Remote Work from Spain for a Foreign Employer: Where Is Your Salary Taxed? (DGT Ruling V1295-26)
In Binding Ruling V1295-26 the Spanish Tax Agency confirms that a Spanish resident working fully remotely from Spain for an Irish company is taxed only in Spain. Treaty rules, tax residence, the 183-day test, Beckham Law and free PDF.
Legal review: Gabriel Padilla Franco, lawyer, ICAE no. 1265 · 4 November 2026
Remote work across borders: where is your salary taxed if you work from Spain for a foreign company?
More and more people move to the Costa Blanca and keep working remotely for their employer in Ireland, the UK, the Netherlands, Sweden or Germany. The question almost all of them ask us is the same: *if my company is abroad and pays me from abroad, do I have to pay tax in Spain?*
Spain's Directorate-General for Taxes (DGT) has just answered a very clear case in Binding Ruling V1295-26 of 27 May 2026. The conclusion: what counts is where you physically work, not where your employer is based.
The case: an Irish-resident employee moving to Spain
- Tax resident in Ireland since 2022.
- Employed by an Irish company since September 2021.
- Plans to move to Spain and keep working entirely remotely from her Spanish home, under her Irish contract.
The DGT assumes she becomes tax resident in Spain and that all her work is physically carried out in Spain.
What the Spanish Tax Agency says
It applies Article 15 of the Spain–Ireland Double Taxation Convention (Madrid, 10 February 1994, amended by the BEPS Multilateral Instrument). Under paragraph 1, the salary of a resident of one State may be taxed only in that State, unless the employment is exercised in the other State.
Because she lives in Spain and works only from Spain, her salary may be taxed only in Spain, under the Spanish Personal Income Tax Act (Law 35/2006).
The DGT relies on Commentary 1 on Article 15 of the OECD Model Tax Convention (2025 version): employment is exercised where the employee is physically present when doing the work. The fact that the results are used in another country, or that the employer is there, does not by itself give that country taxing rights.