The Spanish Directorate-General for Taxes (DGT), in binding ruling V5374-26 of 28 July 2026, has examined how carried interest is taxed when received by an executive under the special impatriate regime —the so-called “Beckham Law”— where the points giving entitlement to that remuneration were allocated to him before he moved to Spain. Its answer is that this income is not taxed in Spain, to the extent that it derives from work performed outside Spanish territory.

The concept should be made clear from the outset. Carried interest is the share in fund gains that private equity and alternative asset managers grant to their professionals as part of their remuneration. Its characteristic feature is the time lag: the right arises when the investment is made, but its amount is only known, and paid, when the fund divests, often several years later.

That time lag explains the interest of the ruling. A professional who moves to Spain with already vested rights over ongoing funds may receive them when he is already tax resident in Spain and covered by the special regime. The question is whether that income, generated by earlier work, falls within Spanish taxation.

The facts of the ruling

The applicant is tax resident in the United Kingdom and works for the London subsidiary of a pan-European alternative asset investment manager, in whose group he holds less than 1%. The manager has entrusted him with leading the development of the Spanish market in investment and fundraising and, to that end, he will sign a senior management contract with the group’s Spanish entity. He plans to move to Spain with his spouse and minor children during the second half of 2026.

Part of his remuneration consists of points (participating points) representing a percentage interest in the manager’s funds, which are allocated through vehicles based in Luxembourg. Allocation takes place deal by deal, at the closing of each investment in which the applicant has been involved by identifying the opportunity, raising investors and executing the transaction.

Three features of the plan are relevant to the answer: (i) once allocated, the points give rise to a vested right to receive the entire corresponding carried interest, with no commitment to remain with the manager, save for extraordinary cases of bad-faith termination; (ii) the amount and the right to payment are determined later, when the fund divests in whole or in part; and (iii) after closing, the applicant performs no active work on the investment, beyond monitoring it for internal reporting. These are passive investments in the secondary market —that is, acquisitions from other investors of positions in existing funds—, managed by a third party.

The applicant raises two questions. The first, whether he may opt for the special regime. The second, whether the carried interest he receives once in Spain, in so far as it corresponds to points allocated before the move, falls outside Spanish taxation.

Access to the special regime

The regime is governed by article 93 of Act 35/2006, of 28 November, on Personal Income Tax (LIRPF), as worded by Act 28/2022, of 21 December, on the promotion of the start-up ecosystem, with effect from 1 January 2023. It is implemented by articles 113 et seq. of the Personal Income Tax Regulations, approved by Royal Decree 439/2007, of 30 March (RIRPF).

The regime allows a person who acquires tax residence in Spain as a result of moving there to be taxed under the rules of Non-Resident Income Tax, without losing the status of IRPF taxpayer. It applies during the tax period of the change of residence and the following five. The DGT reviews the three access requirements.

The first is not to have been tax resident in Spain during the five tax periods preceding that in which the move takes place. Before the 2023 reform, the period was ten.

Note that the provision does not require the person not to have been in Spain during those five years. Physical presence for occasional work, holidays or short stays is compatible with the regime. What is required is not to have acquired, in any of those years, the status of tax resident under article 9 LIRPF, which lays down the criteria for attributing Spanish tax residence to individuals. Those criteria are alternative: (i) the presence criterion, which means remaining in Spanish territory for more than 183 days during the calendar year; or (ii) having in Spain the main base or centre of one’s activities or economic interests. To these is added a presumption, rebuttable by evidence to the contrary, of residence in Spain where the spouse who is not legally separated and the dependent minor children habitually reside there.

The second requirement concerns the cause of the move. The move must take place in the first year of application of the regime or in the preceding year, and be due to one of the circumstances set out in article 93.1.b) LIRPF. In the case at hand, the cause is an employment contract, and the provision treats this condition as met when an employment relationship, ordinary or special, is commenced with an employer in Spain. The DGT stresses that there must be a causal link between the move and the commencement of the employment relationship, that is, the move must take place by reason of that contract. It also specifies that the characterisation of the senior management contract as an employment contract falls outside its competence.

