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 comes down to one special rule — the special expat tax regime, commonly called the Beckham Law.

The mechanism is simple: rather than paying progressive resident rates on everything you earn globally, you are taxed like a non-resident on your Spanish-source employment income, web at a fixed rate of 24% up to 600,000 euros with 47 percent applying beyond that threshold. For higher earners, the saving can be considerable.

Not everyone qualifies. As a general rule, you must have been non-resident in Spain for the previous five tax years, the move has to be tied to a job offer, a posting or a company directorship, and the activity must be performed principally on Spanish territory. The latest changes have widened the scope to digital nomads and some self-employed profiles.

The deadline is where most applications fail. The election must be filed within six months of registering with Spanish social security. Miss it and the regime is lost for the whole assignment. The benefit then runs for the year of arrival and the following five.

It does not suit every case. If you have significant income outside Spain, the interaction with wealth tax and reporting duties needs to be modelled first. A short analysis before applying is usually time well spent.

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