Exit Tax Spain: Thresholds, Rate & How to Defer (2026)

Spain’s exit tax charges unrealized gains on share portfolios over 4,000,000 euros when a long-term resident leaves the country. It reaches only shares and participations in an entity; real estate, cash and other assets fall outside it, and it applies only once a two-part residency and value test is cleared. EU/EEA moves, a return to Spain and time spent under the Beckham Law regime can change how the rules apply.

What is Spain’s exit tax and who has to pay it?

Spain’s exit tax (Article 95 bis LIRPF, Ley 26/2014) taxes unrealized share gains once you have been resident 10 of the last 15 years and hold a portfolio over 4,000,000 euros, or 1,000,000 euros with a 25% stake.

Article 95 bis of the Ley del IRPF, introduced by Ley 26/2014, treats the positive difference between the market value of shares or participations in any type of entity and their acquisition value as a capital gain when a taxpayer loses their Spanish tax resident status through a change of residence. Nothing has actually been sold at that point. The charge applies only once a residency-length condition and one of two value conditions are both met, and the article reaches shareholdings and participations only; it never reaches property, cash or other asset classes.

The gain is folded into your ordinary IRPF return for your last Spanish tax year and taxed under the savings-income scale, the mechanism the next two sections cover in full.

Who meets the residency and shareholding thresholds?

You meet the exit-tax threshold if you have held Spanish tax resident status in at least 10 of the 15 tax periods before your last declarable year, and you also clear one of two value tests.

Article 95 bis.1 sets the two value gateways, and only one has to be met:

• The joint 4,000,000 euro gateway. The combined market value of the shares or participations you hold, across every entity, exceeds 4,000,000 euros on the accrual date of your last declarable tax period.
• The 25%-stake, 1,000,000 euro gateway. Your joint holding does not clear 4,000,000 euros, but your stake in one entity exceeds 25% and is worth more than 1,000,000 euros alone. This gateway reaches only that specific shareholding’s gain.

Both gateways need the same 10-of-15-year residency condition first. A shareholder who clears the value test but was resident under 10 of the last 15 tax periods sits outside the charge, and the Beckham Law interaction below changes when that clock starts. Spain’s wealth tax uses a different, asset-based threshold worth checking alongside this one.

Calculate what exit tax could cost you

The two thresholds above decide whether exit tax applies at all. What you would actually owe is a different question, and it depends on figures a generic guide cannot supply: your acquisition cost for each holding, the market value on the date residency ends, and which band of the savings-income scale your total deemed gain falls into.

A Spain-qualified tax specialist works those figures against your own portfolio, including whether the EU/EEA election or the general deferral changes what is due now versus later.

How is the taxable gain calculated?

The deemed gain is the market value of your shares on the date Spanish tax residency ends, minus what you originally paid for them, and it is taxed at the same combined rate as any other savings-income gain.

No sale has to occur. Article 95 bis.1 treats the positive difference between market value and acquisition value as a capital gain purely because residency has ended, so this is a fictional or deemed gain: no cash has actually changed hands. Under Article 95 bis.2, that gain forms part of savings income and is imputed to the last tax period you must declare as a Spanish resident, filed as an ordinary or supplementary self-assessment with no separate penalty, interest or surcharge for the supplementary filing itself.

The rate is the combined state-plus-regional savings-income scale, set out in Article 66 (state half) and Article 76 (regional half). Article 76 prints the regional half’s brackets and rates directly in the state statute, identically to Article 66, unlike the general-income scale each comunidad sets independently under Article 74. The figure below is genuinely national: it does not vary by which region you left.

This is the same scale that taxes interest, dividends and ordinary capital gains, applied here to a gain nobody has banked yet.

What happens if you move to another EU or EEA country?

Moving to an EU member state, or to a qualifying EEA state, opens a route that avoids an upfront self-assessment altogether unless a specific trigger event occurs later.

Under Article 95 bis.6, a taxpayer moving to another EU member state, or to an EEA state with an effective exchange of tax information, can elect this treatment: the gain only has to be self-assessed if, within the 10 tax periods following your last declarable period, one of three things happens. You transfer the shares inter vivos, you lose EU or EEA resident status, or you fail to meet the article’s annual duty to notify the tax authorities that you still hold the shares and where you now live. Where the trigger is an inter-vivos transfer, the gain is reduced by the difference between the value used originally and the actual transfer value.

A separate, more general deferral exists under Article 95 bis.4, since the tax debt there stays formally due and only its payment is deferred. The next section covers that mechanism, which can also reach some non-EU/EEA moves.

What happens if you move outside the EU or EEA?

A move outside the EU or EEA does not automatically mean the gain is due immediately: a general deferral can still apply, under two specific conditions.

Under Article 95 bis.4, the tax administration defers payment, on request, where the move is temporary and is either a work posting to a country that is not a tax haven or a move for another reason to a country with a double-taxation treaty containing an information-exchange clause. The deferral runs under the general LGT rules on interest and guarantees, and expires no later than 30 June of the year after the return window covered next. Outside both conditions, for example a permanent move, the gain is due for your last declarable tax period the ordinary way.

Whichever route applies, the gain runs through your ordinary or supplementary IRPF return for that year under Article 95 bis.2; no separate dedicated exit-tax form exists.

Does moving back to Spain cancel the tax?

Yes, if you regain Spanish tax resident status within the return window without having transferred the shares.

Article 95 bis.4 extinguishes a deferred tax debt, along with any interest accrued on it, if you regain Spanish taxpayer status within five tax periods following your last declarable period, extendable by up to five further periods for a work-related posting on justified grounds, provided you have not transferred ownership of the shares in the meantime. No guarantee costs already incurred are refunded.

Article 95 bis.5 covers a taxpayer who already paid the gain without using the deferral: if you regain Spanish taxpayer status without having transferred the shares, you can request a rectification of your self-assessment under LGT article 31 to get a refund of the amounts already paid, with default interest running from the date you paid to the date the refund is ordered.

Does the Beckham Law regime change your exit-tax exposure?

Yes, on the residency clock specifically. Article 95 bis.8 states that for a taxpayer who opted into the Beckham Law special regime for posted workers under Article 93, the 10-tax-period count in Article 95 bis.1 begins only from the first tax period in which the Beckham regime no longer applies to them.

Years spent under the Beckham regime do not count toward the 10-of-15-year exit-tax threshold at all. The count has not started yet. A Beckham-regime taxpayer who leaves Spain at any point while the regime still applies, including immediately after their regime years end, cannot be caught by exit tax on the residency test, because the 10-year clock has never begun.

The Beckham Law page covers the regime’s rate and eligibility rules. A Spain-qualified specialist can confirm how the two regimes interact for your own case.

Can exit tax be deferred or reduced legally?

Article 95 bis sets out limited timing and deferral routes: staying outside the value thresholds, electing the EU/EEA no-upfront-assessment treatment on a qualifying move, using the general deferral where its conditions are met, and returning to Spain within the return window before selling. These rules do not provide a blanket route to eliminate a liability once the charge applies.

Because the residency clock and the value thresholds interact with a specific portfolio and a specific move, working out which of these routes actually applies is not something a generic guide can resolve.

What does exit-tax planning cost?

Exit-tax fees are not fixed; they move with the case.

You get a quote in writing before any work starts, once your case is known.

Talk to a Spain-qualified exit-tax specialist

Whether your case is a straightforward departure filing or one that involves the EU/EEA election, the general deferral or the Beckham Law timing question, it needs the relevant tax analysis before filing.