Drawing a Spanish pension while living abroad: which country taxes it

The distinction that decides everything

Double tax treaties do not treat all pensions alike. The line between one case and another is not how much you receive: it is where the money comes from.

Type of pension	Treaty article	Where it is normally taxed
Public service pension: paid for service to the state, a region or a town hall — civil servants, teachers in public schools, police	Government service	Usually in Spain alone, as the paying state
Social security pension earned in the private sector	Pensions	Usually in your country of residence alone
Private pension plans and annuities	Pensions	Usually in your country of residence alone

Which produces a result people find hard to believe: a retired state school teacher and a retired factory worker, living in the same village in France, can be taxed in different countries on their respective pensions. That is not an anomaly. It is what the treaty says.

What usually goes wrong

The problem is almost never the law. It is the mechanics, and there are three versions of it that we see over and over again:

• Spain keeps withholding on a pension that is not taxable here. The payer withholds because it has no record of your non-resident status, and you are effectively taxed twice until you reclaim.
• Nothing is withheld and Spain did have the right to tax, because your pension is a public service one. The liability builds up quietly and surfaces years later with surcharges.
• You declare in both countries out of caution, and end up funding a payment that will take a very long time to come back, if it comes back at all.

Doing nothing stopped being an option some time ago. Under automatic exchange of information, the country where you live knows you receive money from Spain, and Spain knows where you live if you have told it.

The documents that resolve most cases

• A certificate of tax residence issued by the authority of the country where you live, and expressly for the purposes of the treaty with Spain. A certificate of municipal registration is not the same thing and will be rejected.
• Notification to the payer of your non-resident status, so that the treaty is applied and the withholding stops or drops to the right rate.
• Form 210, to regularise what is owed or to reclaim what was over-withheld, with a four-year limitation period running against you.
• Withholding certificates for each year, which are the evidence of what was deducted.

The order matters: the certificate first, then the notification to the payer, and only then the refund claims. Starting at the end adds months to the process and occasionally loses a year to the time limit.

What you still have in Spain

Almost nobody who leaves takes everything with them. Whatever stays here goes on generating obligations, and they are exactly those of any non-resident owner:

• The flat. If you let it, an annual form 210 on the rental income. If you do not, imputed income for the days it stood at your disposal — a notional rent that Spain taxes whether or not anybody paid you anything. We explain it on imputed income.
• Wealth tax, on a limited basis covering only your Spanish assets, if they exceed the threshold that applies to you. It is set out under form 714.
• Accounts and funds at Spanish banks, whose income may suffer withholding at source.
• Community charges and council rates. If your flat sits in a block, you are a member of the comunidad de propietarios — the owners' association that maintains the building and levies monthly charges — and you still receive the annual IBI bill from the town hall. Neither is a tax return, but both are evidence about the property and both get checked when it is eventually sold.

And if in some year you come back and pass 183 days here, your status changes: you become taxable on your worldwide income, form 720 appears, and wealth tax switches to your worldwide assets. That year is worth planning before it happens rather than afterwards.

Your case, in two minutes

What applies to your pension abroad, in two minutes

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.

Start with this form →

How we handle your pension abroad

We read your treaty and identify what kind of pension you actually draw, which is not always what the paperwork calls it. We obtain the certificate and deal with the notification to the payer, calculate and file the forms 210 that are due — on the pension, on the property, or on both — and claim refunds for the years still open.

We write to you in English, Spanish or French, and we work alongside whatever adviser you have in your country of residence: we answer for the Spanish side and give them the figures they need. We do not advise on the tax law of other countries, and we would rather say so at the start than at the end.

The year you leave, and the year you come back

Spain does not split a tax year. You are either resident for the whole calendar year or not resident for the whole of it, decided by where you spent more than 183 days and where your economic interests were. So a move in June does not produce half a year of each: it produces one status for the entire year, and which one it is depends on facts you should be able to evidence.

Two practical consequences. First, the timing of a move can be worth planning, because leaving in March and leaving in August put you in different years for Spanish purposes. Second, leaving has to be notified: the census form used to report a change of address and tax status — form 030 — is what tells the administration you have gone, and without it your Spanish payers and your bank carry on treating you as resident. People who simply move and say nothing are the ones who discover, three years later, that Spain still had them on its books.

What we ask for at the start

To give you an answer rather than a general rule, we need the country you live in, the type of pension or pensions you draw and who pays each of them, the withholding certificates for the years still open, and a note of what you still own in Spain. From that we can say which country has the taxing right on each source, what is recoverable, and what is outstanding here. It usually takes one exchange of emails to establish whether there is money to be recovered, and that part costs nothing.

Questions we are asked about your pension abroad

I draw a social security pension and live in France. Where am I taxed? Reading the treaty, a social security pension earned in private sector employment is usually taxed only in the country of residence. The particular treaty has to be checked and your residence evidenced.

I am a retired civil servant. Does that change things? Considerably. Pensions paid for service to the state are usually taxed in Spain alone, even though you live abroad. It is the most important distinction in this whole area.

I have been over-withheld for years. Can I recover it? Yes, within the four-year limitation period, by filing a refund claim on form 210 for each year with the withholding certificates.

Do I have to file form 720 if I live abroad? No. The 720 is for Spanish tax residents.

And if I move back to Spain? In the year you pass 183 days you become taxable on your worldwide income, with everything that follows. Plan it before the move, not after.