‘People don’t come to the costa del sol to make money, they come to spend it’. One wise resident enlightened his audience at a bar one evening in Benahavis. And he’s pretty much right. Spain is one of the least entrepreneurially-minded countries in Europe so don’t come here as a self-employed person expecting to make anything, It’ll all get taken from you in tax and registrations, accountants fees, blah. As a small sole trader, Spain has this ‘autonomo’ status – like a small sole trader but you have to register before starting and pay a tapering annual fee just for the joy of being registered – even if you don’t earn.
Payment you MUST make goes from under €100 to about €340 monthly after three years. Plus never emloy any body,. They have huge tax payments as employers and you can[t get rid of anyone without massive compensation – many thousands even after one year’s employment.
You must open a Spanish bank account to make these payments: If you don’t make your payments on time, Spain’s tax authority can and will freeze your bank account.
Do your research. Check out the advance income tax foreigners have to pay on each invoiced raised: 15% of anything you DO earn gets retained by the recipient and sent to the tax office. So you’ll only get 85% of what you bill, the rest taken as advance income tax to stop you running away from the country at the end of the year owing loads.
Don’t expect to start a business and make money unless you are 100% comfortable with cash and not declaring. Are you?
In therms of coming here to find work – there isn’t much. You’ll find if you don[t speak Spanish there are only casual bar jobs or commission only sales jobs in estate agency, where you’ll probably work for six months for no pay and then quit in disgust. So if you are seriously thinking about working here- it is tough.
Spain isn’t at the bottom of Europe’s GDP for nothing. The work situation here is dire. Youth unemployment is running at about 35% so please don’t expect to find a job here. If you are already a digital nomad and get paid for work you do on line, that’s another thing altogether. You’ll find just about every cafe and bar has fast wifi here and you can sit all day for 2 cups of coffee.
E mail me if you ever think about taking a commission-only job estate agency and I’ll fill you in. I did run a UK agency for 25 years before coming here and had my own biz here for 5 years. So I know what I’m talking about 🙂 Everybody thinks it is easy to start a business here in estate agency the figures are criminal for start ups going bust within a year. You’ll just do what everyone else does, blow 100k on a shiny office, loads of advertising, pointless property portals, and wonder why you didn’t attract any buyers.
Ditto cafe’s bars etc. It his bloody hard earning living. So many people are competing with you and you’ll find Spanish businesses doing all sorts of things to torpedo your efforts.
Good luck.
Expat x