Navarre: the cheapest place in Spain to earn a little, and nearly the dearest to earn a lot.
Navarre runs its own income tax under the Convenio Economico, and its scale starts at 13 per cent — six points below anywhere else in Spain — and finishes at 52. Nowhere else spreads its rates across thirty-nine points. It is the most progressive personal tax in the country, and it is the last regime type this series had left to cover.
Navarre and the Basque Country are the two places in Spain that write their own income tax rather than adding a regional scale to a state one. They arrive there by different instruments — the Basque provinces through the Concierto Economico, Navarre through the Convenio Economico, Ley 28/1990 — and they use the freedom very differently.
The Basque territories built a scale that lands within a few hundred euro of Madrid for most working people. Navarre built the steepest scale in the country and then made its personal allowance larger for people who earn less. The result is a system that is genuinely progressive rather than nominally so.
Navarre and the Basque Country each apply one complete scale and then a credit against the tax. Madrid and Catalonia add a state scale to a regional one. Enter the base liquidable general — not gross salary — for a single taxpayer with no children.
The Navarrese scale.
Eleven brackets, from the consolidated text of the Navarrese income tax law as amended by Ley Foral 22/2023, which deflated the scale by 3 per cent and inserted the 50.5 per cent band. The 2024 and 2025 foral laws left the tariff alone.
| Taxable base | Rate | Cumulative quota at the floor |
|---|---|---|
| 0 – 4,458 | 13% | 0 |
| 4,458 – 10,030 | 22% | 580 |
| 10,030 – 21,175 | 25% | 1,805 |
| 21,175 – 35,663 | 28% | 4,592 |
| 35,663 – 51,266 | 36.5% | 8,648 |
| 51,266 – 66,869 | 41.5% | 14,343 |
| 66,869 – 89,159 | 44% | 20,819 |
| 89,159 – 139,310 | 47% | 30,626 |
| 139,310 – 195,034 | 49% | 54,197 |
| 195,034 – 334,344 | 50.5% | 81,502 |
| Above 334,344 | 52% | 151,853 |
The 13 per cent band is 4,458 euro wide.
Navarre has the lowest entry rate in Spain and one of the narrowest bands to apply it to. By 10,030 euro you are already at 25 per cent, which is above the Basque 23 and well above the 19 combined in common-regime Spain. The low headline rate is real but it is worth very little on its own; what does the work at the bottom of the Navarrese system is the credit described below.
A personal allowance that is bigger if you earn less.
This series has now met three different ways of handling the personal minimum, and Navarre's is the only one that varies with income.
A Navarrese taxpayer on a low income therefore receives a credit of up to 2,364 euro where a Basque taxpayer receives 1,615 and a Madrid taxpayer receives around 1,000. That is the mechanism doing the redistribution, not the 13 per cent headline rate, and it is set by article 62.9 of the consolidated text in the wording given by Ley Foral 17/2025.
The two published points are exact. The path between them is modelled.
The law fixes the increase at its maximum up to 17,500 euro and at zero from 32,000. The calculator above interpolates in a straight line between those two figures, which is the usual shape but is an assumption rather than something we have verified in the text. For any real case, check the taper for the specific income rather than relying on the number here.
Savings income.
Six brackets, from 20 to 28 per cent, on its own scale with no state component. Note the entry rate: 20 per cent against 19 in the Basque Country and in common-regime Spain, and a very wide 26 per cent band running from 15,000 all the way to 200,000.
| Savings base | Rate | Savings base | Rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0 – 6,000 | 20% | 15,000 – 200,000 | 26% |
| 6,000 – 10,000 | 22% | 200,000 – 300,000 | 27% |
| 10,000 – 15,000 | 24% | Above 300,000 | 28% |
Four more things that are not like the rest of Spain.
- Its own impatriate regime. Navarre has a foral inbound-worker regime with conditions of its own, recently adjusted to attract talent. The state Beckham law does not apply here, and assuming it does because you read about it in English is an expensive mistake.
- Main home purchase relief survives. The deduction for buying a main residence still exists on Navarrese conditions, where the common regime abolished it in 2013 except for a transitional group.
- Joint family taxation is more flexible. Specific reductions and a technically wider option than the common regime, which matters most to couples with very unequal incomes.
- Rent relief is more generous for younger tenants, large families and single-parent households than the common-regime equivalents.
Which authority taxes you.
Articles 8 and 9 of the Convenio Economico use essentially the same test as the Basque Concierto: Navarre taxes you if you are habitually resident there, measured first by where you spend more days of the tax period, then by your main centre of interests, then by your last declared residence. Where you work is not the test.
Four jurisdictions win, at four different incomes.
Running all four systems against each other across the range produces the clearest possible argument against comparing top rates. The cheapest place to be taxed changes as income rises, and Navarre holds the bottom of the range outright.
| Taxable base | Navarre | Basque Country | Madrid | Catalonia |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10,000 | 0 | 685 | 766 | 846 |
| 17,500 | 1,309 | 2,410 | 2,334 | 2,547 |
| 25,000 | 3,961 | 4,481 | 4,306 | 4,633 |
| 45,000 | 10,972 | 10,700 | 10,650 | 11,536 |
| 80,000 | 25,512 | 24,365 | 24,718 | 26,136 |
| 150,000 | 58,351 | 56,363 | 54,818 | 58,436 |
| 350,000 | 158,911 | 153,195 | 141,818 | 155,186 |
Nothing to pay until 12,275 euro
That is the point at which a Navarrese taxpayer starts owing income tax at all, against 7,025 in the Basque Country and 5,575 in Madrid and Catalonia. More than double the common-regime threshold, and it holds the outright lead up to about 29,000 euro of base.
Above roughly 100,000 euro the gap opens
Madrid pulls clearly ahead and stays ahead. At 350,000 the difference between Madrid and Navarre is over 17,000 euro a year, which is the widest spread anywhere in this series.
Between 30,000 and 100,000 the differences are trivial.
Madrid and the Basque Country swap the lead several times in that band, but by margins of a few euro a year — noise, not a reason to do anything. Only two parts of the range carry a real signal: below about 29,000, where Navarre is decisively cheapest, and above about 100,000, where Madrid is.
The whole map, now that it is finished.
| Region | Regime | Entry rate | Top rate | Spread |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Madrid | Common | 18.0% | 45.0% | 27 points |
| Andalusia | Common | 19.0% | 47.0% | 28 points |
| Basque Country | Foral | 23.0% | 49.0% | 26 points |
| Catalonia | Common | 19.0% | 50.0% | 31 points |
| Navarre | Foral | 13.0% | 52.0% | 39 points |
| Valencia | Common | 18.3% | 53.85% | 36 points |
Six jurisdictions, three regime types and a thirty-nine-point range between the gentlest and the steepest scale. The lesson of the series is the one this table makes obvious: a single top-rate figure tells you almost nothing about what a given person pays, and the region that looks harshest at the top is frequently not the one that costs a particular taxpayer the most.
Is Navarre a cheap place to pay tax?
How is this different from the Basque system?
Does the Beckham regime apply in Navarre?
Can I be taxed by Navarre while working elsewhere?
Which region should I choose?
Thirteen per cent at the bottom. Fifty-two at the top.
Talk through your position ↗Alexander Baranov
Seventeen years designing and delivering cross-border corporate structures — incorporation, tax, holding, banking and market entry — for founders and companies expanding into Spain and the EU. Author of professional books on entering the Spanish market.
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