Joining the self-employed scheme: registration, contribution base and reduced fee

Marta opens a hair salon in Bilbao on 1 March and expects net earnings of about 1,400 € a month. A friend tells her the Social Security fee is a flat amount for everyone, another that she will pay nothing the first year. Since 2023 neither is true: the fee depends on her expected earnings, and the reduced fee has conditions.

Registration is the worker's own duty

Article 307 of the General Social Security Act requires self-employed workers to request their affiliation to the system and to report their registrations, de-registrations and changes of data in the special scheme, the Régimen Especial de Trabajadores Autónomos or RETA, within the terms and deadlines set by the rules.

The Social Security's page on the scheme is explicit: the self-employed worker is directly responsible for requesting registration and, where appropriate, affiliation. When the obligation is not met, the Treasury of the Social Security can register the person ex officio, for example after an action by the Labour and Social Security Inspectorate.

From when the registration takes effect

The effects of registration depend on timing. According to the Social Security's page, up to three registrations in each calendar year take effect from the day on which all the conditions are met, provided they were requested within the regulatory period. Further registrations in the same year take effect from the first day of the month.

Registrations requested late also take effect from the first day of the calendar month in which the requirements were met. The contributions for the earlier periods are then payable, with the legal surcharges, and they only count towards benefits once paid, in addition to any administrative penalty for late payment.

The same page describes de-registrations symmetrically. A worker who stops the activity without requesting de-registration keeps the obligation to contribute until the Treasury learns of the end of the activity, although the worker may prove by any lawful means that the activity actually stopped on another date.

The timing rule mirrors registration. Up to three de-registrations per calendar year take effect from the day the activity stopped, if requested within the regulatory period; further ones take effect from the first day of the following month. Someone who opens and closes activities often should keep count.

Protections that come with registration

Registration in RETA is not a subscription with options. The Social Security's page lists protections that are compulsory. Temporary incapacity cover, sick pay, has been compulsory since 2008 for workers registered in the scheme, except in listed situations such as multiple activity with cover in another scheme.

Cover for occupational contingencies, accidents at work and occupational diseases, and cover for ceasing activity, together with training and promotion measures, have both been compulsory since 1 January 2019, except in the special scheme for self-employed farmers. The worker formalises the cover with a Social Security collaborating mutual insurer at the moment of registration.

The choice of mutual insurer is therefore part of registration, not a later formality. The page specifies that occupational risks are covered with the same mutual insurer as temporary incapacity, and that the cover for ceasing activity is formalised with the one that already covers common contingencies, with effects that coincide with the registration.

In practice, the new worker picks one mutual insurer and keeps it for all the covers. That insurer will handle sick leave and work accidents, and it is the first contact when the activity has to stop, so its local presence and the quality of its service are worth a look before choosing.

• Common contingencies: illness and non-occupational accidents, retirement, disability
• Temporary incapacity: sick pay, compulsory since 2008 in most cases
• Occupational contingencies: accidents at work and occupational diseases, compulsory since 2019
• Cessation of activity: a benefit when the activity must stop, compulsory since 2019
• Vocational training, financed by its own contribution rate

Contributing according to earnings

Since 2023 the contribution depends on real earnings. Article 308 of the General Social Security Act requires self-employed workers to contribute according to the annual net earnings of their activities. They choose a monthly contribution base according to their forecast of the monthly average of those net earnings, within the table set each year.

There are two tables. The general table applies to workers whose forecast reaches the lower limit of its first bracket. Those who expect a monthly average below that level choose within the reduced table instead. Each bracket of net earnings has a minimum and a maximum base, and the worker picks a base between the two.

The bases chosen are provisional. Article 308 requires workers to change their base during the year to match their updated forecasts, and a regularisation compares, after the year, the contributions paid with those due on the net earnings actually obtained. Choosing a low base to pay less only postpones the difference.

The reverse is also true. A worker whose earnings turn out lower than forecast has contributed on too high a base, and the regularisation settles that difference too. The base is therefore not a bet: it is a forecast that will be checked, and the closer it is to reality, the smaller the surprise.

Some workers cannot go below a floor whatever their earnings. Article 308 provides that relatives working in the business and company directors or partners included in the scheme because they control their company cannot choose a base lower than the minimum base of contribution group 7 of the general scheme.

The table above reproduces five of the fifteen brackets published by the Social Security for 2026, three in the reduced table and twelve in the general one. The full list is on the Social Security's page of bases and rates, which also recalls the ministerial order that develops the contribution rules for the year.

From a base to a monthly fee

The monthly contribution is the chosen base multiplied by the rates for the year. For 2026 the Social Security's page gives 28.30 per cent for common contingencies, 1.30 per cent for occupational contingencies, 0.90 per cent for cessation of activity, 0.10 per cent for vocational training and 0.9 per cent for the intergenerational equity mechanism.

Within a bracket, a higher base costs more each month but also raises the base on which benefits are later calculated. That is a real choice, and it deserves a moment of thought, especially for workers who rely on the scheme for sick pay or who are approaching the years that weigh on their pension.

Working as an employee at the same time

Many people start a business while keeping a salaried job. They are then registered in two schemes at once, a situation called multiple activity or pluriactividad. The Social Security's page provides that, in 2026, such workers are entitled to a refund of 50 per cent of the excess when their combined common contingency contributions exceed 17,323.68 €.

The refund takes into account the contributions in the self-employed scheme and those of the employer and the worker in the other scheme, and is capped at 50 per cent of the fees paid as self-employed. The Treasury pays it, as a rule, within four months of the annual regularisation.

The reduced fee for new self-employed workers

Article 38 ter of the Statute of Self-Employed Work, Ley 20/2007, provides a reduced fee for workers who register for the first time or who have not been registered in the scheme during the two years immediately before. It applies from the date of registration and during the following twelve full calendar months.

During that first period the worker is exempted from contributing for cessation of activity and vocational training. A second period of twelve full months may follow for workers whose annual net earnings stay below the annual minimum wage, which the Social Security's page gives as 17,094 € for 2026.

The reduction must be requested at the moment of registration, and again before the second period when applicable, with a declaration that expected earnings will stay below the minimum wage. The waiting period rises to three years for workers who already enjoyed the reduction in an earlier registration.

The amount of the fee is not fixed in the Statute: article 38 ter refers it to each year's General State Budget Act. Real Decreto-ley 13/2022 set it at 80 € a month for 2023 to 2025 and left later years to the budget act.

This course has not read the 2026 amount on an official page and therefore does not give it. Before registering, check the figure published by the Social Security for the current year rather than a number repeated on forums, which often belongs to an earlier year.