The Beckham Law: changing jobs, cutting hours or working remotely for a foreign employer without losing the regime

An inbound worker may reduce the hours of the job that prompted his move, work remotely for a foreign company with occasional attendance at its premises, and later take up the directorship of a Spanish company without losing the regime, provided that company is not a holding entity.

Binding ruling V1374-26, issued on 4 June 2026, deals with a sequence of professional changes that faithfully reflects the trajectory of many inbound workers. The taxpayer moves to Spain for a job, later invests in a Spanish company, accepts a temporary executive post with a British company which he will perform remotely, and finally expects to take on executive duties in the Spanish company in which he has invested. The reply is favourable at every stage and, in essence, correct. Its interest lies in the doctrine it applies to reach that conclusion, which is more demanding than the wording of the legislation requires and which needs to be understood in order to plan with confidence.

The ruling is binding under article 89.1 of Law 58/2003, the General Tax Act. It binds the Administration in relation to the taxpayer who requested it and expresses the criterion applicable to cases presenting the same facts and circumstances. It is administrative doctrine, not case law.

Background and questions raised

The taxpayer moved to Spain on 1 March 2023 to begin an employment relationship with a Spanish company, referred to in the reply as company A, and elected the regime of article 93 LIRPF, which applies to him for the tax periods 2023 to 2028 unless he renounces it or is excluded. In October 2024 he acquired forty per cent of the capital of another Spanish company, company B, which operates in the leisure sector and has employees; his involvement in it has so far been that of a financial investor, with no management functions and no seat on the board. He also holds, as an investor, 0.5 per cent of an operating company resident in the United Kingdom.

That British company has offered him the post of chief executive on a temporary basis for around six months, until a permanent appointment is made. He has signed an employment contract with it, would pay social security contributions in the United Kingdom and would work remotely from his home in Spain on a permanent basis, travelling to the United Kingdom for approximately three days a month for meetings, working sessions with the management team and recruitment interviews. He proposes to reduce his hours with company A to one day a week and to devote the remaining four to the British company. Once the temporary mandate ends, he expects to be appointed as a remunerated director of company B and to take on executive duties for the expansion of its business in Spain.

He raises four questions: whether the work for the British company is treated as performed remotely through the exclusive use of computer, telematic and telecommunication systems; whether he may retain the regime on reducing his hours with company A and beginning the remote activity for the British company; whether he may retain it on leaving the latter and being appointed director of company B; and whether he may retain it if throughout the period he keeps the reduced hours with company A alongside either of the other two activities.

Remote work and the exclusive use of telematic means

The first question receives an answer of general interest that goes beyond the case. Article 93.1.b).1º LIRPF treats the qualifying circumstance of an employment contract as satisfied where, without the move being ordered by the employer, the work is performed remotely through the exclusive use of computer, telematic and telecommunication systems. The requirement of exclusivity has raised the question whether any physical presence at the employer's premises defeats that characterisation.

The DGT holds that work will not be regarded as ceasing to be performed remotely through the exclusive use of those means where attendance at the employer or at clients is isolated in relation to the total time over which the services are provided and is required by the performance of the remote work itself. On that basis it considers that the activity described, with travel of around three days a month, meets the requirement.

This is a reasonable interpretation, and it avoids turning exclusivity into a condition that no executive post could satisfy. It should nonetheless be read precisely. The reply sets no quantitative threshold; it accepts the facts as the taxpayer describes them. Three days a month is roughly fifteen per cent of working days, and the Administration has treated them as isolated in this case, but the characterisation depends on two cumulative elements, the isolated character in relation to the total time and the functional necessity arising from the remote work itself, and neither admits of a fixed rule. Regular, scheduled attendance, or attendance responding to organisational preference rather than to the needs of remote working, might be characterised differently.

