Deductible expenses for the self-employed under simplified direct assessment: the complete list (2026)
One of the advantages of being self-employed (autónomo) compared with an employee is that you can deduct the expenses necessary to carry out your activity before being taxed. That reduces the taxable base and, therefore, what you pay in IRPF (Spanish personal income tax).
But “expenses necessary for the activity” has a specific definition in tax law, and not everything that might seem deductible actually is. This guide gathers the most common deductible expenses under simplified direct assessment (estimación directa simplificada), with the nuances worth knowing.
The general principle: necessity, justification and correlation
For an expense to be deductible it has to meet three basic conditions:
Necessary for the activity. There must be a direct relationship between the expense and the generation of income from the activity. It’s not enough for it to be useful; it must be necessary in the context of what you do.
Documentarily justified. The ideal is a complete invoice with your details: NIF (tax ID), name or company name, description of the good or service, taxable base, IVA rate and IVA amount (which is the deductible input IVA on your quarterly return, which you can estimate with the quarterly IVA calculator).
Two things are worth separating here, because they get mixed up. For income tax, the Spanish Tax Agency (Agencia Tributaria) says an expense is supported “as a matter of priority” by an invoice, but its own manual clarifies that an invoice is not privileged evidence: a receipt with its matching bank entry, consistent with your activity, supports the expense. For VAT, there’s no room: if the document doesn’t carry your tax number and the amount stated separately, that VAT isn’t deductible. We explain it in detail in a till receipt is not an invoice.
Recorded in the accounts. The expense must appear in the expense ledger for the year in which it’s deducted.
If any of the three requirements is missing, the expense is not deductible, or at least not defensible in an inspection.
Deductible expenses by category
Utilities for the premises used for the activity
If you have premises dedicated exclusively to the activity (an office, a workshop, a commercial space), the utilities for those premises are 100% deductible: electricity, water, gas, internet, landline.
If you work from home, the deductible percentage of the utilities is calculated by applying 30% to the proportion of the property dedicated to the activity. The law does allow proving a different percentage, higher or lower, but the burden of proof is on you.1 In practice, this is usually a modest percentage of the total bill, but it’s better to take advantage of it than not.
Rent on the premises
If you rent the space where you carry out the activity, the rent is 100% deductible. If the space is mixed-use (you use part of your home), you deduct the share proportional to the affected floor area — but without the 30% cut, which the law reserves for utilities.2
Office supplies and consumables
All material directly related to the activity: paper, ink, pens, folders, printer consumables. 100% deductible with an invoice.
Computer and electronic equipment
Computers, monitors, tablets, printers, external hard drives. They are investment goods and their cost is spread over several years through depreciation instead of being fully deducted in the year of purchase. You’ll find the details, with tables and exceptions, in the depreciation guide for the self-employed.
There is a shortcut for cheap items: new assets with a unit value of no more than 300 euros can be depreciated freely, that is, deducted in full in the year of purchase. With a limit almost nobody mentions: 25,000 euros a year in total through this route.3
Software and digital subscriptions
Subscriptions to tools you use for the activity are deductible: design software, project management tools, cloud storage, communication platforms. The condition is that they’re related to the activity and that you have an invoice.
External professional services
A gestoría or tax adviser (Spanish accountancy/admin firm), lawyers, consultants, designers, translators. All professional services contracted for the activity are deductible with an invoice.
Training related to the activity
Courses, books, subscriptions to technical or professional publications directly related to your sector. The connection to the activity must be clear and justifiable.
Insurance related to the activity
Professional civil liability insurance is 100% deductible. Health insurance gets special treatment: you can deduct up to 500 euros a year for the self-employed person, another 500 for the spouse and 500 more for each child under twenty-five who lives with you. The limit rises to 1,500 euros for each of those people with a disability.4
Advertising and marketing
Online advertising costs, design of promotional materials, web development, presence at trade fairs or sector events. Deductible with an invoice.
Financial expenses
Interest on loans tied to the activity, bank fees on the professional account. Not the loan’s principal repayments (which are a return of capital, not an expense), but the interest.
Professional association and sector association fees
If you belong to a professional association or a sector association as part of your activity, the fees are deductible.
