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FREELANCING

The help that self-employed in Spain can apply for in 2023

Anyone who is self-employed in Spain knows it's tough. Fortunately, there are several grants and benefits available to autónomos and small businesses this year to help you out.

Published: 2 February 2023 15:23 CET
The help that self-employed in Spain can apply for in 2023
Being self-employed in Austria can be rewarding. But there's a few things to be aware of that foreigners might not have experienced before in their home countries. Photo: Pixabay.

There are 3,329,863 autónomos or self-employed people in Spain, but according to the Asociación de Trabajadores Autónomos, Spain’s self-employed union, more than 2 million self-employed workers (which is 63 percent of them) have an income that is below Spain’s Interprofessional Minimum Wage (SMI).

READ ALSO: Spain to raise minimum wage by 8 percent

With self-employed workers earning so little and having to pay very high monthly social security payments, which go down €200 a month for lower earners and progressively higher – up to €590 a month for higher earners, many may be forced to look for support where they can. 

What benefits and help are available?

Spain offers a whole host of benefits and help for self-employed people, including the following, which are all available this year.

Starting a new company

Grants of up €10,000 are available to people to help them launch a new business or company. The exact amount varies, and they are aimed at helping unemployed young people aged 30 years or younger, unemployed women, unemployed people with disabilities, and unemployed women with disabilities.

In the case of victims of gender violence, grants can be boosted by 10 percent.

Investment subsidies

There is also aid to help you finance investments. The subsidies work out equivalent to a 4 percent reduction on the interest rate set by the body or business that grants the loan, with the subsidy limit being a maximum of €10,000.

Training

If a self-employed person wishes to undertake some extra training to improve their business or career prospects, they can apply for aid that covers up to 75 percent of the cost up to a maximum of €3,000.

READ ALSO – REVEALED: Everything you need to know about applying for Spain’s digital nomad visa

Digitalisation 

The Spanish government also offers a so-called ‘Digital Kit’, which can be accessed through grants of up to €2,000 to help ‘digitalise’ a business to make it more competitive. These grants are intended for things such as creating a website or e-commerce platform, managing social networks, installing cybersecurity or upgrading systems.

The ‘zero quota’

As many of you probably already know, in Spain self-employed people not only pay quarterly income tax (IRPF in Spain) but must also pay a monthly social security payment. You can read all about that and upcoming changes to the system here, but note that some regions offer to waive this fee in order to promote entrepreneurism.

READ ALSO: New self-employed workers in Madrid to pay no social security tax

Madrid, Andalusia and Murcia all do, and the Balearic Islands will do it for self-employed people under 35 and for women entrepreneurs. These grants effectively mean the region picks up the tab for your monthly fee. It is available for one year and extendable by another 12 months if the recipient’s net income is lower than the SMI.

Minimum Vital Income

Since January, the number of self-employed people who can access the Minimum Vital Income has also increased. This benefit is compatible with income from self-employment and has also been increased. If you qualify, you could get an extra €565.37 per month for a single person without kids and more if you have children. You can find out more about it here. 

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WORKING IN SPAIN

Not English: The languages linked to high-paying jobs in Spain

It is generally thought that if you speak English, you will have access to more, better and higher paying jobs overseas, but that's not necessarily the case in Spain.

Published: 6 May 2024 09:23 CEST
Not English: The languages linked to high-paying jobs in Spain

It’s obvious that language skills are very important when applying for certain jobs and that some companies are attracted to applications from those who speak more than one.

A common belief in Spain, particularly among locals, is that if you learn English then you’ll have access to better-paying jobs within Spain.

Therefore, it might be surprising to learn that according to a recent study from online, language learning marketplace Preply, it’s not English or even French that’s the most economically valuable foreign language in Spain, it’s Romanian.

The company analysed a total of 500,000 job vacancies in Spain in order to find out which languages ​​are the most economically profitable and which have the greatest demand.  

All the job vacancies were listed on job search engine Adzuna or were from advertisements that explicitly sought foreign language skills.

The study revealed that those who speak Romanian earn an average annual salary of €82,865, almost triple the average Spanish salary, which is €29,113.

In second place was Portuguese, with speakers earning an average of €68,120. This was followed by Arabic, whose speakers earn an average salary of €67,357.  In fourth place was Greek, with an average salary of €58,333 and then French, with an average annual salary of €54,725.

English didn’t even feature in the top five languages when it came to those earning the most in Spain. In fact, it came in ninth place, with speakers earning €49,000 on average.

While English speakers may not be earning the top salary here, it is however still one of the most useful languages to know (other than Spanish) as the study found that it was required by the most number of foreign companies in Spain – 16,000 in total.  

In second place, when it came to useful languages was German. However, the number of companies requiring candidates to speak it was much less than English, with a total of 2,040 vacancies.

READ ALSO: Why are the Spanish ‘so bad’ at English?

Why is Romanian such a profitable language to know in Spain?

It largely comes down to the fact that there are more than half a million Romanians living in Spain. A total of 627,478 in 2022, according to the latest figures available from Spain’s National Statistics Institute (INE)

Rapid growth in the Romanian-speaking population means that there’s a greater need for Romanian translators and interpreters here. 

The majority of these translators are in the court system and National Police. Romanian, along with Arabic, makes up 50 percent of the court translation requests.

Since 2008, interpreters for the police have been in such great demand that they have had to outsource to specialised companies.

Because of the scarcity of translators who speak these languages specifically and the greater demand, these positions usually come with high salaries.

It has been reported that this year alone, the police will spend around €850,000 per month to translate conversations intercepted from criminals. 

Over the last 10 years, the budget for hiring translators and interpreters has increased dramatically. Currently, the police pay around €26 per hour.

Recently, the Spanish Cabinet authorised the Interior Ministry to bid for new contracts so that the National Police will have access to better interpreter services.  

The budget for this is set at €39.7 million, which is much higher than what was available before.  

Currently, the National Police can request translators in several languages ​​divided into categories according to the frequency of use.  

English, French, German and standard Arabic are some of the most requested, followed by Chinese, Japanese, Russian, Portuguese, Romanian, Italian, Polish and Dutch.

Serbian, Bambara, Bengali, Iranian, Persian, Farsi, Armenian and Igbo interpreters are also sought-after.

These translators must have a qualification and experience and must be available 24 hours a day, every day of the year. When requested, they must appear at the required police station within a maximum time that ranges between 90 minutes and four hours, depending on the language they speak and the distance they have to travel. This goes some way to explain why they are paid so much.    

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