Requirement 1 — Five years without Spanish tax residence
You must not have been a tax resident in Spain in any of the five tax years before the one in which you move. This rules out returning Spaniards who left recently, and anyone who spent long enough in Spain in the previous years to have become resident, even without realising it. Having owned a holiday home here is not a problem in itself; having been tax resident is.
Requirement 2 — A reason for relocating that the law accepts
The move must happen because of one of these, and you will need to prove it with documents when you file Form 149:
- Employment: A contract with a Spanish employer, or a posting to Spain ordered by your current employer (posting letter). Professional sportspeople are excluded.
- Remote work: Working at a distance for a foreign employer using telematic means — the category that covers holders of Spain’s international teleworking visa (digital nomad visa), added in 2023.
- Company director: Taking up the role of director of a Spanish company. If the company is an asset-holding entity, you cannot hold a stake that makes you a related party.
- Entrepreneur: Starting an economic activity classed as entrepreneurial, with a favourable report from ENISA.
- Highly qualified professional: Providing services to start-ups, or carrying out training, research, development or innovation work, with remuneration above 40% of your total business and employment income.
Requirement 3 — No permanent establishment in Spain
You cannot earn income through a permanent establishment in Spain — in practice, no self-employed business run from here — except in the entrepreneur and highly-qualified categories, which exist precisely to allow it.
The deadline: six months, and no second chances
The election is made on Form 149 within six months of the start date shown on your Spanish Social Security registration — or, where registration is not required, the start date on the document that proves your activity. Family members count six months from their arrival in Spain, or the same deadline as the main applicant if later. The deadline is final: a late Form 149 is simply rejected, and the regime is lost for that relocation. Everything else — residence certificates, the employer’s withholdings at 24%, your first Form 151 during the next income-tax campaign — follows from getting this one filing right.
What the 24% actually covers
The flat rate applies to employment income, which is taxed in full regardless of where the work is performed or who pays. Up to €600,000 the rate is 24%; above that, 47%. Other income is taxed in Spain only if it is Spanish-source: foreign dividends, interest and rents stay outside Spanish tax. Spanish savings income has its own scale from 19% to 30%. You lose the personal and family allowances and most deductions of the ordinary regime, and you become liable to Wealth Tax on your Spanish assets only. The regime runs for the year you become resident plus the five following years.
When it is not worth it
The regime is designed for high salaries. On a mid-range salary the ordinary scale, with its personal and family allowances, can come out equal or lower. It also loses its appeal if most of your income is not employment income, or if you have substantial deductions the regime strips away. And because renouncing is irrevocable, the comparison has to be done before electing, with your real payslip — not after the first annual return. That calculation is the first thing we do in a free consultation.
We handle the whole Beckham file: eligibility and numbers, Form 149 within the deadline, annual Form 151, Wealth Tax, and coordination with your employer. English spoken, remote, from an established firm in Alicante.