It should also be noted that the question carries less conceptual weight here than the length of the answer suggests. Characterising the work as performed remotely is a circumstance qualifying for access to the regime, and the taxpayer is already within it by reason of his employment with company A. As follows from ruling V5132-26 of 9 July 2026, adding a second employment relationship to the one that prompted the move is not a cause of exclusion, whatever form that second relationship takes. The answer to the first question therefore has doctrinal value for anyone seeking access to the regime through the remote-work route, but it was not necessary to resolve the taxpayer's position for as long as he keeps his relationship with company A.

Reduced hours and concurrent employers

The second question is resolved in a single sentence. The taxpayer may continue to apply the regime if he reduces his hours with company A and additionally carries on remote employment for the British company. The reply does not set out its reasoning, but the basis is the same as in ruling V5132-26: neither a reduction in hours nor concurrent employers appears among the causes of exclusion in article 118 RIRPF, and both sets of remuneration are employment income which article 93.2.b) LIRPF deems obtained in Spanish territory.

One point the reply does not examine deserves attention. Reducing the hours with company A to a single day a week does not alter the legal character of that relationship, but it does reduce its economic weight to a marginal level. The DGT draws no consequence from this, and rightly so, because the legislation does not require the relationship that prompted the move to retain any particular volume. It is worth noting, however, that in the course of an assessment a residual employment relationship maintained artificially for the sole purpose of preserving a formal anchor to the regime could be challenged as a sham. That is not the case described, where the reduction responds to an evident organisational reason, but the distinction between genuinely reduced hours and a relationship devoid of content is one of fact, not of law.

Replacing the qualifying relationship and the continuity doctrine

The third question is what gives the ruling its doctrinal interest. The taxpayer will leave the employment relationship with the British company and take up the directorship of company B, in which he holds forty per cent. The reply observes that, nothing being said to the contrary, it is to be inferred that he will also keep his employment relationship with company A.

To resolve it, the DGT invokes its continuity doctrine, set out in rulings V0432-17, on ceasing to hold a directorship, and V1739-17, on termination of the employment relationship at the employer's initiative. Under that doctrine, a strict interpretation would exclude from the regime a taxpayer who, being unemployed or inactive, ceases to perform the work that justified it, even transiently; but the purpose of the regime, which is to attract to Spain the persons within its scope, is in no way incompatible with the taxpayer, once the employment or directorship that genuinely and effectively prompted the move has ended for reasons beyond his control, remaining briefly unemployed or inactive and then beginning a new employment or directorship which likewise meets the requirements of article 93 LIRPF. On that basis, it concludes that the taxpayer may remain within the regime to the extent that company B is not a holding entity.

The structure of that doctrine repays attention, because it is more demanding than the wording of the legislation. The conditions in paragraphs a) and b) of article 93.1 relate to the time of the move; once the move has occurred as a consequence of a qualifying circumstance, the event to which the condition refers is complete and cannot subsequently be breached. The only condition of continued eligibility the provision lays down is that in paragraph c), concerning the permanent establishment. On a strictly textual reading, the ending of the relationship that prompted the move does not affect any condition determining the application of the regime within the meaning of article 118 RIRPF, and whatever activity the taxpayer carries on afterwards is irrelevant so long as it does not generate income through a permanent establishment.

The DGT does not read the provision that way. Its continuity doctrine, maintained since 2017 and repeated in rulings V1053-17 and V0009-24, permits the qualifying relationship to end and a brief period of inactivity to follow, but requires the successor relationship to be itself one of those contemplated in article 93.1.b) and to meet its requirements. It is a purposive construction which departs from the literal wording to introduce, in the taxpayer's favour, a tolerance for transitional periods, while at the same time maintaining, to his detriment, the requirement that the new activity be one that would have permitted access. In our view that second requirement lacks sufficient support in the text of the provision, but it is the Administration's settled position and planning must proceed on that basis.

