The Beckham law: what it is and who gains

The short answer

The Beckham law lets you be taxed as a non-resident for six tax years, at 24% on the general base up to 600,000 euros. But dividends, interest and capital gains go on a 19% to 30% scale that is, to the cent, an ordinary resident's: on that half the regime saves nothing.

There are two bases, not one rate

Article 93.2 of the Spanish Income Tax Act requires the tax to be worked out under the rules of the Non-Resident Income Tax, and its letter e) splits the taxable base into two pieces taxed differently¹.

The first, «the remaining income» (salary, professional earnings, everything that is not capital), gets two rates: 24% up to 600,000 euros and 47% from 600,000.01 upwards. The second, the income of article 25.1.f) of the consolidated Non-Resident Income Tax Act, gets a progressive five-band scale: 19, 21, 23, 27 and 30 per cent.

That second list is not decorative. Article 25.1.f) covers dividends, interest and capital gains, that is everything a portfolio yields. And there lies the fact almost nobody publishes.

On the savings half the regime saves nothing

An ordinary resident pays tax on dividends in two halves. The state half is set by article 66.1.1 and the regional half by article 76.1². The two tables are identical: 9.5, 10.5, 11.5, 13.5 and 15 per cent, with the same thresholds of 6,000, 50,000, 200,000 and 300,000 euros and the same accumulated amounts of 0, 570, 5,190, 22,440 and 35,940 euros.

Added together they give 19, 21, 23, 27 and 30 per cent, with accumulated amounts of 0, 1,140, 10,380, 44,880 and 71,880. Which is exactly, threshold by threshold and cent by cent, the scale article 93.2.e).2 applies to the expatriate.

This is not an approximation or a rounding coincidence: it is an identity between three articles of the same act. An expatriate with a portfolio pays the same on it as their neighbour. The whole benefit of the regime lives in the general base and in what the regime leaves out of the base.

And above 600,000 euros it saves nothing at the margin either

The full ordinary marginal rate on the general base comes from two scales. The article 63.1 scale reaches 24.5% from 300,000 euros, and the second one printed by article 65 reaches 22.5% from 60,000². They add to 47 per cent.

Which is the second rate of article 93.2.e).1, the one on the excess over 600,000 euros. The legislator set the regime's ceiling exactly at the ordinary marginal rate, so a euro earned above that threshold is taxed the same inside and outside the regime. The advantage is concentrated entirely in the 24% band.

The six-year clock does not start when you move

Article 93.1 grants the regime «during the tax period in which the change of residence takes place and during the five following tax periods»¹. That is six tax years, not five.

But what matters is which one is the first, and the regulation decides that. The second paragraph of article 115, added by Royal Decree 1008/2023, says literally that «the tax period in which residence is acquired shall be taken to be the first calendar year in which, once the move has taken place, the stay in Spanish territory exceeds 183 days»³.

The line falls on 2 July and leap years do not move it, because the extra day is in February and therefore before the boundary. Moving after that date does not shorten the regime: it shifts it a whole calendar year forward. That is the difference between ending in 2031 and ending in 2032, and it turns on one month of calendar.

The window to opt in, and the paper your payslip depends on

The option is exercised on form 149, and the window is six months. What almost everyone gets wrong is from when.

Article 116.1.a) of the regulation counts them «from the start-of-activity date recorded in the Spanish Social Security registration»³, and article 7 of Order HAP/2783/2015 defers to it⁴. Not from your entry into the country. Someone arriving in September who starts contributing in January has until July, not until March.

There is a third clock almost no page mentions. Article 119.4 gives the administration ten working days to issue a certifying document, and adds what it is for: «to prove, to the persons or entities obliged to withhold or make a payment on account, their status as a taxpayer under this special regime»³. Until that paper exists and is handed to the payer, the payslip is withheld under the ordinary rules. The 24% of article 93.2.f) does not apply by itself.

Renouncing is forever, and exclusion runs backwards

The two ways out of the regime work in opposite directions and are worth not confusing.

Renunciation is voluntary and has a narrow window: article 117.1 opens it only «during the months of November and December preceding the start of the calendar year in which the renunciation is to take effect». And paragraph 4 of the same article makes it final: «taxpayers who renounce this special regime shall not be able to opt for its application again»³. There is no cooling-off period and no second chance.

Exclusion is involuntary and runs the other way. Article 118.1 makes it effective «in the tax period in which the breach occurs», that is backwards within the current year, and paragraph 2 gives one month to report it. A third deadline then chains on from another norm: article 11 of Order HAP/2783/2015 says the ten days to hand form 145 to the payer are counted not from the breach but from the end of that month⁴.

