Beckham Law Spain Calculator

Is the Beckham regime worth it for you?

The special Spanish regime for new arrivals taxes your employment income at a flat rate of 24% instead of the progressive rate of Spanish income tax IRPF (Impuesto sobre la Renta de las Personas Físicas); only above a threshold set out in law does the rate rise to 47%, and only for the portion of income above that threshold. Comparing the rates doesn't answer the question, though, because both routes are calculated on different tax bases: the regime on your gross salary without any deductions, the regular taxation on a smaller amount derived from it.

The calculator above sets both figures side by side, for one tax year, in the Balearics. Because the regime's tax base is broader, the point at which the two routes cross is higher than a glance at the percentages would suggest.

How it's calculated

Both branches lead to the cuota íntegra — the tax liability before deductions, which follows directly from the tax base and the rate. They differ in almost everything that happens before that.

The Beckham branch: gross salary, one rate, no deductions

Anyone opting under Article 93 of the Income Tax Act remains formally liable to tax in Spain, but is assessed under the rules of non-resident taxation IRNR (Impuesto sobre la Renta de no Residentes). Its basic rule states a single rate for the tax base, and that decides everything: it consists of the importe íntegro, the full gross amount, "without any reductions being applicable". The base liquidable — the figure to which the rate is applied — is therefore identical under the regime to your gross employment income.

In practice this means: no social security contributions, no flat-rate allowance for expenses, no child allowances, no basic personal allowance. The official instructions for completing the tax return form accordingly provide a single input field for employment income and none for deductions.

A two-tier scale applies to this tax base: the lower rate up to the threshold, the higher rate only on the excess, not retroactively on the whole income — the parallel provision on payroll tax withholding explicitly refers to the rate "on the excess portion". Both rates and the threshold are shown in the calculator's rate overview.

The regular branch: reduce first, then tax twice

Regular IRPF takes the opposite approach. From the gross salary, the mandatory contributions to Spanish social security are deducted first, followed by a flat-rate allowance for expenses of €2,000 per year. If the result is below €19,747.50, a tiered reduction for employment income is added, which tapers off at the top. What remains is the base liquidable general, the general tax base.

Two rates apply to it, not one. The national rate ranges from 9.5% in the first band up to 24.5% in the last one. Added to this is the escala autonómica, the tax scale of the autonomous community in which you are tax-resident — in the Balearics from 9% to 24.75%. Both halves are calculated separately and only added together at the end. This is where the Balearic connection comes in: the state half applies the same everywhere, while the second is regional law and looks different in Madrid or Andalusia.

The basic tax-free allowance doesn't apply where you'd expect

The mínimo personal y familiar — the personal and family basic allowance — is not deducted from the tax base. Both scales are applied to the full amount; only afterwards is the tax attributable to the allowance deducted, calculated using the same scale. This creates a zero-tax zone at the bottom, not a deduction at the top.

The basic amount for yourself is €5,550 per year. For children who live with you, are under twenty-five years old and have their own income below the legal threshold, an amount is added that increases according to birth order: €2,400 for the first child, €2,700 for the second, €4,000 for the third and €4,500 for each additional child. For each child under three years old, the amount increases further by €2,800. The Balearics raise part of these amounts for their own half of the tax scale — not all of them, and only there; the calculator shows this separately.

Both branches compared

That's why the field for your social security contributions above isn't a side issue, but the one item that's deducted on one side and not the other. It's pre-set to zero — any other figure represents an individual case that only you know.

Worked examples

There are no typed-out examples here. The calculator above works them out itself — using your income, your contributions, your family situation, and the legal status it displays. An example in the running text would be a second truth alongside it, and would become outdated as soon as a tax bracket shifts. Instead, increase the gross salary step by step and watch where the figures swap sides.

Special cases

Moving in the middle of the year

A common misconception: the regime doesn't automatically start in the year you move. The implementing regulation defines the first regime period as the first calendar year in which you spend more than 183 days in Spain following your move. Anyone who moves to Palma in September doesn't reach this threshold in the year of the move — their first regime period is the following year, and only from there does the clock start running.

The duration itself is fixed: the first regime year plus 5 further tax years. After that it ends without application and without extension, and you fall back into regular taxation of your worldwide income. Anyone holding property or investments abroad becomes taxable on them in Spain from that year onwards and must additionally declare them via Modelo 720 — the annual declaration of assets held abroad, explained in our article on the disclosure obligation for overseas assets.

