Sick Leave as a Freelancer in Spain (2026): What You Get Paid and What You Keep Paying
You get ill, the doctor signs you off, and the first thing you search for is how much you’ll be paid. It’s the incomplete question. The one that decides whether you get through the sick leave without going under is different: how much keeps leaving your account while you’re paid that.
Almost everything written about sick leave for an autónomo (self-employed worker) answers the first question with a percentage and a table. Here are both together: what comes in, what keeps going out, and the gap in between. It’s the same cash-flow sum we already did for the self-employed retirement pension, applied now to sick leave.
What you’ll be paid (and from when)
If the leave is for a common illness or a non-work accident, the benefit is calculated on your regulatory base: the contribution base of the month before the leave, divided by 30.1 On that daily base, the percentage depends on which day of leave you’re on:2
- Days 1 to 3: nothing.
- Days 4 to 20: 60% of the daily regulatory base.
- From day 21: 75%.
If the leave is for a workplace accident or an occupational illness, there are no blank first three days: you get 75% from the day after the leave.2
And here’s what almost nobody says out loud: the percentage applies to your contribution base, not to what you bill. If you contribute at the minimum base for your bracket, which is the most common case, that 60% or 75% is worked out on a small figure. It sounds generous until you do the sum.
What keeps going out in the meantime
This is the part that decides whether the leave sinks you or not.
Your self-employed quota doesn’t stop. For the first two months you keep paying it yourself. Only from day 61 of the leave does it stop coming out of your pocket: the collaborating mutual insurance company (mutua) that covers your temporary incapacity pays it for you for as long as the leave lasts.3 If your leave is shorter than two months, you pay the full quota every one of those months while you receive a fraction of your base.
Your business expenses don’t know you’re off sick. The premises rent, the software, the liability insurance, the supplier you’d already committed an order to: it all keeps falling due, whether you bill or not. If you have employees, their pay and their contributions don’t stop because you’re in bed either.
And neither do your personal expenses. The mortgage or rent at home, the groceries, the bills. There’s no paid holiday or bonus month to soften the blow: the whole adjustment lands on your account in the very month that the least comes in.
The real gap, with 2026 figures
Raúl is a self-employed physiotherapist with his own practice. His net earnings are around 1,250 euros a month, so he’s in bracket 1 of the general table and contributes at that bracket’s minimum base, 950.98 euros. At a total rate of 31.5%, his quota is 299.56 euros a month.4 A back injury keeps him off work for two months (60 days, common illness).
His daily regulatory base is 950.98 / 30 = 31.70 euros. Counting 30-day months:
- First month: 0 euros on days 1 to 3, 19.02 euros a day from day 4 to 20 (323.34 euros) and 23.77 euros a day from day 21 to 30 (237.70 euros). Total: 561.04 euros.
- Second month: 23.77 euros a day for all 30 days. Total: 713.10 euros.
Meanwhile, the same keeps going out every month: the 299.56 euros of quota, 510 euros for the practice (450 of rent, 35 for the booking software and 25 for liability insurance) and about 1,200 euros of personal expenses. 2,009.56 euros a month in total.
| In (benefit) | Out | Gap | |
|---|---|---|---|
| First month | 561.04 € | 2,009.56 € | 1,448.52 € |
| Second month | 713.10 € | 2,009.56 € | 1,296.46 € |
| Two months | 1,274.14 € | 4,019.12 € | 2,744.98 € |
Raúl’s benefit pays his quota and not much more. The 2,744.98 euros missing over those two months have to come from somewhere that already existed before the injury. And it’s not an extreme case: it’s what happens to anyone contributing at the minimum base for their bracket, because the benefit is built on what you contribute, not on what you bill.
From day 61, Raúl stops paying the quota (the mutua pays it) and his monthly gap shrinks by those 299.56 euros. But by then the worst is behind him.
Why “how much will I get” isn’t the question that matters
The useful question isn’t how much you’ll be paid the day you fall ill. It’s whether, when that day comes, you have enough to cover the gap between what comes in and what keeps going out for one or two months. A formula doesn’t solve that: forecasting does, looking before it happens.
An emergency fund designed for an employee (three months of salary) isn’t calibrated for this: it has to cover your personal spending and the business expenses that don’t stop, for the time the benefit only covers a fraction.
And if you pay yourself a fixed salary from your freelance account instead of living off whatever you bill each month, the blow softens on its own: your salary comes from a reserve built up in the good months, not from the current month’s billing.
