Brigitte and Hans are a retired German couple who have lived all year round in Jávea since 2023. She receives a pension from a private German insurer, €16,500 a year. He receives a Spanish public pension of €14,000 for the years he worked for a Spanish company, and he has some funds in Germany that paid €900 in dividends. A neighbour told them that "under €22,000 you don't have to file". He did not need to; she did. The difference lay in a detail almost nobody looks at: who pays the pension and whether they are obliged to withhold tax.
This page sets out the criteria that oblige you to file the return for IRPF (the personal income tax), Modelo 100, with their thresholds and the cases in which it is worth filing even if you are not obliged to. There is more background on the obligations of individuals on our self-employed in Spain page.
Before the thresholds: are you tax resident in Spain?
Modelo 100 is for residents. Article 9 of the IRPF Act treats as resident anyone who spends more than 183 days of the year in Spain, or who has the main centre or base of their business activities or economic interests here, and it presumes residence when the spouse (not legally separated) and minor children habitually live here. Brigitte and Hans live in Jávea all year: they are resident and are taxed on their worldwide income. A non-resident does not file Modelo 100; if they have income in Spain, they file Modelo 210. When two countries consider you resident at the same time, the tax treaty decides; we explain it in dual residence conflicts.
The thresholds in article 96
| Type of income | No obligation to file if it does not exceed… | Conditions |
|---|---|---|
| Employment income (including pensions) | €22,000 | A single payer, or several where the second and subsequent payers together do not exceed €1,500 |
| Employment income | €15,876 | More than one payer and the second and subsequent exceed €1,500; non-exempt compensatory pensions or maintenance payments; a payer not obliged to withhold; income subject to a fixed withholding rate |
| Investment income and gains subject to withholding | €1,600 | Dividends, interest, funds |
| Imputed income from property, Treasury bills and grants for subsidised housing | €1,000 | Taken together |
| Income of all kinds | €1,000 of income and losses below €500 | General combined limit |
Even if none of them is exceeded, you have to file if you want to claim the home-purchase deduction under the transitional regime, the deduction for a business savings account or the one for international double taxation, or if you made contributions to pension plans that you want to deduct from your taxable base. And anyone with income from a business or professional activity is practically always obliged, because the combined limit is very low.
Brigitte and Hans, line by line
Brigitte
- Employment income: a private German pension of €16,500.
- The payer is a German insurer, which is not obliged to withhold in Spain. That puts her under the reduced threshold of €15,876.
- €16,500 is more than €15,876: she is obliged to file.
- With no withholding in Spain, the return will foreseeably show tax to pay. The tax treaty between Spain and Germany determines which country taxes each pension and how double taxation is avoided; the rule differs for public and private pensions, and it has to be checked for each one.
Hans
- Employment income: a Spanish pension of €14,000, a single payer obliged to withhold. Threshold: €22,000. He does not exceed it.
- Dividends from German funds: €900. Investment income threshold: €1,600. He does not exceed it.
- Conclusion: he is not obliged. But if he wants to claim the international double taxation deduction for the German tax on those dividends, he has to file.
And a joint decision: if Hans files, they have to weigh up whether a joint return or two individual returns suits them better. If you would like us to look at yours, tell us about it in the self-employed form, which also covers pensioners.
Thresholds that do not mean what they seem
The €22,000 threshold is not a tax-free allowance. Below it you may not have to file, but if you do file, you are taxed from the first euro above your personal allowances. The threshold only decides whether you have to file, not how much you pay.
A foreign payer always puts you under the lower threshold. For someone living in Spain on a pension from the United Kingdom, Germany or the United States, the threshold that matters is not €22,000 but €15,876, even if that pension is their only income. It is one of the most frequent mistakes among foreign pensioners, and we deal with it in pensioners and income from abroad.
Foreign income that is exempt under a tax treaty may still count when calculating the rate applied to the rest, which is known as exemption with progression. Not being taxed does not mean it should not appear.
An empty second home also generates income. For urban properties that are neither your main home nor let out, income of 2 % of the cadastral value (valor catastral, the official value used for property taxes) is imputed, or 1.1 % if that value was revised in the previous ten tax periods (article 85 of the IRPF Act). Added to other income in the same group, it can take you above the €1,000 threshold without your having received a single euro.
And not being obliged does not stop you filing. If tax was withheld and the return shows a refund, filing it is the only way to get that money back.
Three situations that change the answer
The year you arrive or leave
Residence is determined by full calendar year: there is no being resident for half a year and non-resident for the other half. Someone who arrives in March and stays for the rest of the year is usually resident for the whole year; someone who leaves in March normally is not, although you have to look at where their family and economic interests remain.
The article 93 regime
Anyone who opted into the special regime for workers posted to Spain, known as the Beckham regime, is still resident but does not file Modelo 100: they file Modelo 151, with different rules. We explain it in the Beckham regime.
Someone who has died
If a family member died during the year, their heirs may be obliged to file their last return, covering the period from 1 January to the date of death, with the same thresholds. It is one of the obligations most often overlooked in an inheritance.
The Agencia Tributaria's tax data (the datos fiscales) contain what Spanish payers have reported to it. A private foreign pension, dividends collected at a bank in another country or a rental nobody has reported do not appear. If your obligation depends on that income, the program may tell you there is no need to file when there is. Check it against your own papers, not against the draft.
A check in five questions
- Were you tax resident in Spain last year? If not, this is not your return.
- Does your employment or pension income exceed €22,000? You file.
- Does it exceed €15,876 and do you have two payers with more than €1,500 from the second, or a payer that does not withhold, such as a foreign one? You file.
- Do you have rental income, a business activity or gains from selling property or shares? Check their thresholds: you almost always file.
- Do you want to claim deductions or reductions for pension plans? You file even if you are not obliged to.
If you still have doubts after all this, the doubt itself is usually a reason to review it with papers in hand: we cannot confirm that a case with foreign income falls outside the obligation without seeing that income. And if the deadline has already passed, carry on to I forgot to file my income tax return.