 February 2011 resolves the clash through the Article 4.2 tie-breaker, with the particularity that Spain claims residence during the six years of the regime even against stronger personal ties to Germany. The practice of Finanzamt Dortmund and of other Finanzämter in the NRW industrial belt confirms that winding up the German Wohnsitz —evidenced by municipal Abmeldung and effective closure of the dwelling— is a de facto prerequisite to shut down German tax exposure while the Spanish regime runs.
Position of the firm
Our reading is that Law 28/2022 widened the regime to profiles that previously fell outside it, but tightened control: since 2024 the AEAT cross-checks Form 149 against Social Security registration and SEPE records, and a formal error within the six-month window forecloses access with no cure available. Which is why we work to four verification milestones before filing Form 149: contract origin and secondment chain, Spanish tax history across the five previous years, complete map of foreign-source income, and actual exposure to the Wealth Tax or the Solidarity Tax on Large Fortunes. If the fit is not clean, we say so before anything is filed.