Miami, FL vs Barcelona

Moving from Miami to Barcelona

Same salary, two tax systems. Single filer, employment income.

How to read this: we take the salary above ($69,085), convert it at the ECB rate, and tax it as a single filer's employment income in each place. That favors simplicity over realism — household vs. individual income and family tax treatment differ by country — so treat the gap as directional, not precise.

Built with EXACTLY the same method as this dataset's es.json (Madrid) record -- Spanish IRPF is a national state scale (Art. 63.1 LIRPF, identical everywhere in Spain, unchanged from es.json: 9.5% to EUR12,450; 12% to EUR20,200; 15% to EUR35,200; 18.5% to EUR60,000; 22.5% to EUR300,000; 24.5% above) combined with an autonomous-community regional scale that each of Spain's 17 regions sets independently -- only the regional half changes here, swapped from Madrid's for Catalonia's own. Catalonia's current regional scale (escala autonomica) is EIGHT brackets -- 9.5% to EUR12,500; 12.5% to EUR22,000; 16% to EUR33,000; 19% to EUR53,000; 21.5% to EUR90,000; 23.5% to EUR120,000; 24.5% to EUR175,000; 25.5% above -- sourced directly from the Agencia Tributaria de Catalunya's official IRPF page (atc.gencat.cat) and independently cross-confirmed by a Catalan tax-guide site (guiafiscal.es) which also documents that this scale stems from Decret-llei 5/2025 (effective 1 January 2025, unchanged into 2026), which lowered Catalonia's entry rate from 10.5% to 9.5% and restructured the schedule to 8 tramos. Every threshold from BOTH the state and Catalan regional schedules is merged (12450, 12500, 20200, 22000, 33000, 35200, 53000, 60000, 90000, 120000, 175000, 300000), with the combined rate at each merged interval equal to state-rate-there plus Catalonia-rate-there -- identical mechanics to how es.json merges the state schedule with Madrid's. The bottom bracket is the same literal 0% slice on the first EUR5,550 (the minimo personal, Art. 57 LIRPF) that es.json uses, reproducing the AEAT's official resta-de-dos-escalas calculation method (cuota = tax_schedule(full base) minus tax_schedule(minimo alone), which the AEAT's own worked example confirms is arithmetically identical to a flat 0% first slice). Notably, Catalonia's OWN regional minimo personal (Art. 611-2, Codi tributari de Catalunya, Decret Legislatiu 1/2024) is set at EUR5,550 -- the same as the national/state figure -- confirmed both by the Agencia Tributaria's own official comparison of autonomous-community minimo amounts and by a Catalan tax-guide site, so unlike Madrid (which raises its own regional minimo to EUR5,956.65, a documented ~EUR35/0.2% source of overstatement in es.json at EUR60,000), this Catalonia record's zero-bracket introduces NO comparable approximation error on the regional side. IMPORTANT CORRECTION TO es.json'S OWN NOTE: es.json states Catalonia's top combined rate 'reaches 54% vs Madrid's 45%' -- that figure is now OUT OF DATE. Under the current (2025-reform) Catalan scale verified here directly from the Agencia Tributaria de Catalunya, Catalonia's TOP COMBINED marginal rate is 50.00% (24.5% state + 25.5% Catalonia), not 54%; the 54% figure likely reflects Catalonia's pre-2025-reform scale. A Catalan tax calculator (guiafiscal.es) independently states the same 50.00% combined top figure, decomposed as '24.50% estatal + 25.50% autonomica.' SPOT-CHECK at EUR60,000 (same test point es.json uses for Madrid): this table's cumulative brackets give EUR17,336.25 income tax in Catalonia, versus es.json's own reported EUR16,152.17 for Madrid at the same gross income -- a EUR1,184.08 gap, i.e. Catalonia collects about 7.3% MORE income tax than Madrid at EUR60,000 gross (about 2.0 percentage points of effective rate), a real and meaningful Madrid-vs-Barcelona corridor signal rather than approximation noise, since both figures are built with the same exact, non-approximated resta-de-dos-escalas method. As in es.json: single filer, no children/ascendientes/discapacidad minimums modeled; savings-base income (dividends, interest, capital gains) is not modeled; and the Beckham Law special regime (24% flat tax on Spanish-source employment income up to EUR600,000/year for up to 6 years, with foreign-sourced income and foreign assets exempt) is available to many newly-arrived employees in Catalonia exactly as in the rest of Spain (it is a national, not regional, regime) but is NOT applied in this standard-taxation model.

Single filer, employment income — figures are estimates, not advice. US FICA is applied as a flat 7.65% with no Social Security wage-base cap, which overstates FICA above roughly $176k. See methodology.

Moving from Barcelona to Miami

Flip it around: a Barcelona earner relocating to Miami on the same $69,085 salary would keep $57,431 after US federal, FICA and state/local tax — but health cover in the US runs $7,500/year against €868/year in Barcelona, so employer-sponsored coverage becomes essential rather than optional.

The basics, priced side by side

US tax basics for an expat

Under the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion, the first $69,085 of foreign earnings is excludable from US federal tax; at this salary, estimated residual US federal tax is $0 — this ignores tax treaties and the stacking rule, and is an estimate, not advice.

IRS: Foreign Earned Income Exclusion →

Living in Barcelona: what to expect