The most controversial cases
The three that raise the most doubts —the car, the phone and the home— are covered at length in what the tax office accepts when you deduct the car, the phone and the home. Here is the short version.
The mobile phone
If you use the phone both for the activity and for personal use (another reason to properly separate the personal from the professional), there is a widespread idea worth dismantling: there is no partial deduction for a mixed-use mobile. The Directorate-General for Taxation holds a settled criterion — the cost of a mobile line is deductible only if that line is used exclusively for the business — so declaring “50% because I use it for everything” has no backing.5
The fix is as simple as taking out a separate line for work: that one is 100% deductible, with no percentage to estimate.
And watch out for a clash of rules: the 30% home-utilities rule does not reach the mobile, because it is not a utility of the home. The landline and the home internet are; the mobile is not.6
The vehicle
This is the most contentious expense for the self-employed. For income tax the criterion is pure exclusivity: a passenger car counts as a business asset only if it is used solely for the activity, and the tax office does not accept even incidental private use, save for the activities the rule itself excepts (goods or passenger transport, driving schools, commercial agents and little else).7
For most service-based self-employed workers, deducting a mixed-use vehicle for income tax is unfeasible without taking on the risk of an adjustment. VAT is a different matter: there the law presumes 50% business use for passenger cars, so half the VAT on fuel, repairs, tolls or parking is deductible.8 We go into it in what the tax office accepts when you deduct the car, the phone and the home.
The mixed-use computer
Similar to the phone. If the computer is also used by other members of the household, the Agencia Tributaria may question the full deduction. Having equipment dedicated exclusively to the activity eliminates that problem.
The main home
If you work from home, the proportional part of the rent corresponding to the work space is deductible, but it requires that space to be declared as assigned to the activity on form 036 — stating the square metres and the degree of affectation — and to appear in your official records. Without that prior declaration, the deduction has no backing.9
What is not deductible
Personal and family living expenses (except in specific circumstances), general-use clothing (even if it’s “for work”), leisure expenses with no direct connection to the activity, fines and penalties, donations and gratuities.
Gifts to clients are partially deductible up to 1% of the net turnover for the tax period, provided they serve to promote the activity.
The value of having expenses well documented
The difference between a self-employed worker who keeps good records of expenses and one who doesn’t can be significant in IRPF terms. With 30,000 euros of income and 8,000 euros of correctly documented expenses, the taxable base is 22,000 euros. Without those expenses, it’s 30,000. The difference in IRPF can exceed 1,500 euros a year. To see how your deductible expenses affect your tax return result, use the IRPF simulator.
It’s not about inventing expenses or pushing questionable interpretations to the limit. It’s about not forgetting the expenses that genuinely are deductible just because you didn’t keep the invoice or didn’t record them in time.
How does Cuéntamo help with this?
The problem with deductible expenses is hardly ever knowing which ones qualify: it’s not losing them along the way. With Cuéntamo’s self-employed module, each expense is recorded with its IVA and IRPF treatment and flows automatically into the Agencia Tributaria expense ledger, with its taxable amount, its IVA rate, and the rest of the data in place. When the quarter comes around, you don’t have to rebuild anything.
To each expense you can attach the third party (their NIF/CIF tax ID) and store the invoice number, exactly what you need for the expense to hold up in an inspection. And if you get your transactions from the bank in a statement, you import and classify them in one go instead of typing them in one by one, which is when small expenses get forgotten.
To see how much you actually save by keeping good records, the IRPF simulator shows how your expenses affect your tax return result. And if you want to understand the other side, deductible input VAT, we explain it in calculating quarterly VAT without an accountant. Cuéntamo ties it all together.
Frequently asked questions
What requirements must an expense meet to be deductible?
Three: it must be necessary for the activity, justified with a complete invoice in your name, and recorded in the expense ledger for the year. If any of the three is missing, the expense isn’t deductible or won’t hold up in an inspection.
Can I deduct utilities if I work from home?
Yes, but only partially: the deductible percentage comes from applying 30% to the proportion of the property dedicated to the activity; the law allows proving a different percentage, higher or lower.1 In addition, that space must be declared as assigned to the activity on form 036, with its square metres and degree of affectation.9
Is a mixed-use mobile phone deductible?
