Setting up your activity in Spain when you are not from here
The NIE against the NIF, census registration before your first invoice, the 183 days that make you tax resident, the impatriate regime and the VAT of invoicing abroad. With the article of the legislation beside each statement.
First things first: Cairos is in Spanish
You can read this page in several languages, but the application you are going to work in is in Spanish only: the menus, the invoices, the tax forms and the help screens. There is no English version and there is still no date for one. Support answers in Spanish too. If you have just arrived in Spain and do not read Spanish comfortably, tell us before you decide: we would rather you knew now than found out on your first day. Our plans and their limits are on pricing.
If you settle in the Basque Country or Navarre, this changes
Álava, Bizkaia, Gipuzkoa and Navarre have their own foral tax regime: you do not file with the state Tax Agency but with their Hacienda Foral, which has its own forms, its own deadlines and its own rates. This page describes the common regime, which is the one that applies in the rest of Spain. And there is one difference worth knowing before any other: in Álava, Bizkaia and Gipuzkoa the invoicing obligation is not VeriFactu, it is TicketBAI, and it is already in force. In Navarre there is no equivalent system approved today. If you are going to settle there, start with that page and talk to an accountant based in that territory.
What everybody asks on arriving
Five pages, each with its own legislation. If you are only going to read one, start with the one that describes you.
NIE, NIF and CIF
Three names for two things, and one of them no longer exists. Which one applies to you and how to apply for it.
Registering as an autónomo
Form 036 before you start, registration with RETA, and what each permit lets you do.
Tax residence
The 183 days, the centre of economic interests and what a double taxation agreement does.
The impatriate regime
Article 93 of the Personal Income Tax Act: who qualifies, how long it lasts and the six-month deadline.
Invoicing outside Spain
Services to EU businesses, the ROI and VIES, form 349 and exports.
Working remotely from Spain
The visa under Ley 28/2022, how long it lasts and what happens at Hacienda once you start invoicing.
The real desk of someone who has just settled in Spain: an open laptop, a passport and a folder of paperwork. Natural light, no flags and no expat clichés, no recognisable faces.
Two very different situations that often get confused
Almost everything written about foreign nationals and Hacienda mixes up two cases that have little to do with each other. Separating them comes first, because which taxes you pay and to whom depends on it.
| You have a company in Spain | You come to Spain and work from here | |
|---|---|---|
| Who you are | A shareholder or director of a Spanish company, even if you live abroad. Or someone who settles here and builds the business in Spain. | A remote worker or professional who moves to Spain and invoices, often clients who are not in Spain. |
| What gets set up | A company — usually a sociedad de responsabilidad limitada, the S.L. — with its own tax identification number. | Nothing: you register yourself, as an individual, with Hacienda and with the Seguridad Social. |
| Who pays the tax on the profit | The company pays Corporation Tax. You are taxed on whatever the company distributes to you. | You, through IRPF if you are tax resident, or through the Income Tax for Non-Residents if you are not. |
| The number you need | A NIE for the shareholders and the director; the company's own NIF. | A NIE, which is also your NIF. |
| Where to go next | Setting up a company in Spain | Working remotely from Spain |
The two cases can happen at once: some people arrive on the remote-work visa, register as an autónomo and set up a company in their second year. What you cannot do is apply the rules of one to the other.
The order in which things are done
The order matters more than it looks, because each step needs the result of the one before. This is the path for someone settling in Spain to work on their own account.
The permit that lets you stay and work
Citizens of the European Union, the European Economic Area and Switzerland have the right to establish themselves here. Everyone else needs a visa or an authorisation allowing them to work on a self-employed basis. That is immigration law, not tax law: here we only place it in context.
The foreigner's identity number (NIE)
It is the number by which you exist as far as the Spanish administration is concerned. You apply for it at the Policía Nacional and, under article 206 of Real Decreto 557/2011, the procedure has to be resolved within a maximum of five days. It can also be applied for from outside Spain, at a consulate. It is explained in NIE, NIF and CIF.
Registering with Hacienda, before you invoice
The census declaration of registration — form 036 or form 037 — is filed before you start the activity, not after your first invoice. That is article 9.4 of Real Decreto 1065/2007. That is where you choose your IAE heading, your VAT regime and, if you are going to trade with the European Union, where you apply for the ROI.
Registering with the Seguridad Social
Registration with the Special Scheme for Self-Employed Workers (RETA) is applied for before you start the activity, up to sixty calendar days in advance. That is where your monthly cuota comes from, and you pay it from the first month.