The basic requirements

Three conditions must be met together. First, you must not have been tax resident in Spain during the 5 tax periods before the move — until the end of 2022 it was twice as many, the Ley 28/2022 lowered the hurdle. Second, the move must be based on one of the reasons exhaustively listed by law. Third, you generally must not earn income through a Spanish permanent establishment; since 2023 this is exceptionally permitted if it arises from a recognised entrepreneurial activity or from work as a highly qualified professional. The move must also take place in the first year of application or the year before — anyone who only has the idea years later is too late.

Income above the threshold

Above the threshold the higher rate applies, but only to the excess portion. This matters for bonuses, severance payments and share allocations that fall in the same year: they can shift the result significantly, and because the regime doesn't allow for loss offsetting, such a spike can't be smoothed out. The threshold is not index-linked to inflation.

Spouses and children

Since 2023, your spouse, your children under twenty-five (with no age limit in case of disability) and, where there is no marriage, the other parent of these children can also be included. They do not need their own reason for relocation, but must themselves meet the non-residency condition, must move together with you or join later, and taken together must not have a higher tax base than you. They have no separate deadline: their period ends with yours. If you waive the regime or are excluded, everyone falls out with you. A divorce, however, is expressly harmless.

Professional athletes are excluded

Of all professions, the very one that gave the regime its nickname is now excluded: the law excludes the special employment relationship of professional athletes from the relocation reason "employment contract". The name describes its origin, not its scope of application.

Managing directors and board members

Relocating as an administrador of a Spanish company is its own qualifying reason. Since 2023, the size of your shareholding no longer matters — except in the case of a pure asset-management company: there, it must not establish a connection within the meaning of corporate tax law. Anyone relocating via their own holding company should check this before applying.

Remote work and digital nomads

Ley 28/2022 has brought into the regime a group that previously could not use it: employees who carry out their work exclusively remotely via telecommunications means, without instruction from the employer. Holders of the international remote-work visa are expressly covered. The residence permit and the tax regime are separate procedures with their own deadlines — what applies to the visa is set out in our article on Residence permit for location-independent work.

Self-employed

As a classic self-employed person — in Spanish autónomo, with your own clients and your own invoicing — you generally do not qualify for the regime. According to the regulation, only recognised entrepreneurial activity, services for young innovative companies, and training, research, development and innovation are permitted. Entrepreneurial activity requires a positive assessment from the state innovation agency, which must be obtained before relocating — a sequence that cannot be corrected retroactively. For the highly qualified professional, the remuneration derived from this must account for more than forty per cent of all income from work.

Anyone who instead takes the usual path into self-employment registers in Spain as self-employed and, instead of the rates compared here, first pays the monthly social security contributions for the self-employed, which this calculator does not reflect.

Pensioners and the rest of the move

The regime is tied to taking up an activity. Anyone who arrives without an employment contract, secondment or business activity, and lives essentially off a pension, does not meet the access requirements — in that case, the rules described in the guide to retirement on Mallorca apply, and the double taxation agreement determines where the pension is taxed.

Regardless of tax status, the usual steps of relocating still have to be completed: anyone staying longer than three months registers their stay, and anyone moving into a flat registers with the local council's register (padrón). Both are independent of the special regime and still apply even if the application is rejected.

Deadlines and forms

The application: Modelo 149

The option is not exercised silently but must be declared to the Spanish tax authority AEAT (Agencia Estatal de Administración Tributaria). The form is called Modelo 149 and covers all four processes: opting in, waiving, exclusion and the end of the secondment.

The deadline is six months, and it does not begin with the move but with the day the activity starts, as shown by your alta en la Seguridad Social — the registration with the Spanish social security system. If you remain in your home country's system, the corresponding certificate takes its place. For family members, it runs from their entry, or from yours if that runs longer.

Documents to be enclosed include, among others, proof of social security registration, where applicable the residence permit, and an employer's certificate confirming the start of activity, place of work and contract duration. Without a Spanish identification number, nothing works: the NIE (Número de Identidad de Extranjero), the foreigner identification number, must be in place before the application can be submitted — how to obtain it is explained in our article on applying for the Spanish foreigner number on Mallorca.

The annual return: Modelo 151

Anyone within the regime does not file the normal income tax return, but the Modelo 151 — the tax return for newcomers under the special regime, submitted exclusively electronically. Its deadline is linked to the general income tax campaign and is newly set each year by decree; a fixed calendar date cannot be given in advance. Only for payment by direct debit is an earlier cut-off date at the end of June fixed.

Most newcomers have the application and return handled by a gestoría — a Spanish office for tax and administrative matters, acting between the authorities and the client. Responsibility for the deadlines nevertheless remains with you.

