Spain Income Tax and Take-Home Pay 2026: IRPF Brackets, Social Security and Regional Rates
Spain's income tax runs from 19% to 47%, but no single rate applies to your whole salary and no single body sets them all. Half the scale is national, the other half is set by your autonomous community, so an identical salary is taxed differently in Madrid, Barcelona and Seville. Employees also pay 6.5% in social security. On a €30,000 salary in a region using the standard scale you keep about €23,124 a year, or €1,927 a month.
How gross pay becomes net pay
Spanish tax is not one calculation. It is five, in a fixed order:
- Start with gross salary.
- Subtract the employee's social security contributions — 6.5% of gross on a standard Régimen General contract.
- Subtract €2,000 of general deductible expenses.
- Subtract the reduction for earning income, worth up to €7,302 at lower salaries and tapering away by about €19,750 of net income.
- Apply the national scale and your community's scale, then subtract the tax attributable to the €5,550 personal and family minimum.
The AEAT publishes this sequence as an algorithm for payroll withholding each year, and the annual return follows the same logic. Run a salary through the Spain salary calculator to see each step applied to your own figures.
IRPF brackets in 2026
The national scale, set by Article 63 of the IRPF law, has six brackets. The third column shows the running total of national tax, which matters because the two halves of IRPF are added together at the end.
| Base liquidable (€) | National rate | Cumulative national tax |
|---|---|---|
| 0 to 12,450 | 9.5% | €1,182.75 |
| 12,450 to 20,200 | 12% | €2,112.75 |
| 20,200 to 35,200 | 15% | €4,362.75 |
| 35,200 to 60,000 | 18.5% | €8,950.75 |
| 60,000 to 300,000 | 22.5% | €62,950.75 |
| Above 300,000 | 24.5% | — |
Your community applies its own scale to the same base, and the two are added. In a community that has not written its own scale, the regional half mirrors the national one, which produces the combined marginal rates everyone quotes: 19%, 24%, 30%, 37%, 45% and 47%. Those are two taxes stacked on the same slice of income, not one graduated scale.
Note the word base. IRPF is charged on base liquidable, not on gross salary. On €30,000 the base is about €26,050 once social security and the deductions above are taken off.
What employees pay in social security
For 2026 a standard Régimen General employee contributes 6.5% of gross pay:
| Contribution | Employee rate 2026 |
|---|---|
| Common contingencies | 4.70% |
| Unemployment | 1.55% |
| Vocational training | 0.10% |
| Intergenerational equity mechanism (MEI) | 0.15% |
| Total | 6.50% |
Two things trip people up. The contribution base is capped at €5,101.20 a month, so very high salaries stop accruing proportional social security and instead attract a separate solidarity contribution. And the 6.47% figure still quoted on many websites is the pre-2026 rate: the MEI rose to 0.90% in 2026, and 0.15 points of that falls on the employee.
Take-home pay at typical salaries
Standard-scale region, single employee, no children, no private pension plan.
| Gross | Social security | IRPF | Take-home | Kept | Monthly |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| €20,000 | €1,300.00 | €2,044.40 | €16,656 | 83.3% | €1,388 |
| €30,000 | €1,950 | €4,926.00 | €23,124 | 77.1% | €1,927 |
| €40,000 | €2,600 | €7,745.00 | €29,655 | 74.1% | €2,471 |
| €50,000 | €3,250 | €11,204.50 | €35,546 | 71.1% | €2,962 |
| €60,000 | €3,900 | €14,664.00 | €41,436 | 69.1% | €3,453 |
The €20,000 case shows how much the €2,000 of deductible expenses and the earned-income reduction do for a low salary: total deductions of €3,344, or 16.7% of gross. The €5,550 minimum, the €2,000 of deductible expenses and the up-to-€7,302 earned-income reduction combine so that a salary at that level keeps 86.7% of gross pay. The same workings for a €20,000 salary are set out in €20,000 after tax in Spain.
