Remote working from Spain for a foreign company

Tax residency is not decided by your contract or your nationality: it is decided by where you are. You are a resident if you stay more than 183 days of the calendar year in Spanish territory, counting sporadic absences, or if the main core or base of your activities or economic interests is located in Spain. Furthermore, if your legally non-separated spouse and minor children live here, Hacienda (the Spanish tax agency) presumes that you also reside here, unless proven otherwise.

Spain does not split the tax year. If you cross the threshold, you are a resident for the 12 months, including those you lived abroad. And a resident pays taxes on their worldwide income, including the salary paid by a company that has neither an office nor a tax identification number in Spain.

The double taxation agreement does not change that result. In the agreements followed by Spain, the salary for work physically performed in Spanish territory is taxed in Spain, even if the payer is abroad. Usually, the company's country stops withholding as soon as you provide them with your Spanish tax residency certificate: if they have already withheld taxes, the refund is requested there, not here. Managora obtains that certificate for you and prepares the communication to your employer.

Yes, and it is the cleanest route. A company with no headquarters or branch here can register with the Spanish Seguridad Social as an employer without an establishment, obtain its contribution account code and register you in the general regime. There is no need to incorporate a company or register a branch in the commercial register. What is required is that the company first obtains a non-resident tax identification number from the tax agency and, if the registration and enrolment are processed by a representative in Spain, grants a power of attorney: this power usually requires a notario (notary public) from the company's country or a consular notary and, in many cases, an apostille and a sworn translation. Managora tells you exactly what power of attorney is needed and prepares it for you.

There remains the part that generates the most resistance in the company: paying contributions every month from abroad. The European social security regulation (article 21.2 of Regulation 987/2009, since 21.1 imposes the general obligation on the employer) allows a written agreement by which you assume compliance with that obligation, covering both employer and employee contributions, and the company pays them to you along with your payroll. The company remains responsible if you do not pay, but it no longer has to operate with the Tesorería (the social security treasury) month by month. This is the argument that usually unblocks a refusal from human resources.

The other 2 routes are an employer of record, which hires you here and invoices your company, and invoicing yourself as an autónomo (freelancer). The third seems the cheapest and is the one that causes the most problems: if you work exclusively for a single payer, with their schedule, their means and their instructions, the labour inspectorate can classify you as a false freelancer and claim the contributions for the entire period with a surcharge, in addition to the penalty. You can see the updated amount in the Registration as an autónomo file if that is your route.

The European rule is that you contribute where you work. If you type from your home in Valencia, your work is performed in Spain and the competent social security is the Spanish one, even if your boss, your payroll and your clients are abroad.

There are 2 exceptions worth knowing. The first appears when, in addition to working remotely from Spain, you regularly go to the company's headquarters: then you work in 2 States and the applicable law is decided by percentages. The general criterion is that performing a substantial part of the activity in Spain, which is your country of residence (indicatively, 25% of working time or remuneration), attracts all the contribution to Spain.

The second is the European Framework Agreement on habitual cross-border telework, applicable since 1 July 2023: it allows you to request to continue contributing in the company's country when teleworking from your country of residence remains below 50% of working time. It only works if both States have signed it, it is not applied automatically (it must be requested) and it is documented with an A1 certificate for a maximum of 3 renewable years. Checking if your country is among the signatories is the first step, because your entire contribution bill depends on it.

Outside the European Union, the European Economic Area and Switzerland, the bilateral social security agreement that Spain has signed with that country, if any, dictates the rules. Without an agreement, contributing in Spain is the only way out. And when the applicable legislation is Spanish and you travel to the company's headquarters, the paperwork that prevents them from claiming contributions there depends on the destination: the A1 certificate is only issued within the European regulations (European Union, European Economic Area and Switzerland, and the United Kingdom under the Withdrawal Agreement), while for a country with a bilateral agreement or with the Ibero-American Multilateral Agreement, the specific form for that agreement is issued. We process it in the A1 Posting Certificate file.

Yes, if you have just arrived. The special regime for posted workers, known as the Beckham law, allows you to pay tax at 24% on the first €600,000 of your taxable base, salary included, and at 47% on the excess, instead of applying the general progressive scale (dividends, interest and capital gains from the sale of assets follow their own scale which, since 2025, reaches 30%). It does not necessarily last from the year of relocation: it applies the first calendar year in which, having already relocated, you spend more than 183 days in Spain and the following 5 years. If you arrive so late that you do not have more than 183 days left that year, the first year of the regime will be the following one, and the relocation must have taken place that first year or the previous one.

Since the 2022 startups law, the salaried remote worker is expressly included: anyone who moves their residence to Spain and, without being ordered by the employer, provides their work remotely through the exclusive use of computer, telematics and telecommunication means. The law does not require the company to be foreign, but it does require an employment relationship: anyone who invoices as an autónomo does not enter through this route. Hacienda will ask you for a document from the employer acknowledging the employment relationship, the activity start date shown on your Spanish Seguridad Social registration (or on the documentation allowing you to maintain your home social security) and the estimated duration of the work in Spain.

