Taxes are the part of self-employment nobody signs up for. You started your business to do your work, not to memorise which form is due in April and which numbers go in box 07 of a document written in tax-office Spanish.
The good news: most of it is more predictable than it feels. There's a small set of forms (modelos), each on a regular schedule, and once you know what they are, the fear goes away. Better still, Facturaz works most of them out from your real numbers, so you're not starting from a blank page every quarter.
Here's a plain-language guide to the taxes you'll actually deal with, and how Facturaz takes the heavy lifting off you.
The two forms most autónomos meet first
Modelo 303 — your quarterly IVA
IVA is the VAT you add to most of your invoices. You collect it from clients, you pay it on business expenses, and four times a year you settle the difference with the tax office. That settlement is Modelo 303.
The logic is simple: IVA you charged, minus IVA you paid on your costs, equals what you owe (or, sometimes, what you're owed). The hard part has never been the idea, it's gathering every invoice and expense for the quarter and adding it all up correctly.
Modelo 130 — your quarterly income tax
Modelo 130 is a prepayment towards your income tax (IRPF). Each quarter you report your income and your deductible expenses, and pay a percentage of the profit in advance. At the end of the year it's all reconciled in your annual declaration, so 130 is really you paying your income tax in instalments instead of one big hit.
Not every autónomo files 130. If most of your invoices already have IRPF withheld on them, you may be exempt. This is exactly the kind of thing worth confirming for your situation.
The other modelos you might see
Depending on what you do and who you work with, a few more can apply:
- Modelo 111 — if you withhold IRPF from people you pay, such as a freelancer who invoices you with retention, or staff.
- Modelo 115 — if you pay rent on a business premises and withhold tax on it.
- Modelo 349 — if you buy from or sell to businesses in other EU countries.
- Modelo 390 — an annual IVA summary, filed in January, that pulls your whole year together.
- Modelo 100 — your annual income tax declaration (la renta), the big yearly reconciliation.
You won't need all of these. Most autónomos live with 303 and maybe 130, plus the annual summaries. The point isn't to memorise the list, it's to know that whichever ones apply to you, they follow a calendar.
The calendar that runs your year
Quarterly forms follow the same rhythm, filed in the month after each quarter ends:
- Q1 (Jan–Mar) → filed in April
- Q2 (Apr–Jun) → filed in July
- Q3 (Jul–Sep) → filed in October
- Q4 (Oct–Dec) → filed in January, alongside the annual summaries
Miss a deadline and you can face surcharges and interest, even if you would have owed little or nothing. So the single most useful habit in your whole tax year is just knowing what's coming and when.
How Facturaz makes this manageable
This is where the dread turns into a few minutes of checking. Because Facturaz already holds your invoices and expenses, it can do the calculation and the calendar for you.
It knows which forms apply to you
From your setup, Facturaz shows the modelos relevant to your situation, with their deadlines, so you're never wondering whether something is due. No guessing, no surprise forms in week four.
It calculates from your real numbers
Your 303 and 130 are worked out from the invoices and expenses already in your account. The IVA you charged, the IVA you paid, your income, your deductible costs, it's all there, totalled for the quarter. You're reviewing a result, not building one from scratch.
It generates the official files for you
Facturaz produces the official modelo files ready to file, in the format the AEAT expects. No copying numbers by hand into the tax office's website, box by box. Your figures, already in the right shape.
You can just ask
Not sure where you stand mid-quarter? Ask GestorIA, the built-in assistant. "How much IVA do I owe so far this quarter?" or "What's my deductible total this period?" and you get an answer from your own data, in plain words, any time.
A quick check before you file
Before a deadline, Facturaz's AI audit can scan your invoices and expenses for the things that cause problems, a client without a NIF, totals that don't add up, an invoice rejected by Verifactu, so you fix them before they reach the tax office, not after.
Keeping more of what you earn
A quiet benefit of having everything in one place: you stop losing deductions. Every business expense you record, a laptop, your software, your phone bill, the train to a client, reduces the tax you pay. When expenses live in scattered receipts and inboxes, half of them never make it onto a form. When they're all in Facturaz, they all count.
That's not a trick. It's just not leaving money on the table because the paperwork was annoying.
The bottom line
Spanish taxes feel overwhelming because they're unfamiliar, not because they're impossible. There's a handful of forms, a steady calendar, and a calculation that's the same every quarter. Once software is doing the totals and watching the dates, your job shrinks to a short review and a click.
Facturaz turns tax season from a scramble into a routine. It tracks the deadlines, calculates from your real numbers, and hands you the official files ready to go.
Stop dreading the quarter. Start free with Facturaz → and see your taxes calculated from day one.
This article is general information about taxes in Spain and how Facturaz works. It is not professional tax advice. Which modelos apply to you, and the rates and exemptions involved, depend on your specific situation, confirm it with a qualified professional.