Your Spanish taxes, if you freelance and were not born here

The Beckham Law was never yours

You probably heard the pitch before you moved: come to Spain, pay a flat 24% under the Beckham Law and forget progressive rates. Here is the part the pitch leaves out. The Beckham Law (the special inpatriate regime, article 93 of the income tax law) is built for people who arrive on an employment contract. Working for yourself is precisely the case it excludes.

So if you came on the digital nomad visa and invoice your own clients as a contractor, you are a resident autónomo and you pay ordinary IRPF, Spain's progressive income tax, which runs from roughly 19% on the lowest slice up to 47% on the highest, with a personal allowance of 5,550 euros. The visa let you live and work here; it did not hand you a 24% flat rate. Knowing this on day one, instead of at your first bill from Hacienda, is the difference between planning and panic.

Your quarterly forms, finally in plain English

Spain runs on quarterly self-assessments (autoliquidaciones), and they land in the first 20 days of April, July, October and January (you get 30 days for the last period of the year). Miss the window and the surcharge starts on its own. The usual set for a freelancer is:

• Modelo 303: your quarterly IVA (VAT) return, output VAT minus deductible input VAT.
• Modelo 130: a quarterly prepayment of your IRPF, if you are on direct assessment (estimación directa).
• Modelos 111 and 115: the withholdings (retenciones) you pay in if you have professional suppliers or a rented office.

kontora walks you through each form the way a good teacher would, casilla (box) by casilla, so you understand what every figure means before it goes anywhere. Want to know how much of each invoice to set aside now so the quarter does not hurt later? Try our how-much-to-set-aside calculator, free and with no signup.

Invoicing EU clients: the 349, VIES and reverse charge

The first time you invoice a company in Germany, France or the Netherlands, three Spanish concepts show up at once. Here is what they mean, without the jargon:

• Reverse charge (inversión del sujeto pasivo): when your client is a business in another EU country, you invoice without adding Spanish VAT. The client accounts for the VAT in their own country.
• VIES: for that to be legal, both you and your client must appear in VIES, the EU database of intra-community operators. You register through the ROI (the register of intra-community operators) first.
• Modelo 349: an informative return where you report those EU sales, client by client. You pay nothing with it, but it is due from your very first intra-EU invoice, and it is the single most common thing newcomers forget.

kontora flags when an invoice qualifies for reverse charge, keeps your 349 in step with your 303, and reminds you before the deadline. And no, there is no hidden shortcut: as of July 2026 Spain still has no VAT exemption for invoicing under 85,000 euros a year, so you charge VAT from the first euro to your Spanish clients. Invoices to a business outside the EU are a different matter: those services are generally taxed where your client is established, so as a rule they carry no Spanish VAT either.

Verifactu is coming, and templates are on the way out

If you still invoice with a Word or Excel template, 2027 will change that. Under Royal Decree 1007/2023, invoicing software has to produce tamper-evident, chained records and print a QR code on every invoice. The dates are firm:

• Companies (an SL, a Spanish limited company): from 1 January 2027.
• Autónomos and everyone else: from 1 July 2027.

This is not something to sort out the week before. kontora issues invoices that are Verifactu-ready now, so when your date arrives you change nothing. Until then you keep working normally, and we watch the BOE so you do not have to track every amendment yourself.

What kontora does, and what it deliberately does not

Plenty of tools promise to make your taxes disappear. We will not, because that promise is usually where the honesty ends. Here is the exact line:

• It generates the box-by-box drafts of your forms, keeps double-entry books, and runs free calculators.
• It warns you before every deadline and watches the BOE for changes that affect your situation.
• It does not file for you. You review the draft you actually understand, and you or your gestor submit it on the AEAT portal. Your signature, your control.

One account holds more than one business, so if you run an SL and stay registered as an autónomo, both live side by side without mixing their books. The interface and support are in Spanish, English and Russian. The beta is free and opens in autumn 2026: join the waitlist, bring your questions, and stop guessing at forms in a language you are still learning.

Where to start

Frequently asked questions