Beckham Law in Valencia: Opt-In and Annual Returns

The basics

The “Beckham Law” is the popular name for the special regime in article 93 of the Spanish Income Tax Act (Ley 35/2006). Anyone whose relocation makes them a Spanish tax resident may elect to pay income tax under the rules of the non-residents’ tax while still counting as an IRPF taxpayer. The choice covers the year in which you become resident and the five years that follow. In Valencia that means your salary is not taxed with the combined state and Valencian scales but with two flat rates: 24 % on your general income up to 600,000 € and 47 % on the part above.

It is a choice, not an automatic benefit. You make it with form 149, filed online with the Agencia Tributaria, and the window is six months, counted from the activity start date shown on your Spanish Social Security registration (or in the document that keeps you under your home country’s Social Security). Miss that window and the option is gone for good. Once you are in, each year you file form 151 instead of the ordinary income tax return, in the same campaign as everyone else.

Whether it suits you depends on your salary, your income from abroad and your family. Our 2026 comparison between the special regime and ordinary income tax in Valencia shows estimates worked out with the official state and Valencian scales.

Who can opt in

Article 93 sets three conditions. First, you cannot have been a Spanish tax resident at any point in the five years preceding the year of your arrival. Second, the move, in the first year of the regime or the year before, must be caused by one of these:

• An employment contract with an employer in Spain, or a posting ordered by your employer with a letter of assignment. Remote work for an employer, done exclusively through computer and telecommunication systems, also counts, and the law expressly includes employees who hold the international teleworking visa.
• Taking up a directorship. Where the entity mainly holds assets (an entidad patrimonial), your shareholding cannot be large enough to make it a related party.
• An entrepreneurial activity in Spain, which needs a favourable report from ENISA, the state innovation company, under article 70 of Law 14/2013.
• Start-up or R&D work: services to emerging companies as a highly qualified professional, or training, research, development and innovation activities, provided that pay represents more than 40 % of your business, professional and employment income.

Third, you must not obtain income through a permanent establishment in Spain, except in the entrepreneurial and start-up cases. In practice this rules out most ordinary freelancers: under article 113 of the IRPF Regulation, the only business activities allowed while you are in the regime are the entrepreneurial one, services to start-ups and the training and R&D activities above. If your plan is to register as autónomo in Valencia and bill local clients, we tell you before you rely on the regime.

The option extends to your husband or wife, to sons and daughters younger than 25 (with no age limit where there is a disability) and, in unmarried couples, to the children’s other parent. They must move with you or later, before the end of your first year in the regime, become tax resident here, meet the same five-year and no-establishment conditions, and the sum of their taxable bases must stay below yours.

What changes, and what does not

• All your employment income in the regime years is treated as obtained in Spain, wherever you do the work.
• Other foreign income, such as rent from a flat at home or dividends from foreign shares, generally stays outside Spanish income tax, because you are taxed like a non-resident on Spanish-source income only.
• Income is added up for the year with no offsetting between items, and there is no personal allowance or regional scale.
• Your employer withholds at 24 %, and at 47 % on pay above 600,000 € a year from the same payer.
• You pay wealth tax only on assets located in Spain (obligación real).

To put your own salary through both systems, try the calculator below, preset to the Comunitat Valenciana. Our Beckham Law calculator page for Valencia explains step by step how each figure is built.

Who it is for

• Employees hired by a company in Valencia, or posted here by their employer.
• Remote employees of foreign companies, including holders of the teleworking visa.
• Company directors moving to Valencia for the role.
• Founders with an ENISA-approved project and highly qualified staff of start-ups.
• Spouses and children joining someone who has opted in.
• People already in the regime who need their yearly form 151 or want to leave it.

Paperwork checklist

• Passport and NIE, or TIE / EU registration certificate.
• Your Social Security alta in Spain, or the certificate that keeps you covered by your home country's system.
• A statement from your employer confirming the relationship, start date, workplace and contract length.
• Letter of assignment, if your employer is posting you.
• Residence authorisation, where your nationality requires one.
• Evidence of where you lived for tax purposes in the previous five years.
• For family members: marriage or birth certificates showing the link.

The Tax Agency asks for the supporting documents to be uploaded in a separate step before form 149, and the registration number of that upload goes on the form.

Step by step with us

1. Eligibility check. We review your contract or posting, your tax residence history and your Social Security position, and tell you in writing whether article 93 fits.
2. Estimate. If useful, we compare the special regime with ordinary income tax for your figures, using the official scales.
3. Documents. We upload the supporting documents to the Tax Agency first, as its procedure requires.
4. Form 149. We file the opt-in with the registration number of that upload, for you and then for each family member.
5. Certificate. The Tax Agency issues a certificate of the regime within ten working days if it is accepted; you hand it to your employer so it withholds at 24 %.
6. Every year. We prepare and file your form 151 return, and warn you about anything that could end the regime.

Waiting times in Valencia

Opt-in: form 149 must reach the Tax Agency no later than six months after the activity start date recorded by the Social Security. Your family members have six months from their own arrival, or until your deadline if that is later. The certificate is issued within ten working days of filing.

Duration: the regime covers the first calendar year after your arrival during which your stay in Spain exceeds 183 days, plus five more years.

Leaving: you can renounce during November and December, with effect from the next 1 January, and you cannot opt in again later. If you stop meeting a condition, you are excluded from that year and must notify the Tax Agency within one month, also on form 149. If your assignment ends but you remain resident, that too is notified within a month.

Annual return: form 151 is filed in the same period as the ordinary income tax return.

Fee for our help

450 € + VAT to opt in (eligibility check, document upload and form 149 for the main taxpayer). 250 € + VAT for each yearly form 151 return. Family members’ forms, renouncing the regime or notifying an exclusion are quoted in writing before you pay.

Frequently asked questions