17 July 2026
This is the subject where the most confident and most incorrect advice circulates, so it is worth going slowly.
What the regime actually does
The special regime for inbound workers, universally called the Beckham Law, taxes employment income at a flat twenty four percent up to €600,000, and forty seven percent above that. It runs for the year you arrive plus the five following.
The part people get backwards
It is widely written that the regime taxes only Spanish sourced income, and that a foreign salary is effectively excluded. That is not what the law says. Under article 93, all employment income is treated as obtained in Spanish territory. A salary paid by a foreign employer is fully taxable. Anyone planning on the basis that their existing salary escapes Spanish tax should take professional advice before committing to the move.
Why a flat rate is not automatically better
Because you give things up to get it. Under the regime you lose the deductions, the social security offset and the personal allowance that a normal resident taxpayer receives. Below a certain income, those are worth more than the difference in rate.
Working it through, the crossover sits somewhere around €57,500. Below that, opting in can genuinely cost you more than staying on the ordinary progressive scale. On a salary of around €47,000, our own calculation put the regime about a thousand euros a year worse. A lot of articles tell readers that anything above €40,000 makes it a straightforward decision. We do not think that is right.
Where it clearly does help
Higher salaries, where the flat rate pulls away from the progressive scale. And the separate treatment of foreign non employment income, which is its own conversation and does not depend on the crossover at all.
This is not tax advice
The figures here come from reading the legislation and running the arithmetic, not from a licence to advise. There is a six month window to opt in after registering with social security, and the decision is difficult to unwind afterwards. Of everything on this site, this is the topic most worth paying a Spanish accountant to confirm for your own numbers.
