Once you are a Spanish tax resident, the treaty hands your 401(k) and IRA withdrawals to Spain. The United States taxes you anyway and credits the Spanish tax; rollovers and Roths follow other rules.
All the guides you need to move to Spain the right way
11 guides, written for U.S. citizens, updated when the rules change.
The residence card deadline runs from your entry into Spain. How to sequence the TIE appointment, the padrón and your address in the first weeks.
The costly mistakes after a move to Spain come from rules that apply on a date. Eight of them, from tax residency to the padrón, with the official rule and the fix.
The FBI check, its apostille, the medical certificate and your U.S. accounts, sequenced so nothing expires before your consulate appointment.
Keep a U.S. account, get your broker's policy for customers abroad before any address changes, and open the Spanish account knowing why the FATCA question comes up at the counter.
Sell before you become a Spanish tax resident and only the IRS looks at the gain. Sell after, and Spain taxes it too, with a credit for the U.S. tax. The order of the dates decides the bill.
A wire funded from your U.S. bank account is outside the 1 percent remittance tax. The exchange-rate margin is the cost that matters, and Spain declares cash, not wires, from 10,000 euros.
Your broker's policy decides what you can still buy, the PFIC rules make a European fund an expensive fix, and Spain reports the account on Modelo 720 and counts it for the wealth tax.
The Streamlined Foreign Offshore Procedures let Americans in Spain file three years of returns and six years of FBARs without penalties. Eligibility turns on 330 days abroad, and the window moves.
Payments continue for U.S. citizens in Spain and can land in a Spanish euro account. Spain taxes the benefit and deducts the U.S. tax, and the 1988 agreement still governs totalization.
Federal tax follows your citizenship to Spain. State tax follows your domicile, and California and New York keep former residents on the books unless the move is documented. What each state tests.
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