The first invoice, compliant from the start
With sequential numbering by series and, when your date arrives, with a chained invoicing record. The VeriFactu deadlines are 1 January 2027 for companies and 1 July 2027 for individuals.
What changes compared with a Spaniard, and what does not
It is worth saying plainly, to save you time: once you are registered, your day-to-day tax obligations are the same. The same VAT, the same forms, the same deadlines, the same invoices. Nationality does not appear anywhere on form 303.
What is different is everything around that moment:
- The identification numbers. You have a NIE, not a DNI, and some people do not even have a NIE and need a NIF beginning with M.
- Your tax residence. A Spaniard living in Spain is tax resident and never thinks about it. You may be, you may not be, and two countries may claim you at once. It is covered in tax residence.
- Double taxation agreements. An international treaty can decide who taxes you and at what rate, overriding Spanish law.
- The impatriate regime, the one in article 93 of the Personal Income Tax Act, known as the “Beckham Law”. It exists only for people who move to Spain. It is covered in the impatriate regime.
- The assets you hold abroad. Accounts, securities and property in your country of origin can oblige you to file form 720 once you go over €50,000 in any one block.
- Your client base. If you invoice outside Spain, VAT works differently and the ROI, VIES and form 349 appear.
VeriFactu reaches you too
It is a question that comes up a lot, especially among people invoicing clients abroad who assume a Spanish rule cannot reach them. It does.
Article 3.1 of Real Decreto 1007/2023 sets out who the regulation on invoicing computer systems applies to, and that list includes:
- IRPF taxpayers carrying out economic activities — point (b): that covers any autónomo who is tax resident in Spain, wherever they are from.
- Taxpayers under the Income Tax for Non-Residents who obtain income through a permanent establishment — point (c).
- Corporation Tax payers — point (a): every Spanish S.L., even when its shareholders live abroad.
What decides it is not your passport, and not where your clients are: it is that you carry out an economic activity in Spain and issue invoices with software. The dates — 1 January 2027 for companies and 1 July 2027 for everyone else — and the penalties are on the VeriFactu page.
What Cairos does for you, and what it does not
We repeat the important part here because it is what gets misrepresented most in this market.
The software is in Spanish. The whole application: the menus, the invoice templates, the tax forms and the help. There is no English version and no date for one. Support answers in Spanish. If that stops you, it is better that you know now.
What it does solve
- Invoices compliant with VeriFactu from the very first one, with a chained record and a QR code, on the free plan too.
- Intra-Community invoicing. Checking your client's intra-Community VAT number against VIES from their record, saving the date and the reference of the check, which is the evidence the exemption rests on.
- Form 349 for intra-Community transactions, with its codes, and the quarterly form 303 and form 130.
- Exports and services to non-EU countries with their VAT treatment on the invoice.
- Forms 216 and 296, which are the ones that apply when you are the one paying a non-resident supplier and the law turns you into a withholding agent.
What is not there
- The application in English. It does not exist.
- Multi-currency is on the way and only on the bespoke plan. Today you invoice in euros. If most of your invoicing is in dollars or pounds, Cairos is not for you yet, and we would rather tell you than sell you otherwise.
- Form 720 is on the Corporate plan, which is €100 a month. It is not on the entry plans.
- Immigration formalities. We do not handle them and we do not advise on them.
Try the software before you decide anything
The free plan asks for no card and does not expire. It is in Spanish, like the rest of the application.
Questions from people arriving from abroad
What is our field and what is not
Tax and invoicing are our field: taxes, forms, VAT and compliant invoices. Visas, residence permits and consular formalities are not. We explain them here because your tax position makes no sense without them, but we are not immigration lawyers and this does not replace one. For an actual case — a refusal, a renewal, an arraigo application — find a specialist firm.
How this page is kept up to date
Every figure on this page comes from the consolidated text on the BOE or from the Tax Agency's E-Office, with the legislation cited beside it. What changes every year — the cuota de autónomos, the fees, the bands — is deliberately not reproduced here: an out-of-date figure on a website is worse than no figure at all. Last reviewed: 27 August 2026. If you spot something out of date, write to us at hola@cairos.es.
This is information, not tax or legal advice. For your own case, a tax adviser; and for an immigration file, an immigration lawyer.
Start with the invoice, which is the urgent part
Cairos issues invoices with VeriFactu from the first one, checks your European clients' intra-Community VAT numbers in VIES, and leaves the 303 and the 349 worked out for you. In Spanish.
Free plan, no card · No minimum term · The application, in Spanish only