I hope all these who deregister but continue to live here get found out, and punished appropriately, for putting two fingers up at others who are living here legally and paying their taxes. Surely their deception will come back and bite them on the bum, as they will no longer be able to get free health care?

I am pretty sure that you can only work and be self-employed in Spain if you are actually resident in Spain. You need to show your residency when you set up your self-employment

It will be difficult for her to qualify for a Spanish pension is she will only be contributing for 5 months each year

I wonder if it the same for workers as self employed.

Surely people can come from the UK to work for a 'season' less than 183 days, without becoming resident.

Also this lady has owned a business in Spain for years, so another 6 or 8 years contributions would I presume bring her 'credits' up to scratch.

If being employed without becoming resident allowed, she could possibly look into changing her status to 'seasonal employee', instead of seasonal self employed.

This is quite an interesting conundrum, and I am sure there will be many in the same situation.

Urban myth.

Never heard of anyone being approached by this means of identification. If this technique was really used the courts would be full of lying, tax cheating Brits.

It's not, and they're not.

Historically some people signed on the Padron even though they weren't residents. Some Town Halls seemed to encourage this.

These same people have now de-registered, once this mistake was exposed in the press.

So this could also account for the drop in figures.

I think you're probably correct. But that won't stop those who like to build things up.

Doesn't Spain have a similar system to the NI contributions in the UK where you can play catch-up with a cash sum for arrears to boost the pension? If the catch-up is allowed, and at the end of the day it's only a matter of the size of the contributions, then you wouldn't have to be a permanent resident?

Yes, they can. They won't become tax resident but they will still pay Spanish tax on their Spanish income. The same would apply in the UK.

The key point about tax residency is that it makes you liable for tax on your worldwide income. Income generated in Spain is always taxed in Spain unless there are exceptions due to a tax treaty.

I think you are right.

However, I doubt that many of the 90,000 ever deregistered as such - they may have even signed on the patron while renting a house. The padron does not normally have to be updated unless the government feels that in any particular town that it is no longer accurate. They then get the town hall to get everyone on the padron to confirm they are still living there.

If that has not been done for 10 years or more it could be way out. What I think has happened is that they have now done this exercise and the papers are implying that the difference is due to foreigners leaving last year when in fact it is just a case of lousy and slapdash accounting.

In fact most of those 90000 were probably never truly resident in the first place.

that's what I meant

Madrid did make a big thing some months back for towns to check up on the padrón lists


in my town they've been doing this as a matter of course for some years now - I can remember someone asking me to translate a letter from the ayto asking to them to pop in & confirm their continued presence maybe 6 or 7 years ago

Wow I have just had a call from someone who I know who has been long term resident in Spain, she reads BE and does not post, and saw my question.

I am asking the question on her behalf, with her knowledge, (if you are reading this post, HI,)

Ok they are two friends who have a business, which in the past was a lot more profitable than it is now.

Both have been paying SS contributions as self employed for nearly 15 years.

Now things are becoming very tight, and the business could still function with only one of them.

They would like to know if it could be possible for them to job share, ie 5 months a year each working and living in Spain, then changing places, and working in theUK for the rest of the year.

As they are coming up to a certain age, the health cover aspect has to be taken into consideration,

The BIG question is would it be possible to have SS medical cover in Spain for the 5 months of the year they will each be working, as they will be contributing to the system?

If this is possible it could be a solution for lots of expats who find themselves stretched, and I myself will be really interested as it could help out some family members of ours, who are suffering at the moment, and see a very bleak future for themselves.

Perhaps it's something as simple as:
People getting p..d off with lots of new rules, laws and more hoops to jump through, with conflicting advice, not knowing who to turn to especially regarding taxes.
Not wanting to be landed with a hefty IHT bill, living in a region where allowances have been abolished, not wanting to use the flawed methods of reducing it.
Seeing their fellow ex pat living under the radar and getting away with it, while they have the hassle and stress of trying to be legal here.
Seeing others not registering here, paying no income tax,driving their UK cars with impunity, etc
Feeling unsupported with a spouse who has serious illness, unable to cope with care in the home, hospitalization, lack of transport etc
Finding the increasing cost of utilities etc too much, so unable to fly home to see relatives as much as before.
I notice papers in UK seem to be surprised that anyone should want to return to the UK because of the sunshine in Spain, thinking it is a cure for all things-it isn't!

All these are good reasons to leave

However, seeing 20% of the population of Brits leave in just one year doesn't make sense.

I am sure the trend of Brits leaving is correct, but no way could there have been 20% leaving in just one year. There is something wrong with the data

The increase in Spaniards registering on the padron does not seem correct in any event. We know that many have been leaving to find work and they are hardly likely to be outnumbered by Spanish returning. It is possible that some immigrants have applied for Spanish nationality and this has distorted the figures, but this would not apply to EU nationals.

Yes that doesn't make sense either, although it is a smaller blip in the data

Of those people who leave Spain, the vast majority are immigrants. The exodus from Spain is mainly by immigrants. Although again, it is difficult to measure this as the young Spanish people who leave Spain will still probably be on the padron at their parent's address