Our law firm offers foreign companies who are interested in the Spanish market all the services they might need for their perfect adaption to the Spanish legal, fiscal, accounting and labour system.
To achieve this, we offer to carry out the following procedures:
There are several possibilities for a foreign Company to operate as a business in Spain:
Office of Representation, Branches and Subsidiaries are the most usual form of establishment.
Nevertheless, there are other forms of activity on the Spanish market: agreements of distribution and cooperations with Spanish companies, operations via agents and commissions.
However, each of them means a different level of capacity and each level of operation requires different processes for its legalization and functioning. Also there are the commercial requirement for their constitution, as well as fiscal, accounting and trade obligations.
Our law firm offers you also the complete management of any employees contracted to your organization in Spain in Spain.
Finally, and given that the most common ways of operating in Spain are Branch and Subsidiary, we inform you about the principal differences between both forms:
Company capital: The Spanish branch of a foreign entity has to take the legal form of a company in accordance with the Spanish regulation, having the minimum investment that the legislation outlines for each company. In return, the subsidiary does not require a minimum company capital, but rather that the parent company determines at the time of establishment of the representative offices or of the branch the appropriate allocation of capital.
Legal entity and limitation of liability: In all legal aspects a branch is an independent legal entity from its parent company. As a consequence, they operate on the market as 2 independent subjects, so each of them is subject to the rights and obligations that this brings about, independent of those obtained/assumed by the other. Hence/therefore, any debts incurred by the branch will only be a liability of the branch itself, with its own assets, and the parent company will never be affected by these debts.
The permanent establishments in contrast do not have an independent legal entity from the parent Company, and therefore liable for any debts incurred by the subsidiary will by obligation have to be assumed by the foreign parent company with the legal limit set by its national right.
Taxation: permanent establishments pay Non-Resident Income Tax while the branch pay Corporate Tax. In both cases it is necessary to take into account the agreements signed by Spain to avoid double-taxation. These serve to avoid that the same tax deduction being discounted in various countries depending on the application of their rules.
Contact our experts to opt for the best form of operation in the Spanish market, in order to proceed with a time-effective implementation and fulfillment of all fiscal, commercial, accounting and work obligations intended in the Spanish regulation.
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