How the calculators work

Last reviewed: August 2026

SalaryInSpain provides planning estimates for common employment, Beckham Law and self-employed scenarios in Spain. The calculators use official 2026 rules together with a defined set of assumptions so that the result is useful without asking for every detail of a tax return.

They are not payroll software and they do not provide tax, legal, accounting or immigration advice. A real payslip or tax return can differ because of information the calculators do not collect.

Salary Calculator

The Salary Calculator starts with annual gross salary and estimates employee Social Security, annual IRPF and annual take-home pay. It uses the contract type, payment structure, common-regime region, children and the taxpayer's recognised disability where those options are available in the wizard.

• 12 and 14 payments: annual IRPF, Social Security and net pay stay the same. Only the estimated distribution changes. Ordinary and extra payslips may not be identical in practice.
• Social Security is estimated using the minimum contribution base applicable to contribution groups 4–11. For lower salaries, workers in groups 1–3 may have a higher minimum contribution base, so their actual employee Social Security deduction could be higher.
• IRPF: the result separates the state and regional parts of the estimate and applies the personal and family rules supported by the calculator.
• Other income: the estimate assumes no more than €6,500 of non-exempt income outside the employment entered. That threshold can affect the employment-income reduction and the low-income employment deduction.
• Annual tax, not payroll withholding: the IRPF figure is an estimated annual liability under the calculator's assumptions. It is not a prediction of the exact withholding on every payslip.

Salary Calculator does not ask for a Social Security contribution group. It estimates employee Social Security using the minimum contribution base applicable to groups 4–11. For lower salaries, workers in groups 1–3 may have a higher minimum contribution base, so their actual employee Social Security deduction could be higher.

The Salary Calculator is designed for full-time employment and registration for a full calendar year. It does not model benefits in kind, stock compensation or every regional deduction.

Beckham Law Calculator

The Beckham Law Calculator is a screening and comparison tool. It compares the special regime with ordinary IRPF using the information entered in the wizard, but it cannot confirm eligibility.

• The special-regime employment-income scale is 24% up to €600,000 and 47% on the excess.
• Children, disability and autonomous community do not reduce the Beckham tax itself. They affect only the ordinary-IRPF side of the comparison.
• Personal and family minimums are not applied to the Beckham calculation.
• The Social Security contribution group question was removed from this calculator because it does not change the supported comparison range.
• The calculator estimates the first relevant tax year from the arrival information and limits the projection to the tax years genuinely remaining. It does not automatically project six future years in every case.
• Where the first tax year is partial, the calculator estimates that period separately rather than presenting it as a normal full year.

Final eligibility depends on the statutory conditions, the timing and reason for the move, the user's documentation and AEAT's assessment. The tool does not model every director, entrepreneur, highly qualified professional, family-member, foreign-income or double-taxation situation.

Self-Employed Calculator

The Self-Employed Calculator covers a common autónomo scenario under RETA and simplified direct assessment for IRPF. It keeps Social Security and income tax as separate calculations.

• RETA: the calculator estimates the income bracket, the applicable minimum contribution base and the resulting quota. Company partners and administrators can be subject to a special minimum contribution base tied to Social Security contribution group 7. A higher voluntary base is outside the model.
• Reduced quota: it is applied only when the user confirms that it applies and for the number of months entered. Eligibility is not assumed automatically.
• IRPF: revenue, entered business expenses, RETA and the supported difficult-to-justify-expenses allowance are used to estimate taxable business income.
• New-activity reduction: the 20% reduction is used only when the user confirms eligibility. It is separate from the reduced Social Security quota.
• VAT: IVA is not mixed into the IRPF result.

This is an annual estimate. It does not calculate quarterly filings separately, final Social Security regularisation, invoice withholding, modules, normal direct assessment, alternative mutual societies or every special autónomo category.

What is intentionally outside the scope

These cases can change the result enough that a general calculator would become misleading:

• Basque Country and Navarre are excluded from regional comparisons because they have separate foral tax systems.
• Regional deductions for rent, childcare, education, donations, housing and similar items are not included unless a calculator expressly shows them.
• Joint taxation, wealth tax, savings income, private pension planning and complex cross-border cases are outside the standard estimates.
• Immigration advice and formal Beckham Law eligibility checks are outside the scope.
• The Salary Calculator currently starts at €18,000 annual gross salary as a product-scope choice.
• Part-time contracts, employment periods shorter than a full calendar year and special Social Security regimes are not modelled. The Social Security estimate assumes full-time work and registration for the full year.

Regional scope

The calculators cover Spain's common-regime regions (territorio común). Basque Country and Navarre are excluded because they have separate foral tax systems that do not follow the common-territory IRPF scales used by these tools.

Official sources reviewed

The calculators are reviewed against primary Spanish sources. The main references include:

• Agencia Tributaria (AEAT) for IRPF guidance and the special regime for workers moving to Spain.
• Ley 35/2006, including the IRPF rules and Article 93 special regime.
• Orden PJC/297/2026 for 2026 Social Security contribution bases and rates.
• Seguridad Social for employee and self-employed contribution rules.

Official rules and published tables take priority over explanatory copy on this site. When a situation falls outside the stated scope, the result should be treated as a rough planning figure rather than a substitute for a professional review.

Privacy by design

The calculations run in your browser. Salary, region, family and self-employed inputs are not sent to a server to calculate the result and are not stored by SalaryInSpain.