Autónomos

Starting a small business in Spain: Registering as an "Autónomo"

If you are living in Spain and wish to start your own unincorporated business here, you need to register as self employed (autónomo) for income tax and Social Security.

Registering at the Tax Office (Agencia Tributaria)

You may already be registered for tax (for instance if have already purchased and sold a property here). Please tell us your NIE number and we will check if you are on the Tax Office’s database.

If you are, we can proceed to register your autónomo business for tax online without the need for further documentation. If this is not the case, we will prepare the registration form (Modelo 030) for you to present at your local Tax Office along with the following documents:

NIE, Passport and Certificado de Empadronamiento (to be obtained from your local Ayuntamiento - Town Hall).

Our charge for preparation of this form is 40 Euros + VAT.

Registering your autónomo business for tax

This can be done by presenting a form (Modelo 037) in person at the Tax Office, or online if you have an electronic certificate. We present all of our clients' returns online with our accountant's electronic certificate.

Our charge to submit your autonomo tax and Social Security registration online is 184 Euros + VAT.

Social Security registration

For autonomos, Social Security registration is now integrated with online tax registration in (3) above, so it is no longer necessary to visit the Social Security Office in person.

Social Security contributions

From 2023 onwards, Spain has overhauled the system for the calculation of monthly Social Security contributions by autónomos. The payment is no longer fixed regardless of income, and from now on will depend on the net income of the autónomo. The amount of each monthly payments will be increased from 2023 to 2025 as the new system is phased in.

The monthly contribution falls in the following range:

Lowest earners (taxable income 670 Euros per month): contribution 230 Euros per month in 2023 falling to 200 Euros per month in 2025.

Highest earners (taxable income more than 6,000 Euros per month): contribution 530 Euros per month rising to 590 Euros per month in 2025.

The figure of income used for these purposes is the autónomo's net profit after adding back their Social Security contributions, less a general deduction of 7%.

However there is an incentive for newly registered autonomos, under which the monthly contribution is reduced to 80 Euros per month for the first year of trading.

After registration, the Social Security Office will charge the payments automatically to your bank account each month.