Autónomos

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

Cash-basis VAT in Spain (RECC): what it is, who it actually helps, and the fine print nobody mentions

September 28, 2026

You invoice a project in March. Your client pays in 90 days, so the money doesn’t land until June. But you declare the first quarter in April, that invoice included, and you still have to pay the VAT you haven’t collected yet. You’re funding the Spanish Tax Agency (Agencia Tributaria) out of your own pocket until your client decides to pay you.

This isn’t a glitch: it’s how VAT works under the general regime. There’s a route designed exactly for this case, Spain’s special cash-basis VAT scheme (régimen especial del criterio de caja, RECC), which delays VAT until you actually collect it. The problem is that almost nobody mentions the part it also delays, or who it makes life harder for. Let’s go through it.

autónomos VAT cash-basis VAT RECC taxes Agencia Tributaria