Other option for you are IBC business center in Madeira that would lead you to 5% total tax if paired with Portugal NHR.
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Looted by my country and started considering other options
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Your only option is to relocate then. You might not be able to visit your family that frequently if you don't want them to be on your a*s. Unless you go dark with a second passport or something. Go travel and find some nice place to settle in
Tread carefully when dealing with Spain, best of luck and ask away if you need any help!
True that. That's why I think moving for real is the only way to escape. And even for this situation, they are talking about a 5-year "Exit Tax" so you keep paying taxes in Spain for 5 years after you relocate. It's insane. That's why I want to move aways from their claws, and protect my assets. Thanks for helping! I'm trying to read first as much as I can not to ask stupid stuff.
You can't have both, you have to reside in Gibraltar and then you spend time in Malaga, Marbella but you residency has to be Gibraltar otherwise the Spanish tax office will f**k you from the back using sand instead of vaseline.
This doesn't apply if you relocate in EU.
@RaoulDuke Welcome 
We're kind in the same situation I guess. I'm Portuguese and I also develop products and services. For many reasons, that are not all tax related, we are thinking of moving away from Portugal. Social Security taxes alone makes it an inferno. So after a lot of considering we're most likely moving to Malta (physically moving with the team). Maybe with a UAE holding owning it. We're currently at IBC Madeira.
Hello RaoulDuke
I singlehandedly joined to cautiously warn you about a lot of the advice you are getting here (which I know its mostly provided on good faith). But I can tell you by experience some of the advice here isn't properly documented. What works in theory doesn't necessarily work in practice. There are a hundred different kind of setups you can go with, it just depends on what you are willing to concede (in all senses)
Bottom line, you have to relocate (which seems to be something you are willing to do). Great. Now lets talk about where should you move.
You cannot move to any of the EU black list countries + the countries Spain considers a Tax haven (check those out, its a much larger list than EUs) as a bonus recommendation you should not move to a country that has a Double tax treaty with Spain, so to the EU blacklist add pretty much all the countries that Spain does not hold a Double Tax Treaty with to sum up the countries which are not an option for you. With the exception of Gibraltar (where there is a Tax treaty but you should consider it as if there isn't one), this is VERY controlled in Spain (for obvious reasons) Gibraltar is not an option for your company, there is a special treaty that states if the majority ownership of the Gibraltar company is Spanish, you tax in Spain (EVEN if you have permanent establishment in Gibraltar). This removes places like Paraguay, Costa Rica, Monaco just to name a few. Also as you already know ZEC and Ceuta/Melilla companies aren't easy to maintain (the setup is relatively simple) but maintaining said setup is a bit of a nightmare, especially ZEC. Most people here don't mention that in order to maintain that ZEC status and avoid finding yourself in a pickle (loosing previous Tax benefits) you need to at least have employees contracted for 4-5 years with an investment. Opening a ZEC company to do this 2-3 years and then leave isn't going to work, ZEC is designed for a medium-long term relation investment in Canarias (that is why its not considered a Tax Haven).
Great, now lets look into where you can relocate (including obtaining tax residency to live on that country). If we take into consideration those available for "easy" residence/VISA and that you are not open to pay large amounts of cash to obtain residency this is going to leave you with an absurdly low amount of countries (If what you are looking to do is pay little to no taxes while living in an "good-acceptable" life-standards country).
Basically you are narrowed to:
1)UAE
2) Andorra (strict and highly controlled)
3) UK and Ireland with Nom-Dom Status where you only get taxed on income you introduce into these countries (although you need to be sure you aren't abusing this and incurring General Anti Avoidance Tax Rules). If the income you introduce is too small a fraction of your total income it could be problematic.
4)Barbados *
5)Thailand * (you keep your money in a bank outside Thailand and you will pay 0% taxes)
6) Hong Kong*
7) Singapore*
*(The last 4 you will need to contract an agency that "hires you" on your own request, so you get a "work" permit or work VISA) something like velocity global. You basically have your newly created company contract HR services from a specialized hiring agency that onboards employees through their structure on your behalf in a specific country (in this case you are hiring yourself). In most cases they can hire foreigners and will provide you with a work permit that you will need in order to obtain tax residency and live there or live there and work with full legal compliance, it sounds trickier than it is, and its trickier in places like Hong Kong. This way you can create a company almost anywhere and obtain permanent establishment for the company ( especially if you have majority control) of said company As well as tax residency through your work permit/ViSA prolonged stay.
If all you are looking to do is to save is a 10-15% in taxes and have similar living standards you get a lot more countries into that list (mostly in Europe with a few South-American. If you asked me....Unless you want the adventure or specifically love a country, a relocation to have a medium-low tax isn't worth the hassle. You either take this mostly as a life experience with a minor tax saving bonus or you look at this as a prolongation of your job obligations which you are doing to increase future company and life opportunities with saved taxes (which doesn't means you cant enjoy life, it just means that at least for a period fun isn't necessarily your priority).
