Spain's self-employed told to pay 2023 social security bill

Why do I have to pay more social security when I already pay every month?

In 2023, the Spanish government changed the system for autónomos or self-employed so that they would begin pay social security based on real earnings rather than a flat fee for everyone.

Instead of there being a fixed rate of €294, the fee now goes down progressively to €200 a month for lower earners and progressively higher - up to €590 a month - for higher earners.

Spain's Ministry of Employment and Social Security changes the rates for each group of earners every year until those levels are reached.

READ ALSO: Third of Spain's self-employed to pay €1,000+ more in social security

Essentially it meant that those earning below €1,300 would pay less than €294, those earning between €1,300 and €1,700 would pay the same, while anyone earning over €1,700 would pay more.

In order to work out who should be paying what amount, the government created a table of 15 different levels and autónomos had to say which level they were on, based on their predicted earnings.

This level could be changed up to six times per year depending on what you thought you would make.

But, here’s where it started to get complicated, many autónomos didn’t change their income level, either because they were confused about the new system, they were worried about overpaying, or they simply didn’t know how much they would earn in any given month and so couldn’t predict their level accurately.

Therefore many self-employed ended up paying the wrong amounts throughout 2023 and 2024.

At the end of last year the Spanish Association of Self-Employed Workers (ATA) calculated that between 25 and 30 percent of self-employed people in Spain hadn’t been paying the right amount of social security since the new system came into force.

According to them, only 20 percent of self-employed changed their contribution base in 2023 when the new system was introduced.

As a result, over the past few months the authorities have been going through everyone’s annual income return or Declaración de Renta and their business expenses to see what amount of social security they should have been paying and how much they owe or are owed.

Some people have received their social security bills already while others are just receiving them now in April 2025.

It is estimated that 900,000 self-employed workers in Spain will receive this bill during the spring of 2025.

How will I receive my bill?

First of all you’ll receive an e-mail from Social Security informing you that you have a message. You will have 10 days in which to access this message. It’s important you read it within this time as you could incur fines if you don’t because they assume that you’ve refused the bill.

Click on the link in the e-mail and then click on ‘Obtener Accesso’ or Obtain Access. In order to do this you will need your digital certificate.

Access all areas: how to get a digital certificate in Spain to aid online processes

Next, you will have to sign or firmar to receive your notification. You will need to do this with the program Auto Firma and may need to download it if you don’t have it. You can do this here.

Once you have done this you can finally see your social security bill.

How much will I have to pay?

The amount entirely depends on how much you earned, so there is not set amount, it will be different for everyone.

ATA estimates that the average fee most will range between €1,000 and €1,200 a year. That is between €83 and €100 extra that they should have been paying per month.

How do I pay the bill?

The first four pages of the notification you receive is information on the new social security system and why you owe money or are due a refund.

Scroll down to page 5 to see how much you must pay or how much they are due to pay you.

One important point to note is that unlike the regular social security payments that are automatically deducted from your bank account each month, these ones won’t be, so you must make sure you pay them.

You have until the end of the month after the one in which you receive your bill to pay it, so for example, if you receive your bill in April, you have until the end of May to pay.

There are instructions on the letter of how to pay. You can either do this online via the social security website and put in your card details, or you can just pay via bank transfer. The IBAN details are on the letter. Remember, if you choose to pay via bank transfer you must put in your unique reference number on the letter into the concept field so they can identify that the payment is from you.

If you don’t pay in the allotted time, they can fine you an extra 20 percent of the bill, so it’s important to pay as soon as possible.

How do I deduct this bill from my earnings?

Normally you can deduct your social security bills from your earnings each quarter, but if you had to pay more for 2023, this will not have been included in any of your tax returns for that year.

Luckily, you will not have to modify your yearly tax declaration for 2023 or present an extra one.

You can deduct this amount from your annual tax return or declaración de la renta for this year – so that means when you fill it out in 2026. The current declaración de la renta is for 2024 earnings only, so you won’t yet know how much extra social security you must pay for that year, if any.