Cuéntamo Blog

Accounting tips for freelancers and households

Buying out the other half of the flat (from your ex, from your sibling): what dissolving shared ownership really costs

November 3, 2026

Two siblings inherit a flat and one of them wants to keep it. Or an unmarried couple bought a home together, they break up, and one of them keeps the house. In both cases the same question comes up, with the same fear behind it: if I pay out the other person’s share, is that like buying a flat from a stranger, with everything that costs?

The short answer is no, and the difference isn’t a nuance: Spanish civil law doesn’t treat it as a sale, but as the mechanism for splitting something that can’t be split. That changes which tax you pay, on what amount, and in one of the three cases, whether you pay anything at all. This is what dissolving shared ownership (extinción de condominio) really costs, with numbers, and the two places where people overpay simply because they didn’t know better.

co-ownership dissolution inheritance transfer tax stamp duty capital gains tax municipal capital gains property

Renting a Premises for Your Business: Modelo 115 and Modelo 180, or How to Withhold 19% From Your Landlord

October 30, 2026

You sign the lease on a premises for your practice, studio or workshop, and the landlord sends the first rent invoice. That is where an obligation starts that almost nobody mentions when you register as self-employed: you do not pay the landlord the whole invoice. You withhold part of it and pay it to the tax authority yourself, with the modelo 115 every quarter and its annual summary, the modelo 180, in January.

self-employed modelo 115 modelo 180 withholding rent IRPF Hacienda

What to do with your extra paycheck (and any windfall) so it doesn't vanish

October 29, 2026

December comes, and with it the extra paycheck. For a couple of weeks your balance looks higher than ever: presents get bought without much looking, there’s an extra dinner out and, while you’re at it, that thing you’d been putting off for months. Then January, and the slump: the car insurance renewal, the card statement with the presents on it, and an ordinary paycheck to cover it all.

A good part of the January slump is exactly that: December’s extra paycheck, spent twice.

personal finance savings extra paycheck windfall income emergency fund

When should you quit your job to go self-employed? The numbers to check first

October 28, 2026

“Save a cushion and wait until you have clients” is the advice that gets repeated everywhere, and it doesn’t help you decide anything: how big a cushion? How many clients? Billing how much? Leaving a fixed salary for your own business is a decision you can put off forever if you never turn it into concrete numbers. Here are the three that actually matter, and a way to test the water without having to choose between your salary and the leap.

self-employed decision emergency fund pluriactividad freelance

Why you owe money on your Spanish tax return even though they withhold tax every month (and how to see it coming in autumn, not in April)

October 27, 2026

Every month, part of your salary gets withheld. In theory, that’s “your share for the tax office” already paid. And yet, when the annual return comes, the result says you owe more. You haven’t made a mistake, and the tax office isn’t charging you twice: the withholding is only an advance payment, based on an estimate that may not match what you actually owe. And that gap can be calculated well before the filing season starts, not after.

IRPF withholding tax Spain tax return personal finance cash flow forecast

Can't Pay Your Modelo 303? How to Defer or Split a Debt With the Spanish Tax Agency

October 23, 2026

The last day of the deadline arrives, your modelo 303 comes out to pay and the account doesn’t stretch that far. Maybe a big client paid late, maybe the quarter was good on invoices and bad on collections. What matters is what you do in the next few hours, because there are two ways to get it wrong (not filing, and filing without asking for anything) and one way to get it right: file the return and ask for a deferral or instalment plan within the deadline.

self-employed deferral instalments modelo 303 modelo 130 Hacienda tax debt

Closing down as self-employed in Spain: what you'll still pay afterwards (and why it isn't unemployment)

October 21, 2026

Before anything else: this isn’t about sick leave. If you’re looking for what happens when you’re off sick while self-employed, that’s a different article. This one is about closing down your self-employed activity altogether: filing the deregistration with the tax office and Social Security.

And here’s what almost nobody tells you: filing that deregistration isn’t a switch that turns everything off at once. Several things keep running afterwards; some bill you, some refund you. And the question that actually matters (“can I live without income while I find something else?”) has an answer that surprises a lot of people: closing your activity is not the same as being unemployed.

self-employed autónomos deregistration Social Security VAT return

How much inheritance tax you pay in Spain (and the money you have to advance before you see a cent)

October 20, 2026

Inheriting sounds like money is about to land in your account. What almost nobody tells you is that, before that money is actually available, you usually need to pay something out of your own pocket first. The bank won’t let you touch the deceased’s account until you prove the inheritance tax has been paid, and that tax has a deadline that starts running on the day of death, not on the day you finally sort out the paperwork.

inheritance inheritance tax ISD municipal capital gains tax cash flow planning

Modelo 111 and Modelo 190: When You Have to File the Withholdings You Make

October 16, 2026

Whether you know about withholding depends a lot on who you invoice. If you’re a professional and your clients are Spanish companies or autónomos (self-employed workers), you see it on every invoice: the client deducts 15% of IRPF (personal income tax) and pays it in to Hacienda in your name. If you invoice clients abroad or private individuals, or your activity is a business one (a shop, a workshop), you can spend years as an autónomo without ever seeing a withholding.

self-employed modelo 111 modelo 190 withholding IRPF Hacienda annual summary

Does What You Pay Each Quarter in Modelo 130 Come Back in Your Tax Return? How the Two Cross, With Numbers

October 14, 2026

No. What you pay each quarter through modelo 130 (Spain’s quarterly income-tax prepayment for the self-employed) isn’t refunded on its own when your annual tax return (the Renta) comes around. It’s subtracted from what you owe in that return, together with the withholding tax (retenciones) your clients applied on your invoices.¹ You only get back the part you overpaid. If you underpaid, you pay the difference then.

Put like that it sounds simple, and it is, but it doesn’t explain why the same mechanism gives some autónomos (self-employed workers) a refund and others a bill. The answer is in the numbers, so let’s go through a complete example: from what you pay quarter by quarter to what your return shows.

self-employed IRPF modelo 130 tax return taxes