Irene Castaño is a telecommunications engineer at a company in Zaragoza. Her company is opening an office in Dublin and offers her the job of running it. On 15 June 2026 Irene moves, under a contract that keeps the Spanish company as the payer of her salary, 4,200 € gross a month. In July, looking at her first payslip from Ireland, she sees that they are still withholding 22 % IRPF (Spanish personal income tax), the same rate she had in Zaragoza. Human resources tells her that, until Hacienda tells them otherwise, she is resident in Spain.
Human resources is right about one thing: the company cannot decide on its own that Irene has stopped being resident. A specific notice exists for that.
What Modelo 247 is and what the law says
Article 32 of the consolidated text of the Non-Resident Income Tax Act (IRNR) allows employees who are going to become non-resident because they are moving abroad to report it to the tax administration, recording their date of departure, solely so that the payer of their employment income treats them as taxpayers under the IRNR. The notice is given on Modelo 247.
The Agencia Tributaria, the Spanish tax agency, then issues a supporting document showing the date from which withholding will be applied under the non-resident tax. The employee hands it to the payer. And the same article adds a sentence worth reading slowly: none of this releases the employee from proving their new tax residence to the tax administration.
In other words, the 247 changes the way tax is withheld. It does not decide where you live.
Who can use it and who cannot
| Situation | Does the 247 work? | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Employee of a Spanish payer, or one with an establishment in Spain, who moves abroad | Yes | File it and give the Agencia's document to the company |
| Pensioner moving abroad | No, the rule refers to employees | Tell each payer about the change with the new country's certificate |
| Self-employed person who moves | No | Review their register position and, where appropriate, deregister or amend the registration |
| Someone living on rent or investments in Spain | No | Report the new residence to payers and institutions with the new country's certificate |
Pensioners have their own route, which we explain in which certificate I need if I receive a Spanish pension while living abroad.
Irene's year, counted day by day
The first question is not the 247 but whether Irene will be non-resident in 2026. Article 9 of the IRPF Act treats her as resident if she spends more than 183 days of the year in Spain or if the main core of her economic interests lies here.
- Days in Spain in 2026: January 31, February 28, March 31, April 30, May 31 and June 15. Total: 166 days.
- 166 does not exceed 183. On presence, she would not be resident in 2026.
- The other criterion remains: whether her economic interests are still in Spain. Irene sells her flat in Zaragoza in September and moves her accounts; her partner moves with her. Nothing suggests that the core is still here.
- Provisional conclusion: Irene may be non-resident for the whole of 2026, because IRPF is assessed by whole calendar years, under article 12 of the Act.
Now, the withholding figures from July to December:
- Salary for those six months: 6 × 4,200 = 25,200 €.
- Withholding if the company keeps treating her as resident, at 22 %: 25,200 × 0.22 = 5,544 €.
- As a non-resident, Spanish tax reaches only employment income deriving from personal work carried out in Spain, under article 13.1.c) of the IRNR Act. The work in Dublin is not an activity carried out in Spain.
- Expected withholding from the date shown on the Agencia's document: none on the work done in Ireland.
The difference, 5,544 €, is cash that Irene would not have to advance to Hacienda, as the Spanish tax office is commonly called, and claim back later.
If you are preparing to leave and would like to review the count for your year and what is worth reporting, you can tell us about it in the certificate form.
If you turn out to be resident at the end of the year
The plan can go wrong. If Irene had to come back in October because of something unforeseen and ended the year with more than 183 days in Spain, she would still be resident in 2026. The IRPF Regulations anticipate that situation in article 89: where article 32 of the IRNR Act has been applied and the employee does not become non-resident in the year of the move, the withholding applied under the non-resident tax is treated as payments on account of IRPF. Irene would then declare the whole year in her income tax return, with whatever that entails, and pay the difference.
For residents who work abroad temporarily there is also an IRPF exemption of its own, with specific requirements, which we explain in the guide on work carried out abroad.
The document the Agencia issues only allows the payer to withhold as if you were non-resident from a given date. If the facts at the end of the year say otherwise, you are resident and are taxed as such. Nor does it replace the new country's certificate: article 32 itself warns that the new tax residence has to be proved. Filing it without having analysed your year changes the timing of payments, not the result.
The certificate that comes next
Irene will need to prove to Hacienda that she is resident in Ireland. That certificate is issued by the Irish administration, with its own requirements, which her adviser there will confirm; we tell her what content it needs to work in Spain. It is best to ask for the version that mentions the treaty, as we explain in the difference between the ordinary and the treaty certificate.
At the same time, Irene must update her address on the Spanish register. Reporting the change has its own rules, which we deal with in if you moved and did not report it. The guide on Modelo 247 when leaving Spain sets out the full procedure.
What to have ready before filing it
Before filing the 247 it is worth being clear about four things: the real date of departure, the planned calendar of trips to Spain for the rest of the year, where the home, the accounts and the family will be, and whether the employer will keep paying from Spain or a foreign entity will. With that information you can anticipate whether the year will close as non-resident or not, and decide whether the notice makes sense. Filing it for a departure that later does not hold only moves the problem to the income tax return.
The reverse case
Anyone who comes to Spain to work has a mirror-image notice. Article 89 of the IRPF Regulations allows an employee moving to Spanish territory to report it so that the company withholds IRPF from the date shown on the document the Agencia issues, within a maximum of ten working days. We link it to the first-year certificate in I have just arrived: can I get the certificate yet?.
The Salama Tax page describes the certificate and how it relates to these notices. None of them decides your residence: the facts of the year decide it, and the prudent course is to have them in order before reporting anything.