Rendimiento neto (net income)

In practice, rendimiento neto is worked out by adding up what you have invoiced, excluding VAT, and subtracting the deductible business expenses: your monthly contribution, rent for your premises, utilities used for the business, supplies, accounting fees or depreciation. For income tax it is checked quarter by quarter in the prepayments and settled in the annual return. For RETA contributions, social security starts from the same figure, adds back the contribution itself and applies a deduction for general expenses set by the rules.

The typical mistake is to confuse net income with turnover. Invoicing a lot does not mean earning a lot, and choosing a contribution bracket based on income alone often means overpaying. The opposite slip is common too: counting as an expense something without a full invoice or with no link to the business. That expense can be rejected in a review and your net income jumps up.

Rendimiento neto is related to estimación directa simplificada, estimación objetiva and the cuota de autónomos. It comes from your income and expense ledgers and ends up in your quarterly prepayment and annual return. In kontora every invoice you issue and every expense is booked in double entry, so your year-to-date net income is visible at any moment.

Guides that use this term

• How to fill in modelo 130 box by box: instructions and a four-quarter worked example

Related terms

• RETA: RETA is the special social security scheme that self-employed workers, including corporate autónomos, contribute to in Spain.
• Cuota de autónomos: The cuota de autónomos is the monthly payment made to social security for being registered under RETA.
• Estimación directa simplificada: Estimación directa simplificada is the standard method most self-employed workers use to calculate net income: you subtract documented deductible expenses from income, plus a flat deduction for hard-to-justify expenses of 5%, capped at 2,000 euros a year.
• Estimación objetiva: Estimación objetiva, commonly called módulos, is an alternative method to calculate net income based on objective indicators of your business, such as premises size, staff, or electrical power, rather than your actual income and expenses.

Full glossary