The text that follows is a translation of an entry originally published in Spanish. Hope that helps them to better understand the problems of being self-employed in Spain.
Sorry for the mistakes…do you speak spanish? 😉
It’s very difficult todo esto *
Is being self-employed in Spain a suicide, madness? If we have to be honest, a little. Spain is not intended to be autonomous (self-employed), this is not interesting for economic facto powers, like Government, Trade Union or Business Asociation, they do not like it. Spain is intended for big business and curritos (workers) country, one thing or another, or huge business or workers. If you’re not great entrepreneur, you must be bloke. There is no middle ground. This continues to be a great paradox if we take note about a very high percentage of companies in this country are no longer business but micro enterprises or freelancers, and small businesses with few employees. Large companies with hundreds or thousands of workers are the exception in Spain. And yet, as we say, everything is designed to put it as difficult as possible to these adventurers of business.
Fixed costs with out sales
From the beginning the self-employed in Spain have a number of fixed costs that make his career and his economic survival more difficult. Throughout the entries of this blog I will talk about these costs and we will detail for you all costs. But now we want to focus on what happens in this country and that does not happen in others.
In the begginig, a lot of papers.
The high amount they, the self-employed, have to pay in Spain is bigger than the other countries in our environment. The process to begin to be self-employed are much lower in other countries. In Spain this has improved somewhat in recent years, but especially for individual entrepreneurs, for companies limited (sociedades limitadas) this is still more complicated. But then there is the issue of payments. In Spain an autonomous has to pay his quota from minute one, and this quota is much higher than the quote of countries like the UK or France. In UK you can choose a quote of 12 €, and in France you pay nothing in your first year.
Before having customers, before collecting the first invoice, we will have a series of obligations with the tax office and the social security, not to mention permits, licenses, etc. As noted above, Spain is not intended for autonomous entrepreneurs. The normal quote for self-employed is, in 2015, is 265.44 € by month…And you have to do quarterly VAT returns and income tax.
For dessert, we leave this priceless humorous video about how difficult it is to register for an autonomous. Do not miss it, it’s great. Ye shall cast a laugh, and who have already gone through that trance, like yours truly, I remember with humor.
A girl wants to be self-employed. She has a hard fight with a public employee.
*The phrase It’s very difficult todo esto is a phrase of our prime minister, Mr. Mariano Rajoy…he speak spanglish, the language of the future, he is a pioneer…