The non-holding condition applied to continued eligibility

The reply makes the continuation of the regime conditional on company B not being a holding entity. That condition derives from article 93.1.b).2º LIRPF, which, for access through the directorship route, prohibits the director of a holding entity from holding a stake that gives rise to a related-party relationship under article 18 of the Corporate Income Tax Law. The taxpayer's forty per cent exceeds the related-party threshold, so that if company B were a holding entity the access requirement through that route would not be met.

Two observations. The first is that the condition is coherent with the continuity doctrine, but only with it. If the successor relationship must meet the requirements of article 93.1.b), then the directorship of a holding entity in which the taxpayer holds more than twenty-five per cent does not meet them, and exclusion would follow. Without the continuity doctrine the condition would have no foundation, because the holding character of an entity of which the inbound worker becomes director during the regime is not, on the wording of the law, a cause of exclusion.

The second is that, on these particular facts, the condition is in any event unnecessary even on the doctrine that supports it. The reply acknowledges that the taxpayer will keep his employment relationship with company A, which is the one that prompted the move. The qualifying relationship does not end; it is reduced. The continuity doctrine is designed for the case in which the qualifying relationship is extinguished and another replaces it, not for the case in which it is retained and an additional activity is added to it. In the latter, which is the case here, ruling V5132-26 leads to the conclusion that the added activity need not satisfy any access requirement. By nonetheless making continuation conditional on the non-holding character of company B, the reply appears to treat the shareholding limitation as an autonomous condition of continued eligibility, which would introduce a cause of exclusion that neither the legislation nor the regulation contemplates.

The explanation is probably simpler, namely that the DGT wished to warn that, if the relationship with company A were also to end at some point, the directorship of company B would be the only relationship on which the regime rested and would then have to meet the access requirements. Read in that way, the condition is a sensible caution. But the reply does not say so, and a taxpayer reading it without that context will understand that the holding character of a company he directs may exclude him from the regime even though he retains the employment that prompted his move. That reading is not, in our view, correct, and it is worth saying so.

On the facts of the case the point is in any event academic. A leisure-sector company with employees and operating activity does not meet the conditions of article 5.2 of the Corporate Income Tax Law, and the condition is satisfied without difficulty.

What the ruling does not analyse

The reply resolves the questions raised and is silent on several matters which the transaction gives rise to and which should be anticipated.

It does not examine the requirement in article 93.1.c) LIRPF in relation to the future executive activity in company B. The taxpayer will be a remunerated director and will carry out executive duties for the expansion of the business. In ruling V1200-26 we examined how, where a shareholder-director personally renders professional services to the company, the third paragraph of article 27.1 LIRPF may characterise his remuneration as business income and trigger permanent establishment risk. The present case differs from that one in two respects which substantially reduce that risk: company B's activity is commercial rather than professional in character, so it does not fall within the second section of the tariffs of the Tax on Economic Activities to which the provision refers; and the company has employees and other founding shareholders who manage it, so the organisational substance belongs to the entity and not to the taxpayer. On those facts, the remuneration of the office of director is employment income under article 17.2.e) LIRPF and raises no difficulty. It is nonetheless advisable that the remuneration be provided for in the articles of association and that there be no separate services contract.

It does not address the taxation of the remuneration from the British company. During the application of the regime, that remuneration is employment income obtained in Spanish territory under article 93.2.b) LIRPF and is taxed in Spain at the rates in article 93.2.e). If the British company does not operate in Spain through a permanent establishment and carries on no economic activity here, it is not obliged to withhold on account of Spanish tax, in line with the criterion of ruling V1339-26 of 2 June 2026, so that the whole of the tax on that remuneration is settled in Modelo 151. Separately, the days worked physically in the United Kingdom may be taxable there under the Spain-United Kingdom treaty, given that the employer is resident in the United Kingdom, and any resulting British tax could be credited in Spain through the foreign tax credit in article 114.2.b') RIRPF, subject to the limit that provision establishes. A record of working days by jurisdiction is therefore necessary.

