July 29th 2026
Binding ruling V1200-26 confirms that a non-resident can set up their own company in Spain, act as its director and claim the Beckham Law (Article 93 of the Personal Income Tax Act) even while holding 100% of the shares — provided the company is not an asset-holding entity. In exchange, Spain’s Directorate-General for Taxes leaves two conditions unresolved: proving the causal link between the move and the directorship, and not earning income through a permanent establishment despite personally performing the work. We explain both risks and how to sequence the operation.
Beckham Law and Setting Up a Company in Spain: What the DGT Really Requires (Ruling V1200-26)
Can a non-resident set up a company in Spain and claim the Beckham Law?
Yes — and that is the part worth understanding. Since the reform introduced by Law 28/2022 of 21 December, a non-resident can incorporate a company in Spain, take over its management and be taxed under the impatriate regime — the well-known Beckham Law — even while holding 100% of the capital. Binding ruling V1200-26 of 21 May 2026 confirms this in a textbook case: a Belgian resident who plans to set up his Spanish company in 2026 and run it himself.
The catch is that Spain’s Directorate-General for Taxes (DGT) says “yes” to the structure and then ties it to two things it does not resolve in the ruling itself. That is where the document’s real value — and its trap — lies: read only the headline and not the small print, and you can lose the regime at the first tax audit.
This profile matters above all to entrepreneurs, executives and investors who want to base their project in Spain. Before 2023, the director route was almost closed to a significant shareholder: anyone directing a company in which they held 25% or more was excluded. That wall has come down, with one important exception we will get to.
Legal framework: Article 93 LIRPF and Forms 149 and 151
The regime is set out in Article 93 of Law 35/2006 on Personal Income Tax (IRPF) and developed in Articles 113 to 120 of its Regulation. It lets someone who moves their tax residence to Spain remain an IRPF taxpayer while being taxed under Non-Resident Income Tax (IRNR) rules for the year of the change and the following five: six tax years in total.
Citable definition. The Beckham Law is the special impatriate regime of Article 93 IRPF, under which an individual who becomes a Spanish tax resident because of their relocation may be taxed as a non-resident on Spanish-source income and on worldwide employment income, at flat rates, for up to six years.
What do you gain? Employment income — including your director’s pay — is taxed at 24% up to €600,000 and 47% above that, as confirmed by the Spanish Tax Agency manual. Foreign-source income other than employment is, as a rule, outside Spanish tax. For a high salary, the gap against the ordinary IRPF marginal rates, which exceed 45% on high incomes, is substantial.
The formal mechanics rest on two forms:
- Form 149: communicates the election for the regime. It must be filed within a maximum of six months from the date of registration with Spanish Social Security (or from the start date of the activity shown in the documentation allowing the home-country system to be kept). Miss the deadline, lose the regime.
- Form 151: the annual IRPF return for those already inside the regime. It is filed during the ordinary income-tax season (for the 2025 tax year, from 8 April to 30 June 2026).
What ruling V1200-26 asks and answers
The taxpayer is a Belgian tax resident and the shareholder-director of a Belgian company providing strategic planning and commercial-expansion services. His plan: incorporate a Spanish company in 2026 with an identical or “substantially similar” purpose, move to Spain, take on the role of director and be paid for it. The company will have no employees at first; the taxpayer himself will handle management and the actual performance of the work. The company invoices, not him. As for the Belgian company, he is weighing two exits: winding it down, or keeping it as a mere holding without rendering services through it from Spain.
His question is direct: can he apply Article 93 IRPF? And, in particular, does it hurt him that he is the one performing the work?
The DGT answers by working through the three requirements stablished in the law. Prior non-residence is measured over the five preceding tax years (Art. 93.1.a, referring to the residence test in Article 9.1 IRPF). Relocating to become a director is a valid trigger (Art. 93.1.b.2º) and, holding 100% of a non-asset-holding company, the requirement is met. But the third — earning no permanent-establishment income — may fail precisely because the taxpayer performs the work himself.
In short, the ruling validates the general picture and shifts all the tension onto two questions of fact it is not entitled to decide. Both deserve a closer look.
The causal link: the requirement behind most denials
The law requires the move to Spain to happen as a consequence of one of the listed circumstances — here, becoming a director. The DGT is blunt: there must be “a causal relationship between the move to Spain and the acquisition of director status.” Without that link, the requirement fails and there is no regime.
The point many taxpayers miss is what the DGT adds: that causal relationship “is a question of fact that must be proven by evidence valid in law,” whose assessment falls not to the DGT but “to the inspection and management bodies.” The ruling binds on the criterion, but does not certify that the link exists here: that will be decided, in due course, by a tax auditor.
In practice, the link is won on the calendar and on paper. Article 93.1.b) allows the move to take place in the first year of the regime or the year before. The prudent reading — and the one the tax authorities are taking in the denials seen in 2025 and 2026 — is that the company should be incorporated and the director appointment formalised before you establish residence in Spain, so the move appears as an effect of that appointment and not the other way around. Someone who first moves and becomes resident, and only then sets up the company and appoints themselves director, will struggle to show the move was “a consequence” of the role.
This criterion is not isolated. The DGT had set it out months earlier in binding ruling V1209-25, in almost identical terms. This is a settled line, not a one-off answer.
100% ownership and asset-holding companies: the line you cannot cross
Here is the good news and its exact limit. When the move is due to the director role, law restricts your shareholding only if the entity is asset-holding. If the company is an asset-holding entity (entidad patrimonial) within Article 5.2 of the Corporate Income Tax Act (Law 27/2014) (LIS), the director cannot hold a stake that makes it a related party under Article 18 LIS — a threshold set at 25%.