How to see it coming before it happens
Three things, in order:
- Work out your own gap, like Raúl’s. Add up your quota, your fixed business expenses and your minimum personal spending, subtract what you’d receive in benefit, and multiply by two months. That’s the figure your reserve needs to cover without touching your billing.
- Check which base you really contribute on, not the one you think. With the quota based on real income, your base may have changed at the year-end adjustment without you noticing, and your sick-leave regulatory base with it.
- Check how much you actually keep from what you bill, because that margin decides how much you can set aside each month for the day you can’t work. It’s the same calculation as how much a freelancer billing 40,000 euros actually keeps.
How Cuéntamo helps
The hard part of sick leave isn’t understanding the Social Security formula: it’s knowing, before it happens, whether your cushion would last two months without billing. That’s what a balance forecast answers.
In Cuéntamo you enter your fixed expenses once, business and personal, as recurring items, and the forecast shows your balance for the coming months. With the “What if…?” simulator (Cuéntamo Más) you run Raúl’s test with your own numbers without touching your real data: you switch off your client payments for two months, add the benefit as a hypothetical income, and see on the chart whether your balance drops below zero and in which month. If it does, you know how much you need set aside.
You can try it for free at cuentamo.com.
Frequently asked questions
Do I still pay my self-employed quota while on sick leave?
Yes, for the first two months you pay it. From day 61 of the leave, the collaborating mutual insurance company (mutua) pays it for as long as the temporary incapacity lasts.
How much do I get for the first days of sick leave?
Nothing for the first three days if it’s a common illness or a non-work accident. From day 4 to day 20 you get 60% of your daily regulatory base, and from day 21, 75%. If it’s a workplace accident or an occupational illness, you get 75% from the day after the leave.
How much does a freelancer on the minimum base get on sick leave?
With the 2026 minimum base for bracket 1 of the general table (950.98 euros), the daily regulatory base is 31.70 euros: 19.02 euros a day from day 4 to day 20 and 23.77 from day 21. That’s 561.04 euros in a first month of leave, and 713.10 in the second.
What expenses keep going out even if I don’t bill?
The self-employed quota (for the first two months), the premises rent if you have one, software, business insurance, suppliers you’ve already committed to and, if you have staff, their pay and contributions. None of them stop because you’re on sick leave.
How much do I need saved for two months of sick leave?
Add up your quota, your fixed business expenses and your minimum personal spending for one month, multiply by two and subtract the benefit you’d receive over those two months. In Raúl’s example, 2,744.98 euros.
Cuéntamo is an accounting app for freelancers and households that tells you how much money you’ll have in the coming months. You can try it for free at cuentamo.com.
Figures for 2026; contribution bases and rates are reviewed every year (Order PJC/297/2026). The benefit percentages and the quota exemption from day 61 are structural (see the notes). Raúl’s case is made up, with round expenses so the sums are easy to follow.
This article is checked against official sources and reviewed periodically. If you spot anything out of date, email us at [email protected].
Article 318 of the consolidated General Social Security Act (Royal Legislative Decree 8/2015), which extends the General Regime’s temporary incapacity protection to the self-employed, with the RETA’s particularities. Social Security summarises it like this: the regulatory base is the contribution base of the month before the leave, divided by 30, and entitlement starts on the fourth day (temporary incapacity benefit). ↩︎
Amount of the benefit for common contingencies (60% from the 4th to the 20th day, 75% from the 21st), set by reference to the General Regime in the Order of 13 October 1967, in force to the extent not repealed by the LGSS. For occupational contingencies the benefit is paid from the day after the leave, at 75% of the regulatory base. ↩︎ ↩︎
Article 309.2 LGSS, as worded by Royal Decree-Law 13/2022, of 26 July: «Transcurridos sesenta días en dicha situación desde la baja médica, corresponderá hacer efectivo el pago de las cuotas, por todas las contingencias, a la mutua colaboradora con la Seguridad Social o, en su caso, al Servicio Público de Empleo Estatal» (once sixty days have passed since the medical leave, payment of the contributions for all contingencies falls to the collaborating mutua or, where applicable, to the State Public Employment Service). ↩︎
Order PJC/297/2026, art. 18: bracket 1 of the general table (net earnings of 1,166.70 to 1,300 euros a month), minimum base of 950.98 euros; 2026 rates of 28.30% for common contingencies, 1.30% for occupational contingencies and 0.90% for the Intergenerational Equity Mechanism. On top of these come 0.90% for cessation of activity and 0.10% for vocational training (self-employed contributions, Social Security). Total: 31.50%. ↩︎