How to apply for Beckham’s Law: Special Tax Regime for Expats

The Beckham Law is a special reduced tax regime that benefits foreign professionals in Spain. It aims to benefit non-residents (new Expats in Spain) with a lower tax rate than is applied to residents.

In Spain there is a progressive Income Taxation Law in place, meaning, the more you earn, the more you discount - up to 47%. But under the Beckham’s Law, Expats who qualify are able to have their income taxed at a flat rate of 24%, up to 600,000 Euros.

It is commonly known as the Beckham’s Law because the footballer was one of the first to take advantage of the tax benefit when he transferred to Real Madrid FC.

This law was created for Expats who have moved to Spain for work, so the first requirement for the Beckham’s law is to have a job in Spain.

The second requirement, is that you must be a New Tax Resident in Spain. It is important to note that you must not have been a Tax Resident in Spain in the past 10 years, so if you’ve lived or worked here in the past decade, you won’t qualify.

You must be employed by a company (Freelancers don’t qualify) and you must apply within the first 6 months of becoming a Tax Resident in Spain.

This tax benefit does NOT get automatically applied to Expats. In fact, you will need to go through an application process that proves you’re elegible, and that you’re opting in for it. To apply, you will need to:

1) Apply for a NIE. If you don’t have one yet, check out our article about how to get a NIE Number.
2) Get a Cl@ve Account. If you don’t have one yet, check out or article about how to get your credentials for Clave.
3) Submit the tax benefit form online. If you don’t speak Spanish and need help with filling in your application, sign up to Matutto, and you will be able to not only access the Forms translated to English, but also a detailed guide of how to fill them. In addition, you cn speak to a Matutto Advisor.
4) Receive approval from the Tax Agency. If you are approved for this tax benefit, the Tax Agency will send you a confirmation letter that you can share with your employer. They can use this to update your tax rate.

If you earn more than €40,000 per Year, you will technically already be saving money from a lower applicable Tax Rate. But if you earn less than that, it may not be beneficial.

If you want to know how much you will save per month in income tax, with the Beckham’s Law tax rate, try the calculator below 👇