No. The Directorate-General for Taxation holds that the cost of a mobile line is deductible only if the line is used exclusively for the business; there is no accepted partial percentage for a mixed-use mobile.5 Taking out a second, dedicated line solves it: that one is 100% deductible.
Can I deduct a car as a self-employed worker?
For income tax, only if it is used exclusively for the business: the tax office does not accept even incidental private use, save for the activities the rule excepts (transport, driving schools, commercial agents…).7 For most service-based self-employed workers, deducting a mixed-use car for income tax is unfeasible. For VAT you can deduct half the tax on fuel, repairs, tolls or parking, because the law presumes 50% business use for passenger cars.8
How is a computer or IT equipment deducted?
It is an investment good and is depreciated over several years. If it is new and its unit value is no more than 300 euros, you can depreciate it freely — deduct it in full in the year of purchase — with a combined cap of 25,000 euros a year through that route.3 There are special cases, such as free depreciation for R&D, that let you deduct it in full even above 300 euros; but watch out, this only applies if your activity genuinely qualifies as R&D under the tax authority (a very strict test, with formal requirements). We cover them in the depreciation guide for the self-employed.
Figures for 2026. The deduction limit for client entertainment (1% of turnover) has been in force since 2015.
This article is checked against official sources and reviewed periodically. If you spot anything out of date, email us at [email protected].
Article 30.2, rule 5ª, letter b) of Law 35/2006, on personal income tax: utilities of a partially affected home — “water, gas, electricity, telephony and Internet” — are deducted “in the percentage resulting from applying 30 per cent to the ratio between the square metres of the dwelling used for the activity and its total area, unless a higher or lower percentage is proven”. Spanish-language sources. ↩︎ ↩︎
The 30% cut just cited applies only to utilities. Rent follows the general partial-affectation rule of article 29.2 of the Income Tax Act and article 22.3 of the Regulation: “the affectation shall be limited to that part of them actually used in the activity”. ↩︎
Article 12.3.e) of Law 27/2014, on corporate income tax, applicable to personal income tax through article 28.1 of the Income Tax Act: free depreciation is available for “new tangible fixed assets whose unit value does not exceed 300 euros, up to a limit of 25,000 euros per tax period”. Both conditions matter: the asset must be new, and the total freely depreciated by this route cannot exceed 25,000 euros a year. ↩︎ ↩︎
Article 30.2, rule 5ª, letter a) of the Income Tax Act: deductible are “health insurance premiums paid by the taxpayer covering themselves, their spouse and children under twenty-five who live with them. The maximum deduction is 500 euros for each of those persons, or 1,500 euros for each of them with a disability”. ↩︎
Binding ruling V0031-24 of the Directorate-General for Taxation, restating its settled doctrine (rulings V0601-14, V2382-13 and V2400-13): the costs “shall be deductible to the extent that this line is used exclusively for the development of the economic activity”. Still in force in ruling V1606-26, of 17 June 2026. ↩︎ ↩︎
Binding ruling V2554-23: the objective 30% rule “shall not apply to the costs arising from the use of a mobile telephone line, as it is not a utility associated with a dwelling”. ↩︎
Article 22.4 of the Income Tax Regulation, listing the exceptions, and binding ruling V0354-20: the vehicle must, “being recorded in the compulsory books or registers, be used exclusively in that activity”. The tax agency puts it the same way in its affectation criteria. ↩︎ ↩︎
Article 95.Three.2ª of Law 37/1992, on VAT: passenger cars “shall be presumed to be used for the business activity in a proportion of 50 per cent”. Article 95.Four extends the rule to accessories and spare parts, fuel, parking and tolls, and repairs. Insurance falls outside: insurance transactions are VAT-exempt (article 20.One.16), so there is no input VAT to reclaim. ↩︎ ↩︎
Articles 5.12 and 10 of Royal Decree 1065/2007, governing the census and the modification return. The data the form asks for about the space — “surface area of the premises or of the habitual dwelling used for the activity (in square metres)” and “degree of affectation” — appear in the tax agency’s Censos WEB help manual. The deadline is one month (article 10.4). Form 037 no longer exists: it was abolished with effect from 3 February 2025 by article 1.6 of Order HAC/1526/2024 (consolidated text). ↩︎ ↩︎