Remember not only do you have to move for 183 days to another country (within the tax year), you also need to have a valid reasoning for why you made that move to that specific country on the first place, If Spain comes asking and the main reason is "to save taxes" you are going to be taxed in Spain. You need to create proper substances wherever you go and have valid reasoning for business ( and as a bonus personal purposes).
You have to cut ties with Spain if you want to avoid troubles down the line and announce your exit of the country. Spain is likely Europe's most inquisitive tax agency. This means your "permanent home" needs to be elsewhere. No rent, No Padron, No Autonomos, No recurrent paid bills, no car, no property under your name (This is not strictly necessary but heavily recommended if you want to be bullet proof) just sever your ties entirely with Spain before you move.
Going back and forth changing tax residency between Spain and "x" country the year that you release its a big no-no. If you want to return to Spain you need to see this as something you do for either a short period of time and you don't keep repeating, or something you do for all the length of the process (many years) and then return to Spain.
Regards
**as a bonus recommendation you should not move to a country that DOESNT has a Double tax treaty with Spain**
I singlehandedly joined to cautiously warn you about a lot of the advice you are getting here (which I know its mostly provided on good faith). But I can tell you by experience some of the advice here isn't properly documented. What works in theory doesn't necessarily work in practice. There are a hundred different kind of setups you can go with, it just depends on what you are willing to concede (in all senses)
Bottom line, you have to relocate (which seems to be something you are willing to do). Great. Now lets talk about where should you move.
You cannot move to any of the EU black list countries + the countries Spain considers a Tax haven (check those out, its a much larger list than EUs) as a bonus recommendation you should not move to a country that has a Double tax treaty with Spain, so to the EU blacklist add pretty much all the countries that Spain does not hold a Double Tax Treaty with to sum up the countries which are not an option for you. With the exception of Gibraltar (where there is a Tax treaty but you should consider it as if there isn't one), this is VERY controlled in Spain (for obvious reasons) Gibraltar is not an option for your company, there is a special treaty that states if the majority ownership of the Gibraltar company is Spanish, you tax in Spain (EVEN if you have permanent establishment in Gibraltar). This removes places like Paraguay, Costa Rica, Monaco just to name a few. Also as you already know ZEC and Ceuta/Melilla companies aren't easy to maintain (the setup is relatively simple) but maintaining said setup is a bit of a nightmare, especially ZEC. Most people here don't mention that in order to maintain that ZEC status and avoid finding yourself in a pickle (loosing previous Tax benefits) you need to at least have employees contracted for 4-5 years with an investment. Opening a ZEC company to do this 2-3 years and then leave isn't going to work, ZEC is designed for a medium-long term relation investment in Canarias (that is why its not considered a Tax Haven).
Great, now lets look into where you can relocate (including obtaining tax residency to live on that country). If we take into consideration those available for "easy" residence/VISA and that you are not open to pay large amounts of cash to obtain residency this is going to leave you with an absurdly low amount of countries (If what you are looking to do is pay little to no taxes while living in an "good-acceptable" life-standards country).
Basically you are narrowed to:
1)UAE
2) Andorra (strict and highly controlled)
3) UK and Ireland with Nom-Dom Status where you only get taxed on income you introduce into these countries (although you need to be sure you aren't abusing this and incurring General Anti Avoidance Tax Rules). If the income you introduce is too small a fraction of your total income it could be problematic.
4)Barbados *
5)Thailand * (you keep your money in a bank outside Thailand and you will pay 0% taxes)
6) Hong Kong*
7) Singapore*
*(The last 4 you will need to contract an agency that "hires you" on your own request, so you get a "work" permit or work VISA) something like velocity global. You basically have your newly created company contract HR services from a specialized hiring agency that onboards employees through their structure on your behalf in a specific country (in this case you are hiring yourself). In most cases they can hire foreigners and will provide you with a work permit that you will need in order to obtain tax residency and live there or live there and work with full legal compliance, it sounds trickier than it is, and its trickier in places like Hong Kong. This way you can create a company almost anywhere and obtain permanent establishment for the company ( especially if you have majority control) of said company As well as tax residency through your work permit/ViSA prolonged stay.
If all you are looking to do is to save is a 10-15% in taxes and have similar living standards you get a lot more countries into that list (mostly in Europe with a few South-American. If you asked me....Unless you want the adventure or specifically love a country, a relocation to have a medium-low tax isn't worth the hassle. You either take this mostly as a life experience with a minor tax saving bonus or you look at this as a prolongation of your job obligations which you are doing to increase future company and life opportunities with saved taxes (which doesn't means you cant enjoy life, it just means that at least for a period fun isn't necessarily your priority).