It does not address social security, a matter outside its competence. The taxpayer states that he would contribute in the United Kingdom. A person working permanently from Spain for a British employer falls, following the United Kingdom's departure from the European Union, within the social security coordination protocol annexed to the Trade and Cooperation Agreement, whose general rule refers to the legislation of the State in which the work is carried out, with specific rules for activity in two States. That a person working four days a week from his home in Spain, while also holding Spanish employment, would contribute in the United Kingdom is not a conclusion that can be assumed, and it should be reviewed before the British contract is signed.

And it does not address Wealth Tax, under which the inbound worker is taxed on a limited basis. The holding in company B is an asset situated in Spain and is within charge; the holding in the British company is not. This is a familiar consequence, but it should be borne in mind when assessing the investment in the Spanish company.

Assessment

The reply is favourable to the taxpayer at every stage, and we take no issue with the outcome. The interpretation of the exclusivity of telematic means is reasonable and useful. The compatibility of the regime with reduced hours and concurrent employers is correct and consistent with ruling V5132-26. And the acceptance of a succession of qualifying activities without loss of the regime accords with the purpose of the legislation.

Our criticism concerns the method. The DGT applies to a question of continued eligibility requirements which the law lays down for access: it examines whether the remote work satisfies the exclusivity of means, and it makes continuation conditional on the non-holding character of the company to be directed. Neither of those enquiries was necessary while the taxpayer retains his employment with company A, and their presence in the reply conveys the impression that each new activity of an inbound worker must itself pass the filter of article 93.1.b). That impression is consistent with the continuity doctrine the Administration has maintained since 2017, but that doctrine was conceived for the case in which the qualifying relationship is extinguished, not for the case in which it is retained alongside additional activities, and its extension to the latter has no foundation in the text of the provision.

The practical consequence is that the taxpayer must plan by reference to administrative doctrine rather than to the literal wording. For as long as he retains the relationship that prompted his move, the Administration will allow him to add activities without imposing requirements on them, as follows from ruling V5132-26; but if that relationship is extinguished, the Administration will require the successor to meet the access requirements in its own right. The difference between reducing and terminating the original relationship thus acquires a significance that the legislation does not give it and administrative doctrine does.

Concluding observations

Ruling V1374-26 confirms that the regime of article 93 LIRPF accommodates a complex succession of professional changes: reduced hours in the original job, remote work for a foreign employer with occasional attendance at its premises, and the subsequent assumption of executive duties as director of a company in which the taxpayer holds shares. At each of those stages the taxpayer keeps the regime.

For anyone facing a comparable trajectory, three practical points follow from the reply. The first is that retaining the relationship that prompted the move, even on reduced hours, substantially simplifies the analysis, because it places any additional activity within the territory of ruling V5132-26 and avoids scrutiny of the access requirements; the reduction must be genuine and must reflect an actual organisation of the work. The second is that, where the original relationship is to be terminated, the successor activity should be designed so as to meet the requirements of article 93.1.b) in its own right, with particular attention to the non-holding character of the entity to be directed where the shareholding exceeds the related-party threshold, because that is the position the Administration will apply. The third is that the questions the ruling does not resolve, the taxation of remote work for a foreign employer, the coordination with United Kingdom taxation and social security affiliation, are not incidental: they are what determine the effective cost of the arrangement, and they should be resolved before the British contract is signed, not afterwards.

Lullius is a tax boutique based in Palma de Mallorca specialising in international tax, private wealth and tax litigation. The authors contributed the Spain chapter to the tax litigation guides of both Chambers and Partners (Tax Controversy 2026) and The Legal 500 (Tax Disputes Comparative Guide 2026).

Legal notice. This article is provided for general information only. It reflects the position as at September 2026 and does not constitute legal or tax advice, nor does it create a lawyer-client relationship. No action should be taken, or refrained from, on the basis of its content without specific professional advice on the particular facts. Lullius accepts no responsibility for any loss occasioned by reliance on this material.