The DGT applies this cleanly: since the taxpayer would hold 100%, that stake would create the related-party link; therefore, if the company is not asset-holding, the requirement is met, and if it were, he would be excluded. Translated: you can own your whole company, but it has to be a business that genuinely operates — not a shell for parking property or portfolios.
An entity is asset-holding when more than half of its assets are not used in an economic activity — securities, leased property, idle cash. It is the filter that separates the entrepreneur setting up a consultancy from the investor interposing a company to hold wealth: the first passes; the second, above 25%, does not. Hence the importance of giving the Spanish company real means, clients and invoicing from the outset.
The director who performs the work: is there a permanent establishment?
This is the delicate point, and where the ruling, in our view, stops halfway. Article 93 requires you not to earn income “that would be treated as obtained through a permanent establishment (PE) located in Spain.” The taxpayer has said he will personally perform the activity that is the company’s purpose. Does that create a PE and push him out of the regime?
The DGT reasons as follows: to classify the pay for services the shareholder provides to the company other than those inherent to the director role, and “if the taxpayer earned business income through a permanent establishment in Spain, the requirement would fail.” The statement is correct but circular: it amounts to saying there is a PE if there is a PE. It gives the taxpayer no test to know, in advance, whether the way they operate crosses that line.
Here is the nuance only practice reveals. Two income streams need to be kept apart:
- Director’s pay is classified as employment income and fits the regime without trouble: this is the income taxed at 24%/47%.
- Services the shareholder provides to their company beyond the role — the professional delivery of the client engagement — can be classified as an economic activity. If that activity is treated as carried on through a fixed base or PE of the shareholder in Spain, the law is triggered and the regime is lost.
The most exposed profile is, paradoxically, the most common in these moves: the one-person services company where the value is the person. If someone sets up a consultancy with no employees and does all the work themselves, the authorities may ask whether there is a genuine business organisation behind the company or a self-employed professional operating through a fixed base in Spain. The ruling offers no safe harbour against that reclassification; it only warns that the line exists.
And one detail is no accident: the two options for the Belgian company — cease or become a mere holding — point the same way. If he kept providing services through it from Spain, he would not only have foreign income with a possible PE, but would reinforce the impression that he has relocated his own activity rather than moved to run a new company. That strains both the causal link and the PE requirement at once. The DGT does not put it that way, but the design of the question gives it away.
Practical takeaways and common mistakes
The useful reading of V1200-26 is that the Beckham Law is compatible with setting up your company in Spain, but the operation has to be choreographed. These are the steps that, in practice, separate a solid regime from a denial:
- Incorporate the company and formalise your appointment as director before moving your residence, or within the “year before” window. Sequence changes the outcome.
- Give the company real economic substance: purpose, clients, contracts and invoicing. Avoid it being classified as asset-holding (Art. 5.2 LIS); with 100%, being asset-holding means being out.
- Document the causal link: appointment minutes, the reason for the project in Spain, the timeline of the move. It is a matter of evidence, and the burden is on you.
- Draw a clear line around your role. Separate what you are paid as director from any professional service that could be an economic activity with a PE; if you plan to invoice personal services, check the Article 93.1.c) risk first.
- Tidy up your foreign company: wind it down or make it purely passive, without providing services through it from Spain.
- Meet the formal deadlines: Form 149 within six months of Social Security registration; Form 151 every year during the income-tax season.
The most common mistake is treating the causal link as a formality. It is not: it is the ground where regimes are being lost. The second is underestimating the PE requirement in a one-person professional company. Read carefully, the ruling warns of both.
Frequently asked questions
Can I claim the Beckham Law if I am the sole shareholder and director of my Spanish company? Yes. Since the 2022 reform, the shareholding restriction applies only if the company is asset-holding. With an operating company you can hold 100%, be its director and apply Article 93 IRPF, as binding ruling V1200-26 confirms.
Do I have to set up the company before moving to Spain? It is the prudent course. The move must happen as a consequence of becoming a director. If you become resident first and set up the company afterwards, it will be hard to prove that causal link, which the authorities examine case by case.
What if my company has no employees and I do all the work? That alone does not exclude you, but it is the highest-risk scenario. If your personal performance of the activity were classified as business income obtained through a permanent establishment in Spain, you would breach Article 93.1.c) IRPF. Keep the director’s pay separate from professional services.
What is an asset-holding company and why would it exclude me? It is a company in which more than half of the assets are not used in an economic activity (Art. 5.2 LIS): leased property, securities, idle cash. If your company is asset-holding and you hold 25% or more (a related party under Art. 18 LIS), the director route is closed.
What is the difference between Form 149 and Form 151? Form 149 communicates the election for the regime (and its waiver, exclusion or end) and is filed within six months of Social Security registration. Form 151 is the annual IRPF return for someone already in the regime, filed during the ordinary income-tax season.
How long does the regime last and at what rates? It lasts the year of the change of residence plus the following five (six in total). Employment income is taxed at 24% up to €600,000 and 47% above; foreign income other than employment is generally outside Spanish tax.
Can I keep my foreign company? You can, as long as you do not provide services through it from Spain. If you keep operating with it, you risk both the causal link and the no-PE requirement. The safe option is to leave it dormant or purely passive.
Conclusion
Ruling V1200-26 is good news with two warnings in the small print. It confirms that the Beckham Law and setting up your own company in Spain are compatible, even at 100% ownership, if the company genuinely operates. But it puts the burden of proving the causal link on the taxpayer and leaves them without a safe harbour against the permanent establishment when they are the one performing the work. It works — but it has to be planned with order, timing and documentation.
If you are considering a move to Spain and basing your project here, at Martínez-Cardós Abogados we assess your case, order the sequence and prepare the election for the regime. Request a consultation before you take the first step: under the Beckham Law, order is almost everything.