Five mistakes that cost people the Beckham regime

1. Assuming everyone who moves qualifies

The regime is not for new residents in general. It requires a qualifying reason for the move: an employment contract with a Spanish employer or a posting by a foreign one, remote work for a foreign employer carried out from Spain, appointment as a director of a company, an activity classified as entrepreneurial, or highly qualified work for start-ups.

Retirees and passive investors do not qualify. Neither, as a rule, do freelancers who simply move their practice to Spain. For a director, if the company is an asset-holding entity, the stake they hold must not make them a related party, broadly 25% or more. The first question is therefore not how much the regime saves, but whether it is available at all.

2. Counting the five years wrongly

You must not have been tax resident in Spain in any of the five tax years before the year of the move. The trap is that residence is a matter of fact, not of registration. A previous posting, a sabbatical year on the island or long seasons in a holiday home can have made you resident in an earlier year without anyone noticing at the time.

Before relying on the regime, go back five calendar years and check where you were resident in each. If any year is doubtful, deal with it first.

3. Missing the six-month deadline

The election is made on Tax Form 149 within six months of registering with Spanish social security, or of the start date shown in the social security documentation of your home country if you remain covered there. The deadline cannot be extended and a late election cannot be rescued. The practical risk is that the first months after a move are busy, and the form is filed by nobody because everybody assumed someone else would.

Put the date in the calendar on the day you register, and file well before it.

4. Bringing the family in the wrong way

Since 2023 the regime can extend to your spouse, your children under 25 and children with a disability of any age. Each files their own election. The family members must move to Spain with you, or later but within the first tax year of the regime, must not themselves have been Spanish resident in the previous five years, and their combined taxable income must stay below yours each year.

A spouse who starts their own business in Spain, or who earns more than the main taxpayer, can fall outside the extension. It is worth modelling before the family arrives.

5. Forgetting the country you are leaving

Spain taxes you under the regime as if you were a non-resident, and the Spanish tax authority takes the view that you are then not a treaty resident of Spain. If Germany or Switzerland still treat you as resident under their own rules, because you kept a home there or your family stayed behind, the treaty may not settle the conflict, and income from third countries can be taxed twice.

The departure has to be planned on both sides. The partners have analysed this point in detail in Spain's inbound expatriate regime, on the Lexon site.

What the regime does not change

• Buying a home in Mallorca costs the same: transfer tax or VAT, notary and registry, and IBI every year.
• The annual return is Tax Form 151, not the ordinary Tax Form 100, and it is due every year the regime applies.
• Wealth tax still applies to your Spanish assets, including your Mallorca home, if they exceed the threshold.
• All employment income earned while the regime applies is treated as Spanish, wherever the work is done.
• Once you waive the regime, you cannot claim it again.

The order of steps that keeps it

• Before the move. Check eligibility in writing, including the five-year test and the reason for the move. Make sure the contract, posting letter or appointment says what the regime requires. Plan the departure from your home country with your adviser there.
• On arrival. Obtain your NIE, register with Spanish social security and note the date. Keep evidence of the day you moved.
• Within six months. File Tax Form 149 for yourself, and for each family member who qualifies.
• Every year. File Tax Form 151 and, where it applies, wealth tax on Spanish assets. Review the position a year before the regime ends, when you move to the ordinary rules on worldwide income.

What the regime covers and what we do at each step is set out on our Beckham regime page.

Sources: Article 93 of the personal income tax act (Ley 35/2006), as amended by Ley 28/2022 on the promotion of the start-up ecosystem; articles 113 to 120 of the personal income tax regulations (Real Decreto 439/2007); Tax Forms 149 and 151.

This page is general information and reflects the rules in force on the date shown. It is not advice and does not replace an assessment of your own case.