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WORKING IN SPAIN

The types of state aid that self-employed parents in Spain can apply for

Whether it be maternity pay, tax relief or supplements to minimum income, Spain has several government aids and incentives that self-employed parents can access.

Published: 19 February 2024 11:46 CET
The types of state aid that self-employed parents in Spain can apply for
Photo: Firmbee.com/Unsplash.

Being self-employed in Spain can feel like an uphill battle at the best of times. Whether it be the complicated (and some might say rather high) tax brackets or monthly social security payments, being autónomo can be tough.

If you’re also a parent, freelance life can be even more of a challenge. Fortunately, in Spain there are several different sorts of state aid that self-employed workers with dependent children can access, which include different benefits and allowances.

All these subsidies require the beneficiaries to be registered in Spain’s Special Regime for Self-Employed Workers (RETA), reside in Spain, and have parental responsibilities.

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Maternity and paternity pay

Self-employed parents in Spain are entitled to 16 weeks of maternity leave. This period is counted from the day of birth and can be extended if there are hospitalisations or multiple births.

During this time, the childbirth and childcare pay works out equivalent to 100 percent of the regulatory base for self-employed workers.

Sources from Spain’s Social Security Ministry explained to Autónomos y Emprendedores, a website for the self-employed and entrepreneurs in Spain, that the base calculation is “made in a similar way to how the allowance is calculated when self-employed workers are temporarily unable to work due to illness or accident.”

Both parents can access this aid during the weeks corresponding to maternity and paternity leave. In order to apply, you must be registered in the Social Security system and meet a minimum contribution requirement, which varies according to age.

READ ALSO – GUIDE: How to register with Spain’s social security system

Return to work tax subsidy

When returning to self-employment within two years of maternity leave, mothers in Spain can also benefit from the flat rate for an extended period of 24 months, instead of the usual 12 months.

Tax discounts for large families

There’s also a tax deduction designed for large families with a self-employed parent, which is applied to an annual tax return or paid as a monthly advance payment. It works out to €100 per month for large families (three or four children) or with disabled children, and €200 for large families with five or more children.

In order to qualify for the tax discount, you must have the official certificate accrediting the status of a large family and be registered with Social Security, although in the case of large families, it also applies to unemployed people receiving subsidies and pensioners.

Tax relief for hiring a family carer

If you need to hire someone to help out with childcare or family life, there is a 45 percent rebate on social security contributions available for single parents and parents in large family units.

READ ALSO: Long hours and little pay: What it’s like to be self-employed in Spain

The ‘Childcare Cheque’

Self-employed mothers can also apply for the ‘Childcare Cheque’ (known as Cheque Guardería in Spanish) a rebate that allows them to save up to €1,000 per year on childcare costs. It is available to all mothers with children under the age of three, regardless of their tax bracket threshold, so includes women who run their own business.

The deductible amount is calculated on the basis of social security contributions previously paid by the mother and the number of months the child has been in school.

Minimum income supplement for children

Spain’s Ministry of Social Security defines the Minimum Vital Income (IMV) as a “benefit aimed at preventing the risk of poverty and social exclusion for single persons or persons in cohabitation units without sufficient economic resources to cover their basic needs”

Parents or families with minors in their care receiving IMV can get up to €115 per month extra as a supplement.

IMV supplement thresholds

The amount of the supplement depends on the age of the child. The amount varies according to the age of the children, specifically, their age on January 1st of the corresponding financial year, and there are three different thresholds:

0-3 years old: €115.
3-6 years old: €80.50.
6-18 years old: €57.50.

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DIGITAL NOMADS IN SPAIN

Cafés in Spain on war footing against remote workers hogging space

Bars and cafés in Valencia, Santiago and Barcelona have started to take action against lingering remote workers and digital nomads by cutting off the Wi-Fi during peak hours, with some even banning remote working on their premises.

Published: 10 May 2024 11:02 CEST
Cafés in Spain on war footing against remote workers hogging space

Increasingly in recent years, a trend has emerged: someone arrives in a café, orders a coffee, opens his or her laptop and then spends the whole day working without buying anything else.

For many digital nomads and remote workers, it seems spending a couple of euros on a coffee is a fair price for occupying a table for an entire morning or afternoon.

Some might say they are contributing to the local economy and supporting local businesses, but clearly, for a small business owner this isn’t a profitable arrangement, and many are now fighting back.

In Valencia, posters have appeared at some cafés banning remote working during peak hours: 8.30 to 12.30.

One Valencia café owner told La Vanguardia: “Our place is small and between 10 and 11.30 in the morning it’s impossible, we need all the tables.”

Raquel Llanes, boss at the Departure Café in the Raval area of Barcelona, explained to Barcelona Secreta that the situation has gotten out of control: “We’ve had customers who have ordered an espresso and sat for eight hours, people who have asked us to turn the music down so they could have meetings, customers who took out their Tupperware to eat… At first we adapted the space with sockets and to work, but after two years we realised that the numbers weren’t working out.”

Some have opted for less friendly, but equally effective methods: turning off the Wi-Fi network of the premises during peak hours.

“The owner has got rid of the Wi-Fi to avoid precisely these situations. People sat down and didn’t leave,” one waitress told La Vanguardia.

Similar sentiments have arisen in the Galician city of Santiago, where one café owner told La Voz de Galicia: “We prefer them not to come. If someone comes in and opens a laptop we don’t tell them anything, but if they’ve been there for a long time and we need space for a group, we ask them to please move”. 

When a remote worker in Valencia posted a negative comment about a café where the owner had asked him to leave, their reply went viral, as they stated “we can’t lose regular customers so that you can work”. 

Remote working (teletrabajo in Spanish) has exploded in popularity in Spain in recent years, particularly in the post-pandemic period, and often the people taking advantage of this flexibility are foreign digital nomads and remote workers. Many of them choose to work from local bars and cafés.

It should be said that not all people working remotely in Spain are foreigners. Many Spaniards also have flexible or remote working arrangements and will no doubt occasionally work in a local bar or café. Equally, many digital nomads take advantage of the abundance of ‘co-working’ spaces popping up around Spain, which are exactly for this purpose.

There are even café owners who promote the ‘work friendly’ environment as a means of establishing a loyal customer base.

Other hospitality businesses have preferred to allocate an area for remote working while keeping the bar area and certain tables for regular customers who stop by for a quick bite or coffee. 

READ ALSO: The best co-working spaces for digital nomads in Spain

The row over remote working in traditional Spanish bars and cafés is yet another chapter in the current debate over the influence mass tourism and gentrification is having on Spaniards’ standard of living. 

In the increasingly online, post-pandemic world, the change has been stark in some parts of Spain. Take a stroll through the Raval or L’Eixample neighbourhoods of Barcelona, or the Ruzafa and El Cabanyal areas of Valencia in 2024, and you’re likely to see buildings plastered in Airbnb lockboxes and possibly even hear more fluent, non-native English than you do Spanish in certain parts.

Tourists and wealthy remote workers, the logic goes, visit or move to a trendy city they’ve seen on an international ranking, say Málaga or Valencia, which causes rents to rise because landlords in the area convert their properties into short-term tourist rental accommodation to meet the growing demand, which in turn turfs out locals or shuts down local businesses. 

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