Our heads are in a spin about the best way to move to Spain this year.
We would like to know the most tax-efficient way to move our personal and professional lives to Spain.

Our situation is this:

Us
We are a married couple.
She is a Spanish citizen. He is a UK citizen.
We are tax-paying residents of Scotland, UK.
(Up until December 2017, we were tax paying residents of Spain - probably not relevant but we mention it in case it is.)

House:
We have accepted an offer on our house in Scotland.
It was bought in June 2018 for £140,000. The offer we accepted was £160,000.
There is still some outstanding mortgage on the property.
The house is in his name only.
We'll be buying a house in Spain.
Contracts haven't yet been exchanged so the completion date can be delayed if necessary.

Business
We run a UK Ltd company, of which we are the sole directors and employees. We get dividends as well as salaries from the company. The company sells digital products to the whole world and turns over around £110k per year with net profit of £70k ish.
We would like to close the UK company when we become resident in Spain, and open an equivalent company there.

Pensions
He was paying autonomos in Spain for 7 years before coming to Scotland and was also a resident.
We've been paying into private pensions in Scotland since 2018.
We would prefer to move all financial arrangements to Spain, but if that's too costly to do, we could consider leaving the pensions as they are in the UK.

We'd like to move to Spain asap, but we're concerned about possible capital gains hits if we are Spanish residents for more than 6 months this year.

Any advice you can give would be greatly appreciated as this is beginning to look very complex to us!

Happy to get a quote from any professional who believes they can guide us through the maze.

Many thanks

If you arrive before the summer and register again as residents you might have to pay CGT however your profits are low and there are CGT allowances you can apply. The UK national, if was in Spain for 5 years previous to leaving may not need to re-register if the absence wasnt too long ( possibly allowed 5 years absence- but this was a Brexit condition). The Spanish national obviously has no residency issues. Closing the uk business and reopening it in Spain would be straightforward and if the Spanish national is Spanish speaking it is easy to find the necessary information etc. All in all I would say it is all quite easy to do.

I would recommend a Google search for relocation agencies in Spain, preferably in your chosen destination. Local agencies will have the right contacts to arrange appointments They can sort everything out for you and will give you the correct and legal advice. The amount of paperwork will be overwhelming if you're both working. Good luck.

Def find a lawyer for the business plan as it might be cheaper to leave the ltd in place and open a satellite office in Spain and work from that.

An example but in france was as a ltd with a "business in france but without premises" we only paid 2% corporation tax to France and hardly anything in the UK. It worked(s) really well for the type of business needed without a physical presence ie. bricks and mortar shop, offices, etc..

Is the satellite office in Spain just a physical office, per se or does it require additional Ltd company paperwork?

I wasn't aware you could do this.

Would the Spanish taxman not just say you are permanently based in Spain and working here full time and they qant their cut of your taxes.

This bit of your initial post removes almost all of the major issues you would have faced if you were both Uk citizens.

Firstly get proper advice, don't take anything anyone oon a forum says is gospel (even me and what I say). We aint experts

So she is Spanish, no problem, move over and restart her life..
He is Uk so has to become resident from being married to an EU citizen, again easy as the financial requirements are tiny.
So he was autonomo for 7 years (did he have permanent residence)???

Forget the business for now, just sort residency and then transfer over. As one of you is a Spanish citizen its simplified.

Take legal advice...

Don't listen to any of us.

But case in point,
I have British friends who moved over recently via the self employed visa.
Before they applied they came over and rented a small warehouse (they sell physical stuff).
Got the company registered and employed two staff here to run this side while they sorted the Uk end (this is now just an office which their son runs as a separate business).
Went for their visa's and they were able to show that they would be of benefit to the local economy and they got the visa.
They have been here a couple of months now and have found the two Spanish staff to be the best investment they made.

Don't listen to any of us. Good luck with the plan. I think you will be fine..

Many big corporations do this... McDonalds, burger king, Iceland etc... Unless they are franchises..

here is a good explanation
https://www.strongabogados.com/branch.php

I have no direct experience of Spain, but generally if a company incorporated in one country wants to operate in another country (that's called "a branch" of the company) it still needs to register as a "visitor". So I would expected that a British "Ltd" limited company would have to register with the Spanish registrar of companies, so that the Spanish authorities are aware that the British company is operating in Spain.

Taxes, how they are calculated, and where they are paid is a whole other matter!

That is exactly what the link provided above details.

So it does. Thank you.

I had mistakenly thought you were going down the "big corporations don't pay local taxes" rabbit hole, so had skipped over your link.

There are good reasons to operate as a branch, and other good reasons to incorporate a new entity locally. ... And you could also do the opposite - register a Spanish corporation, and then register the Spanish entity as a branch with the Registrar of Companies, in England, (unless you want to register it in Scotland or NI) so it could do business in the UK.

Best post on this thread.

Yes, let's also just hope that the two Spanish staff Barriej mentioned will get good benefits and a nice pay rise.

Thanks everyone for the replies and advice. They were very helpful.

I've set up a meeting with a Spanish re-location specialist financial advisor which will help us set out a plan for t he re-location.

Lots of useful free info here

https://www.pellicerheredia.com/en/open-library/

Just a few notes of caution about 'financial advisers'....

1) First consultation is free or you pay a fixed fee for the service?
2) Any contract you are asked to sign, do not sign it under any circumstances on the spot! Take it home, read it and understand it!
3) Be cleat and the scope of support you require.