Four ways in, and the footballer's is bricked up

Until 2023 the only route was an employment contract. The third final provision of the Startups Act 28/2022 widened article 93.1.b) to four⁵:

• An employment contract, ordinary, special or statutory. This covers a posting ordered by the employer with a posting letter, and also remote work «through the exclusive use of computer, telematic and telecommunication means and systems», which the article itself illustrates with the international teleworking visa of Act 14/2013. It is the digital nomad's door.
• Becoming a company director. If the entity is an asset-holding company under article 5.2 of the Corporate Income Tax Act, the director may not hold a stake that makes it a related party under article 18 of that act.
• An entrepreneurial activity, which article 113.2 of the regulation defines as innovative or of special economic interest for Spain and which requires a favourable ENISA report³.
• A highly qualified professional serving startups or carrying out training, research, development and innovation, «receiving for this a remuneration representing in total more than 40% of all business, professional and personal work income».

The same reform cut the lookback from ten years to five, so any guide written before 2023 asks for twice the time the law requires today.

And number 1 of that letter b) contains the irony this article is named after: it admits an employment contract «with the exception of the special employment relationship of professional athletes governed by Royal Decree 1006/1985»¹. The regime keeps the nickname of the footballer who opened it in 2005 and has excluded footballers by name since the 2015 reform.

What is left out, and worth knowing before you opt in

Three things about the regime that rarely appear next to the rate.

There is no personal and family allowance. Letter a) of article 93.2 disapplies articles 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11 and 14 of the consolidated Non-Resident Income Tax Act, and the taxable base is the whole of the income. One exemption survives: the one for employment income in kind in its article 14.1.a)¹.

Income cannot be offset against income. Letter c) of the same paragraph taxes income obtained in the calendar year cumulatively «with no offsetting between them being possible». A capital loss does not reduce a gain.

The foreign double-taxation credit has a ceiling. Article 114.2.b').b') of the regulation caps it at 30% of the part of the tax corresponding to that income³, where an ordinary resident applies article 80 of the act with no such limit.

In exchange, the penultimate paragraph of article 93.1 changes wealth tax: «the taxpayer who opts for taxation under the Non-Resident Income Tax shall be subject to wealth tax by real obligation», that is only on assets located in Spain¹. For someone arriving with assets abroad, that can weigh more than the rate.

A worked example with real numbers

An engineer arrives in Spain on 15 October 2026 on an employment contract. They have spent seven years without Spanish tax residence, so they meet the five of article 93.1.a). They earn 90,000 euros of salary and receive 20,000 of dividends.

With the regime. The salary goes to the general base: 90,000 at 24% is 21,600 euros. The dividends go to the savings scale: 1,140 euros on the first 6,000, plus 21% of the remaining 14,000, which is 2,940. Dividend total, 4,080 euros. Tax under the regime: 25,680 euros.

Without the regime, on the article 65 reference. The salary is taxed 31,401.50 euros across the two scales, because below 300,000 euros the two article 65 scales are identical and the sum is exactly double one of them. The dividends are taxed the same 4,080 euros, because a resident's two halves add up to the regime's scale. Ordinary reference tax: 35,481.50 euros.

The regime saves them 9,801.50 euros on the salary and exactly zero on the dividends. And because 15 October leaves only 78 days of the calendar year, article 115 sets their first tax year at 2027 and the window reaches 2032: arriving in October rather than May handed them a whole extra calendar year of the regime.

The ordinary figure is a reference. Each region approves its own scale under article 74.1.1, so the same engineer in Madrid and in Catalonia would pay different amounts from those 35,481.50 euros, and their real saving would move with them. What does not move, because it is the identity above, is the zero on the dividends.

And form 151, when is it filed?

Its own Order does not say. Article 3.1 of Order HAP/2783/2015 provides that the deadline «shall be the same as the one approved each year, generally, for personal income tax returns»⁴, that is the Renta campaign deadline, approved each year in a different order. This is the opposite of what almost every tax agency form does, which is to fix its deadline in its own norm.

For tax year 2025, the 2026 taxpayer calendar files form 151 under «Until 30 June», alongside D-100 and D-714⁶. What its own Order does fix is the direct debit: article 3 and the amendment to annex II of Order EHA/1658/2009 close it «until 25 June», five days before the filing deadline⁴.