1,500-Euro Freelancer in Spain: Half Goes to Taxes

Billing 1,500 euros monthly as a freelancer: where half goes

In Spain, it is claimed that one can only be an entrepreneur earning under the table. This headline, from a video breaking down the accounts of a business earning 1,500 euros monthly, is an exaggeration. Yet no calculator has toppled it. The issue has become a clash between arithmetic—how much the state truly takes—and the sarracena judgment of those who complain.

At the center is a modest, recognizable figure: 1,500 euros in monthly billing. From there, everyone calculates differently.

The starting point: an accusation without numbers

The initial message has two ideas and no breakdown. First: that in Spain one can only be an entrepreneur or freelancer earning under the table, known for years. Second: it calls the Government a mafia. The billing of 1,500 euros is not in the text, but in the accompanying video. With such thin material, discussion splits: some examine the calculation, others the calculator. A small business consultant mocks the video author and recommends employment.

How much does the tax authority take from a 1,500-euro invoice?

Here the analysis truly entangles. A recurring complaint is that the video counts VAT as profit rather than a passing income. The tax is charged to the client and paid to the tax authority, but it is not neutral. On a 100-euro sale, the buyer pays 121, and the business sees only 100. The rest is client money that never reaches the producer.

Added to this are the freelancer fee and IRPF on profit, causing estimates to soar. Some claim 40% to 60% of production, others 75% of total income including direct and indirect taxes. No spreadsheet accompanies these figures. The complete calculation, item by item, is never closed.

VAT increases prices and loses clients

The most repeated argument is that the tax is not an accounting abstraction. The general rate of 21% is added to the final price, increasing the service cost by a fifth, which in narrow-margin markets can miccionan the difference between selling and not selling. One participant states bluntly: «That 21% is a surcharge that greatly hinders sales by increasing your product/service cost».

Others argue that VAT is essentially a production tax—taxing the value added by work—not consumption, which offers no comfort to the payer. A third group notes the obvious: private buyers cannot deduct anything, while professionals only deduct VAT on activity-related expenses. Most remains excluded.

Is Spain above its surroundings?

There is no agreement. One exchange line asserts that Spanish fiscal pressure is at the European average and dares complainers to test their business in a country with lower taxes, with good health insurance just in case. Conversely, it is noted that in the US or Canada, VAT is almost negligible, and history is recalled: in Roman times, a tithe, a 10% on firewood or harvest, was paid, and towns in Cuenca revolted against this tribute.

The extracted sarracena is that today three or four times more is delivered without protest. This comparison is debatable—mixing eras, currencies, and public services—but it explains the tone of a conversation that shifts from numbers to neighbors.

A 1,500-euro business: company or self-employment?

Here appears an uncomfortable coincidence for the video author. Several messages argue that calling a business billing 1,500 euros monthly a company is abusive: they describe it as a chestnut stand and suggest it is a disguised false freelancer. Another point raises a different formula, that of a corporate freelancer with a 1,800-euro gross salary monthly, allowing a combination of salary and dividends through a company.

The discussion then turns to size. If the business is so small, the problem is not the State but the model: lack of clients, margin, or idea. From the other side, it is answered that small projects cannot bear the burden and that the country loses productive fabric due to closures in sectors like farming attributed to costs.

The employee, the civil servant, and the rentier

The final segment intensifies. Those claiming freelancers complain by nature note that employees have deductions before receiving pay and cannot deduct toilet paper. Others reply that the problem is common and that the employee should also protest instead of celebrating others' exploitation. Some even boast of living off rents and making tenants work hard.

The phrase to row repeats as mockery and sentence, reminding that services and pensions are paid by all. The result is an exchange with more heat than data, where the only common ground is that 1,500 euros monthly does not allow for much celebration.

With these pieces, any prediction is fragile. If self-employment taxation remains unchanged, the temptation to earn without invoices will continue to grow in small segments, maintaining the flight to limited companies. But if the real problem is business size, changing rates solves nothing: buyers will still be lacking.