Spain's flat rate for new autónomos in 2026: what you really pay, who qualifies and how long it lasts

What the flat rate is and what you really pay in 2026

The flat rate (tarifa plana) is the popular name for the reduced contribution for starting an activity regulated by article 38 ter of Law 20/2007, the Self-Employed Workers' Statute, introduced by Royal Decree-law 13/2022. It replaces the contribution you would otherwise pay according to your income bracket for the twelve full calendar months following your registration in the RETA, the self-employed social security scheme, and in 2026 the treasury is charging it at €80 a month.

That amount is not set by article 38 ter but by each year's own rule. The fifth transitional provision of Royal Decree-law 13/2022 set the €80 "for the period between 2023 and 2025" and referred the following years to each year's Budget Act. There is no Budget Act for 2026: Royal Decree-law 3/2026 rolls over Law 31/2022 and no rule published this year has set a new amount. That is why the treasury keeps debiting the same €80. It is the amount being charged, not an amount renewed for 2026; if a Budget Act changes it during the year, we will update this guide.

It helps to understand what that figure covers, because it explains the real charge. The €80 is a reduced contribution for common and occupational contingencies, and during that period you are exempt from contributing for cessation of activity and vocational training. What it does not include is the MEI, the intergenerational equity mechanism: the treasury charges it separately, and in 2026 it is 0.9% of the minimum base of bracket 1 of the general table, €950.98, which is €8.56. The real monthly debit is €88.56.

You will see €88.64 or €88.72 quoted online. Those are calculations on other years' bases, or rounding: with the current table, published by Orden PJC/297/2026, the MEI on €950.98 is €8.56 and nothing else. The 2026 self-employed contribution calculator and the tax figures 2026 page use that figure.

Look at the second-to-last row: the flat rate does not depend on what you earn during those twelve months. Even if you invoice a lot, paragraph 6 of article 38 ter excludes any adjustment in the first period. That, more than the €80, is its real value.

Who qualifies

The law sets one main condition and a handful of exceptions. The condition: an initial registration in the RETA, or no registration in the two years immediately before the effective date of the new one. That period rises to three years if you already enjoyed this reduced contribution during your previous registration. Nationality and age are irrelevant, and there is no income ceiling to apply: income only matters for the extension.

Who is included beyond the individual autónomo: paragraph 9 of the article extends the reduction to shareholders of capital companies and of labour companies, and to worker-members of associated work cooperatives, when they are registered in the RETA, in other words to the autónomo societario, the company director. That case has its own section below.

Who is excluded: family helpers, meaning the spouse and relatives up to the second degree who register in the RETA to work in an autónomo's business, and members of consecrated-life institutes of the Catholic Church. Those are the only two exclusions, in paragraph 11.

What does not take it away from you: hiring staff (paragraph 7 says so expressly, you can employ people and keep the reduction), also having a salaried job in pluriactividad, or invoicing more than you expected. And one formal requirement many discover too late: the reduction must be requested at the moment of registration. If you do not ask for it then, there is no second window for the first period.

How long it lasts: twelve months, and the extension if you stay below the minimum wage

The first period is twelve full calendar months counted from the effective date of registration. If you register on 15 March, you pay the reduced contribution for the rest of March and for the twelve full months from April to March of the following year. In practice, then, the flat rate lasts a little more than a calendar year unless you register on the 1st.

After that there may be a second period of another twelve full months, at the same reduced contribution, for anyone whose annual net income is below the minimum wage (SMI). Income is measured the way social security measures it for the brackets (the rules of article 308 of the General Social Security Act, including the 7% generic-expense deduction), and the bar is the annual SMI: in 2026, under Royal Decree 126/2026, that is €1,221 a month in fourteen payments, €17,094 a year. If the second period spans parts of two calendar years, the condition must be met in each of them.

The extension is not automatic: you must request it before the first period ends, together with a declaration that you expect net income below the SMI during the years it covers. And unlike the first period, here an adjustment is possible: if in any of those years your income exceeds the minimum wage, social security adjusts the reduced contribution for that year, taking the proportion of income corresponding to the months with the reduction.

Two ways it ends early. You can expressly waive the reduction, effective from the first day of the month after you notify it; that makes sense if you want to contribute on a higher base ahead of a benefit. And the right is extinguished if you deregister from the RETA during either period: when you come back, you will need three years without registration to request it again.

