The autónomo quota increase in 2026: how much it really rises, bracket by bracket

Does the autónomo quota rise in 2026? The short answer

Not as in previous years. In 2026 the table of net income brackets, with its minimum and maximum bases, is exactly the 2025 one. What has moved is one component of the contribution rate, the MEI (the intergenerational equity mechanism), which rises by a tenth: from 0.8% to 0.9%. With that, the total rate of the RETA (the social security scheme for the self-employed) goes from 31.4% to 31.5%.

In terms of your bill: if you contribute on the minimum base of your bracket, each month you pay 0.1% of that base more than in 2025. That is, between €0.65 (first bracket of the reduced table) and €1.93 (last bracket of the general table). Over a full year, between €7.80 and €23.16.

The full table, with the income of each bracket and how to work out yours, is in the guide to the autónomo quota 2026. Here we focus on what changes.

Why the brackets have not risen: the extension in Royal Decree-Law 3/2026

The bracket tables for 2023, 2024 and 2025 were set by the first transitional provision of Royal Decree-Law 13/2022, which created contributions based on real income. For 2026 onwards, that same provision carried no table: it left it to a later decision of the Government and, each year, to the Budget Law.

As there is no Budget Law for 2026, the Government approved Royal Decree-Law 3/2026. Its article 3.4 says that, from 1 January 2026 and until the Budget Law is approved, the general and reduced RETA tables "shall be those provided for" in Royal Decree-Law 13/2022 for the year 2025, with the reference understood as made to 2026. It is a literal extension: the same 15 brackets, the same minimum bases, the same maximum bases except for one exception.

The exception affects brackets 11 and 12 of the general table, those with income above €4,050 a month. Their maximum base is updated with the maximum contribution cap, which article 3.1 sets at €5,101.20 a month. That raises the highest possible quota, €1,606.88 a month, but you only pay it if you voluntarily choose that base. If you contribute on the minimum of your bracket, like most people, that update does not affect you.

What does rise: the MEI goes from 0.8% to 0.9%

The MEI is an earmarked contribution that feeds the pension Reserve Fund. The Government does not decide it each year: it has a fixed scale in the forty-third transitional provision of the General Social Security Law (Ley General de la Seguridad Social), introduced by Royal Decree-Law 2/2023. That scale is what governs:

Article 3.2 of Royal Decree-Law 3/2026 confirms it for this year: 0.90 points from 1 January 2026. An employee shares that percentage with the employer; the autónomo pays all of it, because they are both employer and worker.

The other components of the rate do not change: 28.30% for common contingencies, 1.30% for occupational contingencies, 0.90% for cessation of activity and 0.10% for vocational training. Added to the 0.90% of the MEI they give 31.5%. The 0.1% increase applies to whatever contribution base (base de cotización) you have, whether it is the minimum of the bracket or a higher one: if you contribute on €2,000, that is €2 more a month.

How much the autónomo quota rises in 2026, bracket by bracket

This table compares the minimum quota of each bracket at the 2025 rate (31.4%) and at the 2026 rate (31.5%), on the same minimum base, which has not changed. The increase is 0.1% of the base; the monthly column comes from subtracting the two quotas already rounded to the cent, which is why in some brackets it differs by one cent from the direct calculation.

Two readings. The first: if your 2026 bill rises by more than this, it is not because of the year's regulation. Most likely you have changed base, your flat rate (tarifa plana) has ended, or the Treasury (Tesorería) has applied the regularisation of quotas (regularización de cuotas) for a previous year, which arrives as a separate charge. The second: if you contribute above the minimum base, multiply your base by 0.001 and you have your exact increase.

Flat rate and company-director autónomos: what changes for them

Flat rate. The reduced start-up quota is still €80 a month, the amount the Treasury has applied since 2023. What changes is the MEI, which is not included in those €80 and is charged separately on the minimum base of bracket 1 of the general table, €950.98. In 2026 it is 0.9% of that base, €8.56, and the real charge is €88.56 a month. With the same base and the 2025 rate of 0.8% it came to €7.61: the flat rate rises by €0.95 a month. Requirements, extension and the jump in month thirteen are in the guide to the autónomo flat rate 2026.

Company-director autónomos. Here there is more than the MEI. The administrator or partner of an SL (a Spanish limited company) who contributes in the RETA cannot go below the minimum base of group 7 of the General Regime, and article 3.1 of Royal Decree-Law 3/2026 raises the minimum bases of the General Regime by the same percentage as the minimum wage, increased by one sixth. In 2026 that floor is €1,424.40, and the director's minimum quota is €448.69 a month. That is, for the director who contributes at the floor, the 2026 increase is not just the tenth of the MEI: the base it applies to also rises. The three differences between the director and the individual autónomo are in the quota guide.

Multiple activity (pluriactividad). If you also work as an employee, your bracket in the RETA still depends only on your income as an autónomo; the increase that affects you is the same tenth of the MEI.

Where the confusion comes from: the 2023-2025 table rose every year

If you expected a bigger increase, there is an explanation. Royal Decree-Law 13/2022 published three tables at once, one for each year from 2023 to 2025, and every January the bases changed. In the general table they went up, except for the first three brackets, which did not change (€950.98, €960.78 and €960.78); in the reduced table, they went down:

Anyone in a middle or high bracket got used to the quota rising every January, and 2025 was the biggest jump. Hence the expectation that 2026 would bring another table.

And it was supposed to. Paragraph 3 of that transitional provision tasked the Government with determining, before 1 January 2026, the calendar for the next period, with a scale of brackets and bases spread over a maximum of six years. That new table has not been published in the BOE. What was published was the extension in Royal Decree-Law 3/2026. If you read increase figures for 2026, they do not come from any rule in force: the only table that applies today is the extended 2025 one.

What may change during 2026 and in 2027

The extension has a written condition: it applies "until the corresponding General State Budget Law is approved". If the BOE were to publish a law or a royal decree-law with a new table, the bases could change from the date that rule sets. Today no new table has been published, and we will not speculate with figures from proposals that are not law. If one is published, we will update this guide and the calculator.

What is written is the MEI for 2027: the scale in the General Social Security Law raises it to 1%. If in 2027 the table were still extended, the minimum quota would rise again by another 0.1% of the base, the same magnitude as this year.

Meanwhile, what moves your quota most is not the regulation but your own income. Three things that do depend on you:

• Review your bracket. You can change base six times a year; the next window, if you request it before 31 October, takes effect on 1 November, and the November and December one on 1 January.
• Plan for the regularisation. If you contribute below the minimum base of your real bracket, Social Security will claim the difference for the whole year in a single charge. That weighs far more than the tenth of the MEI.
• Record the quota as an expense. The quota is 100% deductible in your IRPF (personal income tax).

The change windows and the rules of the regularisation are in the quota guide, and the rest of the year's dates in the tax calendar 2026-2027.

Work out your 2026 quota in a minute

The autónomo quota calculator 2026 already applies the 31.5%: you enter the monthly net income you expect and it returns the bracket, the minimum base and the minimum quota, and with the flat rate box it shows you the €80 and the MEI separately. It is an estimate for planning, not the calculation of your regularisation.

To compare with your 2025 bill, multiply the base you contribute on by 0.001: that is the part of the increase that comes from the regulation. If the real difference is larger, look for the cause in your base, in the end of the flat rate or in a regularisation.

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