The third requirement is not to obtain income that would be classified as obtained through a permanent establishment situated in Spanish territory, that is, through a fixed place of business in Spain.

On these premises, the DGT concludes that the applicant may opt for the regime if he acquires tax residence in Spain in 2027 as a result of his move, prompted by the commencement of the employment relationship with the Spanish company, and also meets the first and third requirements.

The ruling places the acquisition of residence in 2027, even though the move is planned for the second half of 2026. That time lag is compatible with the provision, which allows the move to take place in the year preceding the first year of application of the regime. In any event, the year in which residence is acquired depends on the criteria of article 9 LIRPF, and the joint move of the family is an element that will need to be assessed carefully.

On the formal side, the option is exercised by filing form 149, within a maximum of six months from the start date of the activity shown in the registration with the Spanish Social Security (article 116 RIRPF). Once the notification has been filed, the Administration issues a certificate evidencing the option.

While the regime applies, the annual tax return is filed on form 151. Form 150 is reserved for those who moved before 2015 and kept the earlier wording of the regime. It should also be borne in mind that a person who opts for the regime is subject to Wealth Tax under limited tax liability, that is, only on the assets and rights located in Spain.

Carried interest deriving from points allocated before the move

The second question is the one of greatest interest. The DGT starts from the premise that the carried interest is allocated to a tax period in which the applicant is already taxed under the special regime, that is, it must be declared in one of the years in which the regime applies.

The starting point is article 93.2.b) LIRPF, under which all employment income obtained while the regime applies is deemed obtained in Spanish territory. Put in practical terms, the impatriate is taxed in Spain on all his employment income, irrespective of where the remuneration is paid or the work is performed. His other income is taxed only if obtained in Spain.

Article 114.2.a) RIRPF introduces a relevant exception: income deriving from an activity carried out before the date of the move to Spanish territory is not deemed obtained while the regime applies.

The exception is, in turn, subject to a limit. It operates without prejudice to that income being taxed where it is deemed obtained in Spanish territory under the consolidated text of the Non-Resident Income Tax Act, approved by Royal Legislative Decree 5/2004, of 5 March (TRLIRNR). At this point, the DGT turns to article 13.1.c).1.º TRLIRNR, which treats employment income as obtained in Spanish territory where it derives, directly or indirectly, from a personal activity carried out in Spain.

The conclusion follows from the facts described. The carried interest derives from points allocated before the move, deal by deal, and stems entirely from work performed outside Spain. It is therefore not deemed obtained during the special regime and is not subject to tax in Spain, to the extent that it does not derive, directly or indirectly, from a personal activity carried out in Spanish territory.

Assessment

In our view, the criterion is consistent with the logic of the regime. Article 93 LIRPF brings into Spanish taxation the work performed while relocated to Spain, not work performed before the move, and article 114.2.a) RIRPF makes that temporal delimitation explicit. The time of payment does not alter the source of the income.

That said, the answer rests on very specific facts, and the criterion cannot simply be transposed to any carried interest plan. Decisive factors are the vesting of the right at the very moment of allocation, the absence of any commitment to remain and the beneficiary’s lack of activity on the investment after closing.

Many plans do not follow that pattern. It is common for the vesting of points to be staggered over time and made conditional on continued service with the manager, or for the professional to keep working on the portfolio companies until divestment. In those cases, part of the income could be regarded as deriving from activity already carried out in Spain. We consider the risk of the Administration arguing for an attribution proportional to the work performed in Spanish territory to be at least medium. The ruling does not address that apportionment.

Nor does the DGT address the taxation of this income in the United Kingdom. Nor the return on the contribution that, in many cases, the beneficiary makes to the vehicle out of his own funds (investment interest), which is in the nature of an investment rather than remuneration for work.