Company directors: yes, since 2023

For years the answer was no: the treasury did not apply the flat rate to people who contributed to the RETA because they ran or controlled a company. The current wording of article 38 ter, in force since 1 January 2023, settles the question in paragraph 9: the reduction also applies, if the conditions are met, to shareholders of capital companies and labour companies registered in the RETA. If you set up an SL and register as a director for the first time, or have been out of the RETA for two years, you can request the €80 plus MEI like any other autónomo.

What changes for the director is not the flat rate but what comes after it. Three differences worth knowing before you choose your legal form, which the guide autónomo or SL compares with numbers:

• Their computable income includes what the company pays them as salary and as a share of profits, where they hold at least 33% of the capital, or 25% as a director.
• Their generic-expense deduction is 3%, not 7%.
• Their contribution base cannot fall below the minimum base of group 7 of the general scheme, €1,424.40 in 2026, which puts their minimum contribution on leaving the flat rate at €448.69, even if their income points to a lower bracket.

In plain terms: for a director the month-thirteen jump is, at the very least, from €88.56 to €448.69. It is the case where having the forecast ready before it arrives pays off most. How that bracket is worked out, with the full 2026 table, is in the guide to the 2026 self-employed contribution.

Disability, victims and dual activity: the cases with their own rules

Disability, gender violence and terrorism. If you have a recognised disability of 33% or more, or are a victim of gender violence or terrorism, paragraph 10 of article 38 ter lengthens both periods: the first goes from 12 to 24 full calendar months, and the second, the one conditional on income below the SMI, from 12 to 36 months. That is up to five years on a reduced contribution. The amount for the first period is the same reduced contribution; the amount for the second is set by each year's rules: for 2023, 2024 and 2025 the fifth transitional provision of Royal Decree-law 13/2022 set it at €160 from the twenty-fifth month. The access conditions, the request at registration and the extension work the same way as in the general case.

Dual activity (pluriactividad). Having a salaried job and registering as self-employed at the same time does not exclude you from the flat rate: the article does not list it as a ground for exclusion. You pay your employee contributions through your payslip and the €88.56 to the RETA. Separately, and regardless of the flat rate, there is the dual-activity refund: if the sum of your common-contingency contributions in both schemes exceeds €17,323.68 in 2026, you are entitled to a refund from the treasury of 50% of the excess, capped at 50% of what you paid into the RETA for that item. The detail is in the glossary under pluriactividad.

Sea workers and cooperative members. Paragraph 9 also covers self-employed workers in group one of the Special Scheme for Sea Workers and worker-members of associated work cooperatives registered in the RETA or in that scheme, on the same terms.

For 2026 that second amount has not been renewed by any rule either: it comes from the same transitional provision that expired with 2025.

How to apply: step by step at registration

The flat rate is requested inside the social security registration itself, and social security registration goes hand in hand with registration at the tax agency. The usual order:

1. Census registration with the tax agency using modelo 036, the only form since Orden HAC/1526/2024 abolished the 037: IAE business category, start date, VAT and income-tax regimes. Without this step you cannot issue your first invoice.
2. RETA registration in Import@ss, the treasury's portal, identifying yourself with a digital certificate, Cl@ve or SMS. It must be done before you start the activity. It asks for the activity, the start date, a bank account for the direct debit, the mutua (the collaborating insurer), your forecast of monthly net income and the contribution base you choose within the matching bracket.
3. Tick the reduction for starting an activity. The same form offers the option to take the reduced contribution of article 38 ter. This is where, and only where, it is requested for the first period.
4. Direct debit. The contribution is charged at the end of each month to the account you gave. The first debit includes the days of the registration month.

Do not neglect the income forecast in step 2 just because you will be paying €80: it sets the provisional base you will leave the flat rate on, and it is what the TGSS will use to place you in a bracket in month thirteen. You can change it up to six times a year, in the windows explained in the contribution guide.

The extension is also requested in Import@ss, before the twelfth month ends, with the declaration of expected income below the SMI. And the waiver, if you ever want to contribute more, is notified the same way, effective from the first day of the following month.

