Corporate Domiciliation in Madrid — Registered and Tax Address

The registered office of a Spanish company is governed by Article 9 of the Companies Act (Royal Decree Legislative 1/2010), which requires the company to establish its domicile within Spanish territory, at the place where its centre of effective management and administration is located or where its principal business is carried out. Non-compliance may lead to judicial dissolution of the company (Article 363.1.a LSC).

The tax domicile, governed by Article 48 of the General Tax Law (Law 58/2003), is the taxpayer’s location for dealings with the Tax Administration. For legal entities, it coincides with the registered office, provided that administrative management and business direction are effectively centralised there. If they do not coincide, the place of actual management prevails. The AEAT may ex officio rectify the tax domicile if it finds it does not reflect reality.

For Spanish tax residency under Corporate Income Tax, Article 8 of Law 27/2014 establishes three alternative criteria: incorporation under Spanish law, registered office in Spain, or effective place of management in Spain. Domiciliation in Madrid is an important element but not sufficient on its own to establish tax residency; it must be accompanied by real economic substance: management decisions taken from Spain, board meetings in Madrid and effective administrative activity.

In the post-BEPS context and following the ATAD Directives, EU and third-country tax authorities increasingly scrutinise economic substance. A subsidiary domiciled in Madrid without employees, without real management activity and without decision-making in Spain risks having the parent’s jurisdiction deny DTT benefits or consider it a shell entity without genuine economic purpose. Euroaccounts advises on minimum substance requirements for each entity type and offers complementary services (administration, accounting, personnel management) that provide the subsidiary with the necessary substance.

Madrid, as Spain’s capital and principal financial centre, offers additional advantages as a corporate domicile: it is home to the main regulatory institutions (CNMV, Bank of Spain, AEAT headquarters), concentrates the most M&A activity and professional services, and is the natural hub for operations with Latin America thanks to the time zone, language and direct flights to the region’s main capitals. Euroaccounts, from its offices at Calle Alcala 20, has hosted over 500 international companies at this location since 1996.

Euroaccounts’ corporate domiciliation is not a standalone virtual office service. It integrates with the full range of services the firm offers to subsidiaries of international companies, creating a complete support ecosystem for the subsidiary’s operations in Spain. This integration is what distinguishes professional domiciliation from a simple mailbox.

The notification management service is particularly critical. The AEAT sends notifications with strict legal deadlines: an information request must be answered within 10 business days, a proposed assessment within 15 days, and an attachment notice is immediately enforceable. An unattended notification can lead to deemed-acceptance assessments, penalties or bank account seizures. The Euroaccounts team reviews physical correspondence and the AEAT Electronic Office mailbox daily, immediately alerting the account manager and, where appropriate, the group’s tax team.

The integration with accounting and tax services ensures information flows without intermediaries: invoices received at the domicile are channelled directly to the accounting department, tax notifications to the tax department, and corporate communications (meeting notices, Commercial Registry correspondence) to the corporate secretarial department. This integrated workflow eliminates the delays and errors inherent in disconnected domiciliation services.

For companies requiring additional economic substance, Euroaccounts offers complementary administration services: hiring local staff, payroll management, subsidiary administration through an appointed director, and back-office services including invoicing, collections, supplier payments and treasury management. The objective is for the Madrid-domiciled subsidiary to function as an entity with genuine, demonstrable economic activity, meeting the substance requirements demanded by both Spanish and international anti-avoidance regulations.

With over 500 companies domiciled and managed from our offices at Calle Alcala 20, Euroaccounts is the reference partner in Madrid for multinational subsidiaries seeking a complete, efficient corporate presence aligned with international compliance standards.