The Renta (the annual income tax return), modelo 100, is where Hacienda, the Spanish tax agency, does the final sums for your year. As an autónomo (self-employed person) you arrive with half the work done: your clients have withheld part of each invoice and you have paid IRPF (personal income tax) in advance every quarter with modelo 130. The Renta adds everything up, applies the scale and tells you whether you owe more or get a refund. It is the annual piece of autónomo taxes in Spain, the guide with the rest of the calendar.
The short summary of the form is in the modelo 100 guide. Here we cover what changes when you run a business: who must file, how your business goes into the return, what you do with what you already paid, paying in two instalments and choosing between a joint and an individual return.
As an autónomo you must file it
The IRPF Law exempts people who only earn a modest salary or little investment income. Those thresholds do not apply to you. Anyone registered as self-employed in the RETA (Régimen Especial de Trabajadores Autónomos, the self-employed Social Security scheme) at any point in the year must file (article 96.2 of Ley 35/2006, the IRPF Law). One day of registration is enough.
It does not matter if your business made a loss. You still file: the negative result of your business is added to the rest of your income in the general base for the same year.
Deadlines: Renta 2025 and Renta 2026
The Renta 2025 was filed between 08/04/2026 and 30/06/2026 (article 7 of Orden HAC/277/2026). If you wanted to pay by direct debit, the last day was 25/06/2026. If you only set up direct debit for the second instalment, you could do so until 30/06/2026 (article 12.3).
The Renta 2026, which you will file in 2027, has no dates yet: as of 07/11/2026 the order that sets them has not been published in the BOE (the official gazette). The Ministry of Finance approves them every year (article 96.5 of the IRPF Law). As soon as they are out, you will see them in the Facturaz tax calendar.
How your business goes into the return
Your business contributes its net income to the Renta: what you earned minus the deductible expenses of the year. The return has a section for activities in estimación directa (the standard method based on real income and expenses) where you enter income, expenses by type and depreciation. Those figures come from your libros registro of income, expenses and capital assets (article 68 of the IRPF Regulation, Real Decreto 439/2007). Which expenses count is explained in the guide to deductible expenses for autónomos.
If your turnover the year before did not exceed €600.000 and you did not opt out, you are in estimación directa simplificada, the simplified version (article 28 of the Regulation). It lets you add 5% of your net income to your expenses for provisions and hard-to-document costs, capped at €2.000 a year (rule 2.ª of article 30 of the Regulation). You need no invoices for that amount: the return calculates it.
The net income of your business goes into the general taxable base together with your other general income, such as a salary or the rent from a flat. The progressive scale applies to that base: the state scale (article 63 of the Law) and your region's scale (article 74). How it splits across bands is shown in Spain's IRPF tax bands.
What you already paid during the year
Once the tax is calculated, the Renta subtracts everything you paid in advance: the withholding on your invoices and the payments on account in your modelo 130 returns (article 79.e of the Law). What is left is the cuota diferencial, the result to pay or to be refunded.
An example. Your total net tax comes to €6.200. During the year you filed four 130s adding up to €3.100 and your clients withheld €1.500. You subtract €4.600 and have €1.600 left to pay. If instead of €4.600 you had paid €7.000 in advance, you would get €800 back.
When the Renta shows a refund, Hacienda has six months from the end of the filing period to review it. If after those six months it has not paid the refund for reasons that are not yours, it also owes you late-payment interest (article 103 of the Law).
Before filing, check three things. Withholding against the certificates your clients must give you before the campaign (article 108.3 of the Regulation). Your 130s against each quarter's receipts. And your autónomo contribution, which is a deductible business expense. If a withholding figure looks wrong, review what withholding your invoices carry.
Paying in two instalments: 60% and 40%
If you owe money, you can split the payment into two parts with no interest or surcharge: 60% when you file and the remaining 40% later (article 62.2 of the Regulation). For the Renta 2025, the second instalment was due by 05/11/2026 (article 12.2 of Orden HAC/277/2026).
There are three conditions. You must file within the deadline. You must pay the 60% within that period: if you do not, the whole amount moves into enforcement. And it does not work for supplementary returns. If you need more time, you can ask for a deferral of the debt (article 65 of the Ley General Tributaria, the General Tax Law), which does carry interest.
Joint or individual
You can file jointly if you belong to a family unit: a married couple not legally separated with their minor children or, where there is no marriage or there is a legal separation, the father or mother with the children who live with them (article 82 of the Law). You choose every year and it does not bind you for the next (article 83.1). All members must use the same option and the choice cannot be changed once the filing period ends (article 83.2).
In a joint return limits are not doubled: the same amounts apply as in an individual return. In exchange, the taxable base is reduced by €3.400 a year for a married couple and by €2.150 for a single parent with children, unless they live with the other parent (article 84.2).
Because the scale is progressive, adding two incomes into one base usually costs more when both are similar. A joint return tends to pay off when one partner earns very little or nothing. Calculate both before you choose.
If you miss the deadline
If you owe money, filing late without Hacienda asking you to carries a surcharge that starts at 1%. If you are due a refund, you still get it: the six months to review it run from the day you file (article 103.1 of the Law). It is explained with examples in what happens if you file late.
How Facturaz helps
Facturaz keeps your libros registro with every invoice and expense, so the net income of your business is already calculated when the campaign opens. On Autónomo Plus (€44 + VAT a month) our team files your Renta, as well as your quarterly and annual returns. On Autónomo Go (€24 + VAT a month) it prepares the official file of your modelo 130 and the rest for you to file yourself with a step-by-step guide. You can try it free for 14 days: compare both plans on pricing.
