You just registered, and it is all acronyms and deadlines

The first year is a flood of acronyms (and getting lost is normal)

Nobody is born knowing what a modelo 303 (form 303) is. The moment you register, terms start raining down that sound like a new language:

• IVA (VAT): the tax you charge your clients and then hand over to Hacienda. It is not yours, it just passes through your account.
• IRPF (personal income tax): the tax on what you actually earn, your profit.
• RETA: the social security scheme where you pay your monthly self-employed contribution.
• Forms 303, 111 and 115: the quarterly returns for VAT and withholdings.
• Verifactu: the new verifiable-invoicing standard reaching the self-employed.

kontora starts with an onboarding that adapts to your profile and translates all of that into your case. Instead of dumping twenty possible forms on you, it tells you which ones apply to you based on how you work (business clients, a rented premises, EU transactions), and from then on you only see what you need.

How much you will pay and how much to set aside

The two questions that rob you of sleep in year one. Let us start with the good news:

• Your autónomo contribution: if this is your first registration, you get the tarifa plana (the flat reduced social security rate) of 80 euros a month for the first 12 months, extendable for another 12 if your net income stays below the minimum wage. When it ends, your contribution depends on your income bracket: there are 15 brackets and the base is charged at 31.5%.
• How much to set aside from each invoice: the VAT you charge is not yours, you will pay it over, so reserve all of it. And from your profit, set aside a slice for IRPF according to your bracket. Doing this from your very first invoice avoids the end-of-quarter shock.

So you are not flying blind, kontora includes two calculators with figures verified against the BOE, Spain's official gazette: the 2026 autónomo contribution calculator tells you what you will pay per month based on what you expect to earn, and the how-much-to-reserve calculator gives you the amount worth keeping aside from each payment for VAT and IRPF.

Your first quarter, without surprises

The self-employed calendar is simpler than it looks once you see it written down. Quarterly taxes are filed in April, July and October (from the 1st to the 20th), and the fourth quarter in January (the withholdings on forms 111 and 115 by the 20th, and the VAT on form 303 by the 30th).

kontora prepares each of those forms box by box, with your income and expenses already reconciled, so you understand where each number comes from instead of signing blind. And it warns you ahead of every date, so no deadline catches you off guard. If you want to understand the forms from the inside before your first quarter, there is the guide to form 303 (VAT) and the guide to forms 111 and 115 (withholdings).

Invoice from day one, ready for Verifactu

Verifactu is the verifiable-invoicing system that Hacienda is rolling out in Spain. In plain terms: your invoices have to meet certain technical requirements to be valid. If you are starting now, it makes sense to invoice properly from day one rather than redo it later.

With kontora you issue invoices that are Verifactu-ready, numbered and with every mandatory field, and each invoice flows straight into your accounts. That way the quarter is not a spike of work, but the sum of what you have already been recording.

What kontora does and what you do

Here is the honest part, because over-promising in year one costs you dearly:

• kontora does: your tailored onboarding, double-entry accounting, the box-by-box drafts of your forms (303 and 390 for VAT, 111 and 115 for withholdings and their annual summaries), the alerts before every deadline, and monitoring of the changes published in the BOE. All in Spanish, English and Russian.
• You do: review the draft and press "File" from kontora with your digital certificate (303, 130, 111 and 115 by direct filing; 349, 190 and 180 through TGVI), yourself or with your gestor; the 390 is prepared on screen and you file it on the AEAT website, except for the breakdown of deductible VAT by rate, which you review yourself. kontora hands you the reconciled draft and warns you, but you press send.

The modelo 130 (the IRPF instalment payment) is generated by kontora box by box, like the rest, and it warns you of its deadline. kontora starts at €19 + IVA a month: you can start now and go through your first year as an autónomo with company.

Where to start

Frequently asked questions