Taking a job in Spain brings up an immediate concern: how much tax will you actually pay. For a lot of expats, the answer comes down to one special rule — the special expat tax regime, commonly called the Beckham Law.

The idea is straightforward: instead of being taxed as a Spanish resident on your worldwide income, you are treated as a non-resident for tax purposes on the income you earn in Spain, at a fixed rate of 24% up to 600,000 euros with 47 percent applying beyond that threshold. For higher earners, the saving can be considerable.

Not everyone qualifies. In broad terms, you click aquí must not have been a Spanish tax resident in the five years before the move, your relocation must be linked to an employment contract or a director role, and the activity must be performed principally on Spanish territory. Recent reforms have widened the scope to digital nomads and some self-employed profiles.

Timing is the part people get wrong. You have to apply within six months of registering with Spanish social security. Miss it and you cannot recover it later. The benefit then runs for the year of arrival and the following five.

It does not suit every case. Where a large part of your wealth sits abroad, the interaction with wealth tax and reporting duties needs to be modelled first. A short analysis before applying is usually time well spent.