The impatriate regime, with the article in front of you
You acquire tax residence in Spain and are taxed under the rules of the Income Tax for Non-Residents for six tax years. 24% up to €600,000 and 47% above that. And you have six months to apply.
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 it is, in one sentence
It means acquiring tax residence in Spain and, even so, being taxed under the rules of the Income Tax for Non-Residents. That is all it is. The rest is conditions.
Article 93 of Ley 35/2006 puts it like this: individuals who acquire their tax residence in Spain as a result of moving to Spanish territory may opt to be taxed under the Income Tax for Non-Residents, while keeping their status as IRPF taxpayers, during the tax period in which the change of residence takes place and during the five following tax periods.
Six tax years in total, then. The popular name is the “Beckham Law”, after the footballer, and it is misleading twice over: it is not a law but an article, and footballers are today expressly excluded.
Careful with anything you read from before 2023
The current wording is the one given by final provision 3.5 of Ley 28/2022, with effect from 1 January 2023, and the savings income scale was adjusted again with effect from 2025. The requirement for previous years outside Spain went from ten to five, and three new routes in were added. Almost everything published before 2023 still says ten years.
Who can use it: the four routes in
Three conditions have to be met at once, and the second one opens into four different routes.
First: not having been resident in Spain during the five tax periods before the one in which the move takes place.
Third: not obtaining income that would be classified as obtained through a permanent establishment located on Spanish territory, except in cases 3 and 4 of the second condition.
Second: that the move takes place, either in the first year the regime applies or in the year before, through one of these four sets of circumstances.
| Route | What it requires | Who it is for |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Employment contract | Starting an employment relationship, ordinary, special or statutory, with an employer in Spain. Also when the move is ordered by the employer with a posting letter. And also when, without being ordered by the employer, the work is performed remotely using exclusively electronic means: the Act mentions in particular anyone holding the international remote-work visa. | Employees, and employed remote workers |
| 2. Company director | Becoming a director of an entity. If that entity is an asset-holding entity within the meaning of article 5.2 of the Corporation Tax Act, the director cannot hold a stake that would make it a related entity under article 18 of that Act. | Anyone directing a Spanish company |
| 3. Entrepreneurial activity | Carrying out an economic activity in Spain classified as entrepreneurial under the procedure in article 70 of Ley 14/2013, on the terms set by regulation. | Founders with an accredited project |
| 4. Highly qualified professional | Providing services to startups within the meaning of article 3 of Ley 28/2022, or carrying out training, research, development and innovation activities, and receiving for that a payment representing more than 40% of your combined business, professional and employment income. | Professionals invoicing startups or doing R&D&I |
Route 1 expressly excludes the special employment relationship of professional sportspeople under Real Decreto 1006/1985. Routes 3 and 4 are the only ones a self-employed invoicer can come in through, and the only ones where obtaining income from a permanent establishment is allowed.
How much you pay: the two scales
The tax due is determined under the rules of the Income Tax for Non-Residents for income obtained without a permanent establishment, with some special features. Two of them matter a great deal: all employment income obtained while the regime applies is deemed to have been obtained on Spanish territory, and the year's income is taxed cumulatively with no offsetting at all between the different types.
And the net taxable base is split in two, each with its own scale.
| Which income | Net taxable base | Tax rate |
|---|---|---|
| Employment income and everything else Everything other than the income under art. 25.1.f) of the IRNR Act | Up to 600,000 euros | 24 % |
| From 600,000.01 euros upwards | 47 % | |
| Dividends, interest and capital gains Income under art. 25.1.f) of the IRNR Act | Its own banded scale: 6,000 · 50,000 · 200,000 · 300,000 euros | 19%, 21%, 23%, 27% and 30% |
The first scale is the one in article 93.2.e).1 and the second the one in 93.2.e).2, the latter as worded with effect from 1 January 2025. And the withholding on employment income is 24%, with 47% applying to the excess when the payments made by a single payer go over 600,000 euros in the calendar year.
And Wealth Tax
Article 93.1 says it in a line that reads quickly and weighs a lot: whoever opts for this regime becomes subject to Wealth Tax by real obligation. That is, only on assets and rights located in Spain, not on their worldwide wealth.
The six-month deadline, which is easily missed
The regime does not apply by itself: you have to opt for it, and there is a deadline. Article 116.1.a) of the IRPF Regulations sets it at a maximum of six months, and what matters is when they start counting from.
Not from when you arrive in Spain. Not from when you sign the contract. From the start date of the activity as recorded on your registration with the Seguridad Social in Spain, or in the documentation that allows you, where applicable, to remain under your home country's social security legislation; and where registration with the Seguridad Social is not compulsory, from the date recorded on the document evidencing the start of the activity.
For a spouse and children coming in under paragraph 3, the deadline is six months from their entry into Spanish territory, or the earlier deadline if that is longer.
Notified on form 149
It is the individual notification from each taxpayer to the tax administration by which the option is exercised. The same form is used later to give up the regime or to report exclusion from it.
Declared on form 151
It is the annual IRPF return for anyone on the regime. The ordinary form 100 is not filed. Both forms were approved by Orden HAP/2783/2015, of 21 December.
There is one specific incompatibility
Article 116.3 of the Regulations excludes from this option anyone who has used the special procedure for determining withholdings on employment income under article 89.B) of the same regulations.
What we do not settle here
Whether or not form 720 reaches someone on this regime is a question with its own administrative doctrine that is not settled in the text of the legislation and that we therefore cannot cite. I would rather tell you that than give you an answer I cannot support with an article. Ask your adviser before 31 March.
Is it worth it? It depends on a calculation
The regime is not automatically a good thing. It is a flat 24% against a progressive scale with allowances and deductions, so there is a point above which it pays off and a point below which it does not.
What you lose by entering is as important as what you gain:
- You are taxed without the IRPF progressive scale, which hurts low incomes and helps high ones.
- Articles 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11 and 14 of chapter I of the IRNR Act do not apply, except that employment income in kind under point (a) of article 14.1 does remain exempt.
- The year's income is taxed cumulatively with no offsetting between the different types. A loss does not come off a gain.
- And you have to weigh up how the regime interacts with your country of origin's double taxation agreement, which is where it gets genuinely complicated.
This is a decision you take with the numbers on the table and an adviser beside you. It is not a software decision, and we are not going to pretend Cairos settles it.
What Cairos does if you are on this regime
It is worth being precise, so as not to sell what is not there.
Cairos does not work out form 151 or form 149. They are not in the application. They are personal returns filed by the taxpayer or their adviser on the Tax Agency's E-Office.
What it does do, and it is what you need if you also invoice on your own account — the case of routes 3 and 4:
- Invoices compliant with VeriFactu, with their own series, sequential numbering and a chained record.
- Expenses with their document and their input VAT.
- Form 303 for VAT and, if you trade with the European Union, form 349.
- Forms 216 and 296 if you are the one paying non-resident suppliers.
And the usual point, which matters here more than on any other page of this site: the application is in Spanish. Someone who has just moved to Spain probably does not read it comfortably yet. Better to know that before paying.
If you also invoice, the VAT side is still yours
The regime is an IRPF one. VAT, the 303 and the 349 go their own way, and that is where Cairos does come in.
Questions about the impatriate regime
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. Whether or not to enter this regime is a decision with numbers behind it: make it with a tax adviser.
Your adviser handles the regime. The invoices are yours
Cairos issues invoices with VeriFactu, checks your European clients' intra-Community VAT numbers and works out the quarter. The application is in Spanish.
Free plan, no card · We do not work out the 151 · Support in Spanish