Living here changes the question
While you were resident in your own country, your pension was its business. From the moment you become tax resident in Spain, your return stops caring where the money comes from: worldwide income goes into Spanish income tax, and a pension is employment income like any other (article 17.2.a of Law 35/2006).
Residence is not something you choose, and the town-hall register does not decide it. Article 9 of that same law does, and any one of these three is enough:
| Test | What it means in practice |
|---|---|
| More than 183 days | In the calendar year, counting occasional absences unless you can prove tax residence in another country |
| Your centre of economic interests | Where the core of your assets and income sits, even if you spend less time here |
| Your family | Presumed, unless proved otherwise, where your spouse and minor children live here |
The padrón is a municipal register and decides nothing in tax. People are registered on it without being tax resident, and people who never registered are.
What your country’s treaty says
Your pension going into the Spanish return does not mean your own country gives it up. That is settled by the double taxation treaty, and almost every one Spain has signed follows the same OECD pattern, with two rules that are easy to confuse:
| Type of pension | The treaty’s general rule |
|---|---|
| Social security or a private plan, from a career in the private sector | Taxed only where you live: in Spain |
| For services to the State, a region or a local authority — government service | Taxed only in the country that pays it, unless you are resident and a national of Spain |
The most common case on the coast is spelled out in the Spain–United Kingdom treaty of 14 March 2013: article 17 taxes pensions only in the state of residence, and article 18.2 leaves government service pensions with the state that pays them, unless the person is resident and a national of the other. That is why a retired teacher from the British public sector living in Málaga still pays tax in the United Kingdom on that pension, while a neighbour who worked in the private sector pays it here.
The pattern is shared, but the article that applies, the wording and sometimes the outcome change from country to country. We do not answer by analogy: we read the treaty that applies to you and put it in writing, with the article in front of us.
What is almost always wrong: withholding at source
The real problem is rarely how much is paid; it is paying twice. The foreign payer keeps withholding as though you still lived there, and the same pension goes into your Spanish return. The money is not lost, but getting it back takes work and time.
The way out has three steps, and the order matters:
- A Spanish certificate of residence, for treaty purposes The ordinary certificate is not the one: it has to be the certificate the treaty refers to. The Spanish tax agency issues it and it expires after a year.
- A claim to the payer, on its own form Every administration has its own, and many require the Spanish certificate to travel stamped with the form. Until they process it, they keep withholding.
- Reclaiming what was withheld in excess That is asked of the country that withheld, not of Spain, on its deadlines and by its procedure. Which is why years should not be left to pile up: each one that closes there is one that can be lost.
Meanwhile, in your Spanish return the relief for international double taxation (article 80 of the income tax act) only reaches the tax the treaty allows the other country to charge. Anything withheld above that is not deducted here: it is reclaimed there.
Your case, in two minutes
Your pension from abroad: your map of obligations
The form for this service asks only what matters here. At the end you have your map of obligations, the deadlines running against you and a fixed price.
What your Spanish return ends up containing
A retired person from abroad living here rarely has only one pension. This is what usually lands in the same return:
- The foreign pension, converted into euros at the rate on the day it was received.
- Other pensions or annuities, each with its own treatment.
- Rental income, here or abroad, and deemed income on any empty property that is not your main home.
- Interest, dividends and funds, with the tax withheld at source and its relief.
- Form 720, separately and for information only, if any of its blocks passes 50,000 €.
Spanish income tax allows a higher personal allowance from 65, and a higher one again from 75. It is not something you have to claim — it applies by itself — but it is worth knowing it is there, because it changes whether the return comes out payable at all.
Our part in your pension from abroad
First we read: the treaty for your country, your pension certificates and whatever has been withheld. From that we tell you, in writing, which country may tax what and what has to be done so that the withholding stops.
Then, every year: your Spanish return with the pension in it, the certificate of residence kept alive — it expires and has to be renewed — and a warning if form 720 appears. If there are earlier years outstanding, they are looked at before the current one and quoted separately.
What we do not do is give an opinion on your own country’s tax. We read the treaty, which is Spanish law, and prepare the claim your payer needs; if something has to be litigated there, a professional there handles it and we coordinate with them.