Remember not only do you have to move for 183 days to another country (within the tax year), you also need to have a valid reasoning for why you made that move to that specific country on the first place, If Spain comes asking and the main reason is "to save taxes" you are going to be taxed in Spain. You need to create proper substances wherever you go and have valid reasoning for business ( and as a bonus personal purposes).
You have to cut ties with Spain if you want to avoid troubles down the line and announce your exit of the country. Spain is likely Europe's most inquisitive tax agency. This means your "permanent home" needs to be elsewhere. No rent, No Padron, No Autonomos, No recurrent paid bills, no car, no property under your name (This is not strictly necessary but heavily recommended if you want to be bullet proof) just sever your ties entirely with Spain before you move.
Going back and forth changing tax residency between Spain and "x" country the year that you release its a big no-no. If you want to return to Spain you need to see this as something you do for either a short period of time and you don't keep repeating, or something you do for all the length of the process (many years) and then return to Spain.
Regards
**as a bonus recommendation you should not move to a country that DOESNT has a Double tax treaty with Spain**
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Thanks for the great post
Does this really work? How tricky would this be with lets say, Hong Kong if I were to make a software development contracting company? I hold a Finnish passport if that makes any difference (maybe less red flags?)
Yes it could work. Companies like remote.com does exactly what he said.
The problem is that you are hired by the EOR (employer of record), in this case remote.com so you are not really creating a PE of your company.
There are 2 things that these companies can do (You need to look into it and request meetings because for the most part the option we are looking for here isn't usually as openly advertised) and not all companies have the structure to do what you are looking for either.Thanks for the great post
Does this really work? How tricky would this be with lets say, Hong Kong if I were to make a software development contracting company? I hold a Finnish passport if that makes any difference (maybe less red flags?)
We refer to this as The Employer of Record
These companies do 2 things:
1)They enroll employees for you in their own country so you don't have to deal with the hassle of complying with foreign hiring rules or the hassle of relocating employees (they take care of them for you)
E.g: You have a company in US and know someone in Sweden you want to hire desperately. The laws of Sweden state that full-time employment requires the non-resident company (your US company) to be registered for an employer Tax ID and a set of other requirements ( The hassle I mentioned previously)
so you contact this hiring company and instead they will enroll your Swedish employee and take care of his contract, salaries and so forth on your behalf (they are the ones registered as a Swedish Employer) so all you have to do is send a monthly paycheck + their fees to pay for your employee monthly salary and their services
2)They allow you to employ a foreigner and help with relocation. (This is not often discussed but if you look around this services are actually offered)
E.g: You have a company in US with an established employee already in Sweden (through this HR agency), in fact Sweden has gone well and you even have an office there for your 1 employee. Now you also meet someone from Belgium who is great and you want to employ him/her too. Instead of doing the same process with the Swedish employee (and setting things in Belgium) you ask that you want the Belgium employee to be relocated to Sweden and taken care of.
This way you have achieved the same thing, with the main difference that you have managed to relocate someone with all the permits.
Now apply option 2 with yourself (in a more simplified manner even) where you will be able to open an office, and use this HR business to "relocate yourself" through a work permit so you can live and work there. (To countries that were before very complicated to do on your own)
Important: If you look at this as a way to create permanent establishment /by opening a company in "Hong Kong" and using this Employer of Record to hire a couple of employees alone its likely NOT going to work because the Employer of Record isn't gong to create Permanent Establishment (this is a rule by default in most countries) and having a couple of employees may or may not trigger that Permanent establishment that you are looking for.
HOWEVER if among those employees you have yourself relocated and you own majority of the control of your company, you will create desired PE one way or another, ultimately you will end up becoming a tax resident of "Hong Kong" with a majority controlling stake of your company also based in Hong Kong, so the Employer of Record isn't directly doing anything to create your Permanent Establishment directly, you are doing that yourself for managing and working there. (Hong Kong is probably not the best example here)
In a nutshell, what this is doing for you is allowing you to become in time a tax resident of countries that were unviable or much harder for you before, positively creating a PE for your company too
There are countries where doing this is a lot easier than other, Hong Kong isn't one of the easier ones, but Singapore on the other hand or Thailand its relatively straight forward
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I didn't know this was possible! Thank you so much, this is truly an eye-opener!
Hei Raoul, greetings from another fellow Spaniard who escaped from Hacienda's claws haha.
Have you considered Andorra? Given that you don't want to be far away from your family I think it could be a nice place. I am currently living here but I'm considering leaving, it's a bit boring for me but overall it's a good place not far away from Spain and it's quite straightforward to obtain residency
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