Waiver and exclusion

Both ways out of the regime go through the same Modelo 149, but otherwise differ. The waiver is voluntary and only possible in November and December before the year it takes effect. For employees it is a two-step process: first you submit the data notification to your employer and have a stamped copy given to you, then it goes to the tax authority along with the form. The Exclusion occurs automatically, on the other hand, as soon as one requirement ceases to be met — retroactively for the entire tax period in which the breach falls, and it must be reported within one month.

The same harsh legal consequence applies to both, and it is the most costly mistake in this area: anyone who has waived the regime or been excluded from it can never again opt into it. Waiving it because a single year looks unfavourable burns through the entire remaining term.

The typical mistakes

• Missing the six-month deadline because it was calculated from the moving date instead of from the day of social security registration.
• Assuming the regime starts in the year of the move — anyone who relocates on 2 July ends up with exactly 183 days, which is one day too few.
• Applying for the assessment of the business activity only after moving.
• Waiving the regime or letting a requirement lapse without knowing that the way back remains closed.
• Failing to prepare for the end of the term and being caught off guard in the first regular year by worldwide income and reporting obligations.
• Believing that the regime also exempts you from taxes in your home country. Whether and how Germany continues to have taxing rights is decided not by Article 93 but by the double taxation agreement between the two states.

What this calculation does not capture

What the calculator shows for the regular branch is the cuota íntegra, the tax before deductions. The deducciones — state and Balearic tax relief, for example for rent or education expenses — are only available there; under the special regime, only donations and a capped credit for foreign withholding tax are possible. The omission thus works one-sidedly to the detriment of the regular branch: the regular tax appears higher than it ultimately turns out to be.

Other items remain outside the calculation. This page deliberately does not say in which direction they shift the result — it lists them and states, for each item, which branch it favours.

In favour of the Beckham regime speak:

• Foreign income is disregarded in Spain. Anyone who receives rent, interest or investment income outside Spain does not tax it there under the regime — whereas in the regular case it forms part of worldwide income. How large this item is can only be answered by the double taxation agreement of the home country; the calculator does not estimate it.
• The wealth tax affects you under the regime only with respect to assets located in Spain, whereas in the regular case it applies to worldwide assets. For wealthy newcomers, this point can dominate the entire comparison.

Arguments against the Beckham regime:

• The imputación de rentas inmobiliarias — the notional income attribution for non-let urban properties — applies to you under the regime even for your owner-occupied main residence, unlike regular taxpayers. This is how the TEAC (Tribunal Económico-Administrativo Central), the highest instance of Spanish tax administrative jurisdiction, ruled on 17 July 2025. Anyone buying rather than renting on Mallorca should know about this item.
• There is no joint assessment and therefore also no additional reduction of the assessment base that the regular regime grants to jointly assessed families and single parents.
• There is no loss offset between the types of income. A loss from one source does not reduce the tax on another.
• The Balearic deducciones autonómicas, regional reductions of the tax liability, are only available under the regular regime.

The calculator also assumes individual assessment and applies the child allowance in full, which assumes that no second parent resident in Spain claims it; otherwise it is split in half by law, and the regular tax turns out higher than shown here.

Whether your overall result ends up above or below the figure in the calculator therefore depends on items it doesn't know about. It answers a clearly defined question — the comparison of both tax rates on earned income — and not the question of your total tax burden.

Legal basis and status

The special regime is set out in Article 93 of Ley 35/2006 on income tax, as amended by the disposición final tercera of Ley 28/2022. The reference to non-resident law leads to Real Decreto Legislativo 5/2004, specifically Articles 24 and 25 there. The procedure is governed by Articles 113 to 119 of Real Decreto 439/2007 — including Article 115 on the start of the first regime period, Article 116 on the application deadline, Article 117 on waiver, and Article 118 on exclusion.

The regular comparison regime is based on Articles 19 and 20 (deductible expenses and reduction for earned income), Articles 56 to 61 (basic and family allowances), as well as Articles 63 and 74 (state and regional tax rates). The Balearic tax rate and the regional increase of part of the allowances are set out in Articles 1 and 2 of the Balearic Decreto Legislativo 1/2014, as amended by Ley 12/2023 and Ley 11/2023. All figures come from the consolidated legal text; the calculator indicates within its framework which legal status applies.

This page does not replace tax advice. It explains a calculation and its limits; the decision about your specific case is made by someone who knows it fully.

Related calculators

Whether you become tax resident in Spain at all depends on the number of days you spend there. This is calculated by the calculator for the day-count threshold of Spanish tax liability afterwards — it answers the question that precedes this comparison, and at the same time in which calendar year your first regime period begins.

How regular taxation works when the regime is not applicable or has expired is explained in our text on Income taxation of tax residents in Spain.