Modelo 149 and Modelo 151: The Two Filings That Run the Regime

The Beckham regime is administered through two AEAT forms. The election in, exits and material changes go through Modelo 149. The annual self-assessment runs through Modelo 151. Neither is intrinsically difficult; both are easy to fail, and we see the same handful of failure modes repeat.

This article is a procedural walkthrough — what the forms ask, what to provide, and what AEAT routinely catches.

Modelo 149: the gatekeeper

Modelo 149 is the form by which a taxpayer elects to apply Article 93, renounces the regime, notifies an exclusion triggered by a change in circumstances, or notifies the end of the displacement. Same form, four uses, separate boxes.

Filing the election

The election is filed once. The substantive supporting file the AEAT expects, in practice, is:

• Identification. Passport (and, where issued, NIE).
• Communication of the regime's commencement. The contractual or analogous instrument that triggered the displacement: employment contract, carta de desplazamiento, board resolution appointing the administrator, ENISA classification certificate, or service agreement, as applicable.
• Proof of social-security status. Either the Spanish alta (TGSS informe de vida laboral) or the certificate showing retention of foreign social-security coverage (Form A1 or equivalent).
• Tax-residence proof for the lookback period. A certificate of tax residence from the prior jurisdiction for each of the five preceding years where one can be obtained. Where no certificate is issuable, alternative documentary evidence (returns filed, residence cards) is required.
• Statement of qualifying cause — which limb of Article 93 the file relies on, with the supporting paragraph reasoning.

The Modelo 149 itself asks for a small subset of this — the form is short — but the supporting documentation must be ready, because AEAT will request items within a ten-day window after submission and a missed response within that window can sink the file.

Filing through the Sede Electrónica

The 149 lives on AEAT's Sede Electrónica. Submission requires an electronic certificate (Cl@ve PIN, FNMT certificate, or DNI-e). Foreigners new to Spain commonly do not yet have any of these on the day they should be filing.

Workflow we use: the client obtains an FNMT certificate the same week the NIE is collected; the certificate is bound to the NIE and the email. If FNMT is not yet possible, the law firm files as authorised representative under a poder de representación, which is signed in physical form and apostilled if executed abroad. The latter route is universally available but adds two to three weeks to the timeline — start it on day one.

Notifying changes through 149

Three later events also use Modelo 149:

• Renunciation. Voluntary opt-out. Permanent for that displacement — the taxpayer cannot re-elect for the same six-year window.
• Exclusion. Triggered by losing a qualifying condition (most commonly: ceasing the qualifying employment and not replacing it with another qualifying cause within the permitted continuity window).
• End of displacement. Notified when the worker leaves Spain at the end of the regime period.

Each has its own filing window (one month for exclusion; one month from the end of the displacement for the third). Missing them rarely produces large penalties but does generate avoidable interactions with AEAT.

Modelo 151: the annual return

While the regime is in force, the taxpayer files Modelo 151 instead of Modelo 100 (the ordinary IRPF return). The 151 is filed in the same campaign as the 100 — generally between early April and the end of June following the tax period.

What 151 taxes

Under Article 93, the Beckhamite is treated, for the duration of the regime, on a basis that resembles non-resident taxation for non-Spanish-source income, with these material specifics:

• Employment income — Spanish-source treatment is extended. All employment income, whether arising from work performed in Spain or abroad during the period, is treated as Spanish-source for the purposes of the regime. (This is the bite of Beckham: the worldwide employment income is in the Spanish base.)
• Flat 24 % on the first €600,000 of the taxable base; 47 % above. The €600,000 threshold was introduced by Ley 26/2014 and remains the cliff.
• Other income — only Spanish-source is taxed. Foreign dividends, foreign interest, foreign capital gains, and foreign rental income generally escape Spanish taxation under the regime — subject to anti-abuse provisions and the specific source rules. We cover the foreign-income side in a separate article; the point for the 151 is that these items must be characterised carefully on the return.
• Savings income from Spanish sources is taxed at the savings rates (currently topping at 28 %), not at 24 %.
• No Modelo 720/721 reporting obligation. The Beckhamite is not, for the duration of the regime, obliged to file the foreign-asset declarations — a meaningful administrative relief.

Common Modelo 151 errors

In our 2024 and 2025 caseload, the recurring errors are:

1. Treating foreign employment income as foreign-source. It is not. The wording of Article 93.2.b clarifies that employment income obtained by the taxpayer during the period is, for the regime's purposes, considered as arising in Spanish territory. Reporting half the year's salary as foreign source because half the year was worked abroad is wrong and AEAT-catchable.
2. Omitting Spanish-source savings income. Spanish interest, Spanish dividends, gains on Spanish-listed securities — all reportable, all taxed at savings rates.
3. Misreporting equity compensation. RSUs, ISOs, NSOs and Spanish stock options have their own source rules, vesting rules, and timing rules; equity comp is the single most common driver of supplementary AEAT correspondence in our files. Plan it before vesting, not at filing time.
4. Foreign-asset items leaking into the base. A foreign rental income line copy-pasted from the prior year's foreign return into a Modelo 151 base is a self-inflicted assessment.

Withholding and pay-on-account

Spanish employers withhold from Beckhamite salaries at the regime's rates. Coordinate with payroll: the standard IRPF withholding tables do not apply, and an employer that defaults to ordinary withholding will produce a refund-due return — generally fine, but it ties up cash for a year. The corrective is the comunicación de datos al empleador under Modelo 145, indicating the regime applies.

A short checklist before each Modelo 151

• Vida laboral and payroll certificates for the period.
• Foreign income inventory: employment (taxed), Spanish-source other (taxed), foreign-source other (generally outside the base).
• Equity-comp vesting events; treatment confirmed per the relevant instrument and source rules.
• Wealth-tax position reviewed in parallel (see the wealth-tax article).
• Change-of-circumstance review: is the qualifying cause still in place? If terminated mid-year, is a Modelo 149 filing required?

Mechanically, Modelo 151 is a return. Substantively, it is a year-end audit of whether the regime is still doing what was assumed when the election was filed. The most expensive year is the one where nobody checks the regime's continuing fit until campaign season opens.