The 2 requirements that strike down the most applications are not having been a tax resident in Spain in the previous 5 tax periods and not obtaining income through a permanent establishment in Spain. And a warning about the 24%: it is the rate for the common territory. The Basque Country and Navarre have their own income tax and their own rules for posted workers, so that figure is not valid if you pay taxes in a chartered territory.

The regime does not apply automatically: you opt in with form 149 within the 6 months following the activity start date shown on your Seguridad Social registration in Spain and, from then on, you declare every year with form 151 instead of the ordinary tax return. In exchange, the tax liability is calculated using the non-resident tax rules and is only reduced by the deductions listed in the regulations, not by those of the ordinary tax return, so on moderate salaries you could lose out. We compare the 2 tax liabilities before submitting anything: you can see the updated amount in the Beckham Law file.

Then there is no company to register you: you register yourself, with Hacienda using form 036 and in the RETA (special regime for self-employed workers), on the same day you start or up to 60 days before, requesting the flat rate in that same registration if you are eligible. What you invoice to a company in another country, within or outside the European Union, generally does not carry Spanish VAT; if that company is from the European Union, you also need to register in the intra-community operators register and declare those operations on form 349. An individual in the European Union is generally invoiced with Spanish VAT.

If you are a tax resident, you pay personal income tax (IRPF) on the yield of your entire activity, including what you earn from abroad, and the inbound expatriate regime does not work for you via the remote work route, which requires being an employee: you would only qualify with an entrepreneurial activity with a favourable report from ENISA or as a highly qualified professional providing services to an emerging company or dedicated to training, research, development or innovation. The detail, invoice by invoice, is in our guide for freelancers with foreign clients, and at Managora we handle your registration and quarterly tax returns for a fixed monthly fee, the price of which is on our plans page.

A foreign company without a permanent establishment in Spain is not obliged to withhold IRPF on your behalf. You receive the gross amount and settle the entire tax in the annual tax return the following year. This is the most expensive cash flow problem in this situation: it is advisable to set aside every month the part that will later have to be paid in one go.

Getting paid without withholding does not exempt you from filing a tax return either, quite the opposite. The threshold that obliges you to file the return is much lower when the payer is not obliged to withhold, so in practice almost any salary obliges you to file an income tax return.

If you hold accounts, securities, real estate or cryptocurrencies outside Spain, there are 2 annual informative returns (forms 720 and 721) that are submitted when their thresholds are exceeded. Anyone under the inbound expatriate regime does not submit form 720 during the years the regime applies, because they are taxed under non-resident rules: only on their Spanish income, with the exception of their salary, which is taxed in full.

This is the risk that truly worries the company's tax department and the reason why many say no to remote working from Spain. If from your home you negotiate and conclude contracts that bind the company, or if the company formally imposes your home as an office and covers your expenses, the tax agency may consider that this company has a permanent establishment in Spain, with the obligation to declare the profit attributed to it here.

A purely technical position, without the capacity to bind the company and with a laptop as the only means, is in the reasonably safe zone. But the Directorate General for Taxes resolves on a case-by-case basis and looks at the material and human resources that the company actually controls in Spain, not the job title.

The detail that almost no one looks at: the OECD multilateral instrument (MLI) has modified the dependent agent clause of a large part of the agreements signed by Spain and has expanded the scenarios in which a permanent establishment is deemed to exist. Before accepting an answer as valid, you must read the agreement of your company's country in its already modified version, which is what we do when opening your file.

Then immigration comes first. Ley 14/2013 (the Spanish Entrepreneurs Act), with the chapter added by the startups law, created the visa and residence authorisation for international remote work, the digital nomad route: working remotely for companies located outside Spain, as an employee only for foreign employers, or self-employed provided that work for companies located in Spain does not exceed 20% of your total professional activity.

If you are already in Spain in a regular situation, you apply for a residence authorisation of up to 3 years before the Large Companies and Strategic Groups Unit (UGE-CE), which resolves within 20 working days from the electronic submission and where silence is positive; if you apply while in a legal stay, that stay is extended until it is resolved. We submit it with your mandate. If you are abroad, what you request is the remote work visa of up to 1 year at the Spanish consulate: you submit it (or your accredited representative, if that consulate allows it) and we prepare and review your file. With the visa, the authorisation to remain in Spain is requested in the 60 calendar days before it expires. Among the requirements, you must prove financial means of 200% of the minimum interprofessional wage: in 2026 the consulates set them at €2,442 per month (double the monthly minimum wage of €1,221), plus 75% of that minimum wage for the first family member (€916) and 25% for each of the others (€306).

If you work remotely as an employee, this authorisation is also the natural gateway to the inbound expatriate regime, so the order and dates matter: the 6-month deadline for form 149 starts running with the activity start date shown on your Seguridad Social registration and does not wait for you to finish the rest of the procedures. You can see the updated amount in the Digital Nomad Visa and Residence file.

Managora prepares and submits it for you from start to finish: the registration of your company with the Seguridad Social as an employer without an establishment, your registration, the agreement so that contributions are paid without friction, the A1 certificate when applicable, the international remote work authorisation, form 149 within the deadline and your annual tax return.