Hi everyone. My wife and I currently live in Canada ( we are British citizens ). We had plans on retiring to Spain in the next 3 or so years.
However with the new visa regs and the minimum yearly income required we would fall just short of the desired target.
So my question is, do you guys see the minimum required being lowered in the future? I know at the end of the day opinions don't mean much but it would be interesting to us to see if others agree with me that they probably will be. The new regs prohibit a lot of people retiring to the sun who normally would but is that a financial hit that the Costa's can afford to take?
Thanks in advance.

Nope can't see it changing just because of Uk citizens. The visa value (for want of a better term) is set at a value of 400% of the IPRM (which I suppose is the minimum income level required to live here) and its there for ALL 3rd country citizens and has been for ages.

Why its so high, your guess is as good as mine.

And here is where I will get shot down in flames.

I can't see why you need to prove such a high income compared to the indigenous population?
And we have a thread going at the moment that proves you don't NEED 2k a month to live on if you pay no rent etc.
99% of the time a retiree, should they sell a property, take a private pension and if lucky their Gov pension and move have way more than the 'basic' a Spanish/French/German/Greek pensioner has (all right maybe not German) but you see where Im coming from.
If it were down to getting your dead body back to your home country, well just insist on an insurance policy (some clever government somewhere could use this as a money making scheme I'm sure)

After all your 'normal' US, Canadian, Australian, African, Chinese retiree doesn't need 4x the income of a local to live here. They don't at home (or do they?)

And while Im waiting for all the 'thats a typical Brit' comment.

I just spent the last 10 mins looking for why there is a difference to the amount needed and I can't find anything on the www. I even tried looking on the Spanish government website and I can find no reason why its 400% of the 'local' rate, and not 150% or 200% or even 1000%

I'd love to be educated here, so if someone has a link to WHY you need 400% (lets say 24k against 6k and I know this is wrong but its an example) please give me a link. pretty please.
Im waiting for the paint to dry on my latest artwork so it would give me something to do.

Thanks Barriej.

I'm certainly no expert but is the financial level set just some EU default position? Individual countries within the EU can and do set there own levels eg Portugal. The last figures I saw was that there are approximately 300000 brits retired in Spain. Surely this figure cannot be maintained if a great chunk of potential retirees have the option of moving to Spain removed because the bar is set so high.

Just a thought, Spain might prefer immigrants who will contribute to the Spanish economy by paying direct taxes (as they would on IPREM x 4) as opposed to throwing the doors open to anyone who fancies a bit of sunshine on the cheap.

If the figure of 300000 Brits in Spain is anywhere near the correct figure then I would hazard a guess that at least a third of them are getting a bit of sun on the cheap. Can the Costa's truly afford to loose that sort of finance. Or do you think Spain is hoping that the number of retirees who do meet the current criteria will rise because the number who don't falls!

Spain being part of the European project will act alongside other member states. That is what the EU is about. Unity and shared values. The UK wanted free of such a project
The idea that Spain will open its doors to Britain and keep it shut to others is ridiculous. Spain is already at odds with UK over Gibraltar and is not going to make life easy for UK citizens vis a vis their rights. Brexit has happened and Britain has to pay the price it decided was originally worth paying
Spanish moving to UK require equally high income levels plus English . We should count ourselves lucky we dont have to speak Spanish to live here!!

I suppose everything now is speculation and if Spain needs retired Brits is questionable. They will still come on holiday and spend money, but it could well be that they introduce another type of visa. Before 2013 there was also no golden visa in Spain, so anything is possible. There are quite a few semi-retired Brits in our area of Ireland now and just before Christmas I spoke to a British guy working at Supermac's. He said he was already in Ireland 3 years now and only has 2 years left to apply for citizenship, so that's another way to do it.

it should be clear by now the regulations are not new they have not changed, what has changed is Britain, it has left the EU and so lose certain EU rights.

Well fingers crossed then that Spain aligns itself alongside Portugal cause it's a damn site cheaper. You only need a joint income of approximately 10000 Euro's for the D7 visa. All for unity and shared values if that happens!

I doubt there would be any tax to pay. Its just a sum that either needs to be shown in a bank or as an income monthly. For our residency it was €9000 but that was just a figure that had to be in the bank.

If its lets say €2000 a month then a Brit (can't use any other as thats all I'm familiar with) would pay Uk tax on the pension at 20% (after the 12500 or whatever) so they would only pay tax in Spain on the remaining I assume?.

Time for sums now

So €2000 is about £1800 (I just checked a minute ago), 12x 1800 = 21600 - Uk allowance of 12500 = 9100 or about €11000. But you would then pay UK tax on this and at 20% would be £1820.

Not sure if you would be liable to pay any extra tax in Spain but lets say that you did on the difference of around 7300
If that were your only income and according to one of the calculators on the web you would pay about €500 which is not a lot to the Spanish Gov.

I might have that completely wrong as Ive not done a tax return here in Spain but even if paying €500 on top Spain don't get a lot out of it do they??

If you are resident longer than 6 months you become fiscally resident which means ALL your income ( UK or other ) must be declared in Spain and taxed accordingly. Effectively once you have moved from the UK you need to declare that and fill out a Double Taxation Agreement application, put simply that stops you having to pay tax in the UK but means the Spanish Tax Office collects tax on all your income. Income iover €20,000,- drops in the 30% band but obviously there are certain basic allowances just as in the UK.

Because of the low income allowance introduced a few years ago, anyone on an income below €14k per year would not pay any income tax in Spain. However, that tapers off and anyone on an income of €18k per year or over would pay quite a lot more than they would have to pay in income tax in the UK (and Loafing Along is right, a Spanish tax resident must declare all their worldwide income in Spain so it is not a question of only paying tax on any income over and above the UK personal allowance - only UK crown pensions remain taxable in the UK although they must be included on the Spanish tax return and when added to any other income can result in the marginal rate of tax becoming higher). I know my Spanish tax bill is going to shoot up once I start to receive my UK state pension in addition to my existing occupational pensions.

I agree with Notdunroamin, Spain is looking for retirees who will make a decent contribution in taxes not just those who can support themselves at a subsistence level.

I can't see the Spanish government lowering the minimum income requirement for third country nationals any time soon. It has been at that level for a long time and they are not likely to change it just because the UK decided to leave the EU.

If anything, they will be hoping to attract more people via the golden visa scheme.

Have you both thoroughly checked your ancestry for Irish or other EU heritage?

I would imagine that everyone is going to being alot more tax after Covid and seeing as its PSOE and podemos it wont be those on low paid incomes so guess who they will hit?? All those lovely 720 assets outside Spain!!! Watch out for new wealth taxes is what I say plus savings

Yup, in every single aspect!

Spain have already published their tax plans for 2021.

https://english.elpais.com/economy_a...ve-budget.html

Don't know about you but for my own part I'd be ecstatic to fall into any of the categories facing tax hikes!