Why the same salary costs more in Madrid than in Barcelona
Each community sets the regional half of IRPF, and the spread is wide. Madrid's published scale is the flattest in the country:
| Madrid regional scale | Rate |
|---|---|
| 0 to €13,362.22 | 8.5% |
| €13,362.22 to €19,004.63 | 10.7% |
| €19,004.63 to €35,425.68 | 12.8% |
| €35,425.68 to €57,320.40 | 17.4% |
| Above €57,320.40 | 20.5% |
Apply it to the same base and the difference is real:
| Gross | Take-home in Madrid | Take-home, standard-scale region | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| €30,000 | €23,417 | €23,124 | €293 |
| €50,000 | €36,156 | €35,546 | €610 |
| €60,000 | €42,149 | €41,436 | €713 |
The marginal rate tells the story more sharply. On a €30,000 salary the base is €26,050, which sits in the 15% national bracket. A Madrid resident adds 12.8% on top for a combined 27.8%; a resident of a standard-scale region adds 15% for 30%. On €50,000 the base is €44,750: 18.5% national plus 17.4% in Madrid, or 35.9%, against 37% elsewhere.
Communities that levy higher regional rates, Cataluña and the Valencian Community among them, push the top combined marginal rate above 47%. Regional scales are revised from time to time, so check your community's current scale rather than trusting an old table.
The Beckham law for new arrivals
Spain has a special regime for people who move there to work: the régimen especial for displaced workers in Article 93 of the IRPF law. If you qualify, Spanish employment income is taxed at a flat 24% up to €600,000 and 47% above that, instead of the progressive scale, for the year you arrive plus five more.
Two catches. The flat 24% is higher than the progressive rate on the first slice of income, so the regime pays off mainly for higher salaries or for people with substantial foreign income that it keeps outside Spanish tax. And you must apply on form 149 within six months of registering with Spanish social security — miss the window and the regime is closed to you.
Do you have to file a Spanish tax return?
If all your income came from a single payer and totalled €22,000 or less, you are not obliged to file. The threshold falls to €15,876 when you have more than one payer and the second and later payers together paid you more than €1,500.
Filing is often still worth it. Withholding during the year is an estimate, and allowances for pension contributions, childcare or regional deductions generally only get settled on the return.
Frequently asked questions
What is the income tax rate in Spain in 2026?
Marginal rates run from 19% on the first €12,450 to 47% above €300,000 once the national and regional scales are combined. Only the slice of income inside each bracket pays that bracket's rate, so a €50,000 salary has an effective IRPF rate of about 22.4% of gross pay, not 37%.
How much is taken out of a €30,000 salary in Spain?
€1,950 in social security and €4,926 in IRPF, a total of €6,876. That leaves €23,124 a year, or €1,927 a month, which is 22.9% of gross pay. In Madrid the same salary leaves €23,417, about €293 more.
Do expats pay tax on worldwide income in Spain?
Yes. Once you are tax resident — normally by spending more than 183 days in Spain in a calendar year, or by having your main economic interests there — Spain taxes your worldwide income and expects you to report foreign assets. Relief from double taxation comes from Spain's tax treaties, not from domestic law.
Is tax lower in Madrid than in other regions?
Yes, and by a meaningful margin. Madrid's top regional rate is 20.5%, among the lowest of any community under the common regime, and its scale starts at 8.5%. A €60,000 salary keeps €42,149 there against €41,436 in a region using the standard scale, and the gap widens as pay rises.
Verdict
Spain's headline rates look high, and at the top of the scale they are. But the structure is generous at the bottom, and unusually so: the €5,550 personal minimum, the €2,000 of deductible expenses and the €7,302 earned-income reduction mean a €20,000 salary keeps 86.7% of gross pay after tax and social security.
The variable that matters most is not what you earn but where you live. Madrid's regional scale is among the lowest in the country, the gap against a standard-scale community runs to several hundred euros a year on a normal salary, and it widens as pay rises. If two job offers are close, the community you live in can decide it.