The regime targets people who arrive with an employment contract, remote employees of foreign companies, and a few other cases listed in the law; self-employment is precisely the path that falls outside it. If you move to Spain to invoice clients as a freelancer, your scenario is the ordinary resident income tax, not this regime.
In practice, you opt in by notifying the AEAT within a short window after registering with Spanish social security. Miss that window and the option is gone for that move. While the regime lasts, you are taxed under its own non-resident style rules and file a specific return for the regime instead of the ordinary income tax return.
The typical mistake is reading «flat rate» and assuming it works for any foreigner who relocates. A developer who arrives on a digital nomad visa and registers as an autónomo to invoice foreign clients cannot use it: they are taxed as a resident on worldwide income, file the quarterly autónomo forms and keep an income and expense ledger. It is worth clearing this up before you arrive, not after your first return.
It is linked to tax residency, the IRNR and double taxation treaties. If you work as an autónomo in Spain, kontora keeps your double-entry books and prepares your forms box by box with deadline reminders.
Guides that use this term
- Are you a Spanish tax resident? The 183-day rule, and the other two almost nobody looks at
- Modelo 720 and modelo 721: what you report, when, and what really happens if you do not file
Related terms
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