Taking a job in Spain raises one question very quickly: what your tax bill will look like. For a lot of expats, the answer depends on a single regime — the impatriate regime, commonly called the Beckham Law.

The idea is straightforward: rather than paying progressive resident rates on everything you earn globally, you are taxed like a non-resident on your Spanish-source employment income, at a fixed rate of 24% up to 600,000 euros and 47% above that. If your salary is significant, the saving can be considerable.

The conditions are strict. In broad terms, you 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 remote workers and certain entrepreneurs.

The deadline is where most applications fail. You have to apply within six months of registering with Spanish social security. Let click that window close and you cannot recover it later. Once granted, it applies 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 should be calculated before deciding. A short analysis before applying avoids an expensive mistake.