All of this sits inside a wider procedure, with deadlines and a mutua to choose, and doing it out of order costs surcharges. If you have not registered yet, read the guide to registering as self-employed in Spain first, which covers the 036 and the RETA with their dates.

What happens when it ends: the jump to your real bracket

Paragraph 8 of article 38 ter is blunt: once the reduction period is used up, you contribute for all contingencies from the first day of the following month. There is no intermediate step and no transition: from the €88.56 debit you go to the debit of your bracket.

Which bracket that is depends on the net income forecast you have on file at that moment, not on what you earned when you registered. With the 2026 figures, three common exits:

• Forecast between €1,300 and €1,700 a month: minimum base €960.78, contribution €302.65. The debit rises by €214.09 a month, €2,569.08 a year.
• Forecast between €2,030 and €2,330 a month: minimum base €1,274.51, contribution €401.47. Up by €312.91 a month, €3,754.92 a year.
• Company director with a low forecast: floor of €1,424.40, contribution €448.69.

From that month you also enter the normal circuit: the contribution is provisional, you can change your base in the six windows of the year and, the following year, the tax agency reports your real income and social security carries out the annual adjustment. The flat-rate months stay outside that adjustment; the months after it are inside.

Two practical consequences. The first is about cash: it pays to set aside each month, already during the flat rate, the difference between what you pay and what you will pay, because month thirteen often arrives before the business has stabilised its income. The second is about cover: during the flat rate your benefits (sick pay, cessation of activity) are calculated on the minimum base of bracket 1 of the general table, €950.98, under paragraph 5, so a long sick leave in the first year produces a modest benefit. Which base to choose afterwards, and what each extra euro buys, is explained in the contribution base section of the contribution guide.

Common mistakes with the flat rate

• Believing it is exactly €80. The MEI is charged on top: the debit is €88.56. A budget built on 80 balances, but only just, and for the wrong reason.
• Not requesting it at registration. The law requires it to be requested at the moment of registration. Anyone who forgets cannot recover it later for the first period.
• Registering late. Invoicing before you are registered in the RETA exposes you to registration imposed by social security, and that period is settled on the minimum base of bracket 1 of the general table, without the adjustment rules that protect you.
• Requesting the extension out of time. It must be requested before the twelfth month ends, with the declaration of income below the SMI. Afterwards it is gone.
• Deregistering and coming back. Deregistering from the RETA extinguishes the right, and getting it again takes three years without registration. A two-month break for a holiday can cost ten months of reduced contribution.
• Forgetting that the extension can be adjusted. If you exceed the SMI during the second period, social security recalculates that year. The first period, by contrast, is untouchable.
• Ruling it out because you are a director. Since 2023 the law expressly grants it to shareholders of capital companies.
• Not recording the contribution as an expense. The €88.56 is 100% deductible in your income tax, with the bank debit as proof, as the guide to deductible expenses for autónomos reminds you. Twelve unrecorded debits are more than a thousand euros of lost expense.
• Ignoring the month-thirteen jump. Going from €88.56 to €302.65 or €401.47 without having planned for it is the most common cause of missed payments in the second year, and an unpaid contribution generates surcharges and blocks the reduced contribution if you ever need it again.
• Confusing twelve months with a calendar year. The period counts full calendar months from registration: someone who registered on 15 March finishes in March of the following year, not in December.

Work out your contribution and get ready for month thirteen

The 2026 self-employed contribution calculator does the two sums you need: with the flat-rate box ticked it shows the €80 and the MEI on top, and without it, from your expected monthly net income, it tells you the bracket, the minimum base and the contribution you will pay when the flat rate ends. Give it your real numbers, not the first month's.

What no calculator can do for you is know, in month ten, whether you will stay below the SMI to request the extension, or which bracket you are heading for in month thirteen. That figure comes from your income and expenses, and it is only useful if they are up to date. With kontora, every invoice and every expense you record updates your accumulated net income, so you can see at any moment whether the year is running below or above the €17,094 SMI and which bracket your average points to. The €88.56 of each month is recorded as a deductible expense with its bank debit, and you get a reminder before the twelfth month ends, which is when you can still request the extension or adjust your base. The request in Import@ss and the filing at the tax agency's electronic office are yours to do; kontora puts the numbers in front of you so you decide in time. Every date of the year is in the 2026-2027 tax calendar.

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