Two complementary rulings

In ruling V5360-26, of 28 July 2026, a French national who was resident in Sweden moved her residence to Spain on 31 March 2026 and, in April of that year, incorporated together with her spouse a Spanish holding company, owned 50% by each of them and of which both are joint and several directors. The cause of the move relied on here is the acquisition of the status of director of an entity (article 93.1.b).2.º LIRPF).

The DGT recalls two requirements. The first is the causal link between the move and the appointment, which is a question of fact whose assessment falls to the tax management and inspection bodies. It should be noted, in this regard, that the move took place before the company was incorporated, a chronology that will need to be carefully justified.

The second requirement is a limit specific to this scenario. If the company is a wealth-holding entity within the meaning of article 5.2 of Act 27/2014, of 27 November, on Corporate Income Tax —essentially, one in which more than half of the assets consist of securities or of items not used in a business activity—, the director may not hold in it an interest that makes him or her a related party of the entity under article 18 of that Act, which in the case of a shareholder occurs from 25%.

With a 50% holding, the applicant is a related party of the company, so the non-wealth-holding character of the holding company is decisive. To assess it, the DGT reproduces the criterion of its ruling V0971-24, of 9 May 2024: holdings of at least 5% of the share capital held for a minimum of one year for the purpose of directing and managing the holding are not counted as securities, provided the corresponding organisation of material and human resources is in place. A holding company with that profile might not be a wealth-holding entity, although the DGT once again leaves verification to the competent bodies.

Ruling V1374-26, of 4 June 2026, addresses a different scenario: not access to the regime, but remaining in it. The applicant moved to Spain in 2023 to work for a Spanish company and exercised the option. He is now considering reducing his working hours at that company and working remotely from Spain, as interim managing director, for a UK company in which he holds an interest as an investor, with trips to the United Kingdom of about three days a month.

The DGT considers that isolated attendance at the employer’s premises or at clients’ premises, required by the very performance of remote work, does not prevent that work from being regarded as performed through the exclusive use of computer and telematic means. Consequently, the applicant may continue to apply the regime while combining the relationship with the Spanish company and remote work for the UK company.

It adds that if he subsequently leaves the UK company and is appointed director of another Spanish company in which he holds 40%, he may remain in the regime provided that company is not a wealth-holding entity. It should be recalled that a supervening failure to meet the conditions entails exclusion from the regime from the very tax period in which it occurs (article 118 RIRPF), and that exclusion is also notified on form 149.

Practical consequences

For asset management professionals considering a move to Spain, V5374-26 provides a useful criterion, which nevertheless calls for prior documentation work.

It must be possible to evidence the allocation date of each point, deal by deal, against the date of the move. Allocation letters, the vehicle documentation and the closing documentation for each investment will be the principal evidence.

It is also advisable to review the vesting conditions of the plan and the activity the professional will continue to carry out on the investments after the move. If the plan departs from the pattern described in the ruling, we consider it prudent to assess filing a ruling request of one’s own before the move.

Finally, the formal deadlines must be observed: form 149, within six months of the start of the activity shown in the Social Security registration, and form 151 in each year in which the regime applies.

In conclusion, what this DGT ruling shows is that the impatriate regime taxes in Spain the work performed during the period following the move, and that carried interest vested through work performed before the move falls outside Spanish taxation even if received when already resident, provided it does not derive from a personal activity carried out in Spanish territory.

Sources

  • DGT, binding ruling V5374-26, of 28/07/2026 (carried interest of an impatriate deriving from points allocated before the move): link
  • DGT, binding ruling V5360-26, of 28/07/2026 (special regime and director of a Spanish holding company): link
  • DGT, binding ruling V1374-26, of 04/06/2026 (remaining in the regime while working remotely for a UK company): link
  • DGT, binding ruling V0971-24, of 09/05/2024 (newly incorporated holding company and the concept of wealth-holding entity): link