Registering this quarter? If you register before 31 December 2026, your first Modelo 303 and Modelo 130 are filed from 1 to 30 January 2027, together with the annual Modelo 390.
The first year of self-employment is handled badly for a simple reason: nobody tells you when things start. The registration is processed, the first invoice goes out, and then a quarter arrives that nobody had written down. This guide is the complete calendar from registration to the first annual summary, with what falls due on each date and what happens if the first quarter comes to zero.
The map of the forms
| Form | What for | When |
|---|---|---|
| 036 | Census registration. The only one, since Orden HAC/1526/2024 abolished the 037 with effect from 3 February 2025 | Before the activity starts |
| 303 | Quarterly VAT | 1 to 20 April, July and October; until 30 January for the fourth quarter |
| 130 | Income tax payment on account | The same deadlines as the 303 |
| 349 | Intra-EU transactions | At whatever frequency applies by volume |
| 111 | Withholding applied to professionals and employees | Quarterly, if you withhold |
| 115 | Withholding on the rent of business premises | Quarterly, if you rent premises |
| 390 | Annual VAT summary | January |
| 190 and 180 | Annual summaries of the withholding on the 111 and the 115 | January |
| Income tax return | Your IRPF for the year | Campaign from April to June of the following year |
Not all of them apply to you. The ones that do are exactly those you switched on in the 036: not one more, not one fewer. And that is the first source of problems, because a 036 that switches on obligations you do not need creates quarterly returns the tax office expects forever.
Month 0: registration
Both offices (Modelo 036 at the tax office and joining the RETA, the special social security scheme for the self-employed, at Social Security) before you start, with the activity heading chosen and the reduced contribution applied for if you are entitled to it. The full route is in registering step by step. From that day the calendar is running, even if not a single euro has come in.
If you register on 26 June, your first 303 and your first 130 are those for the second quarter, and they are filed in July, even though they only cover five days of activity and even though they come to zero. The obligation arises with the census registration, not with the first invoice.
The first quarter: what is filed and how
| Case | 303 | 130 |
|---|---|---|
| You have invoiced with VAT and have expenses | Difference between VAT charged and VAT paid | The percentage on the cumulative earnings, less withholding |
| You have invoiced nothing, but have expenses | A result to carry forward to later quarters | Nothing to pay, but it is filed anyway |
| You have neither invoiced nor had expenses | Filed with no activity | Filed at zero |
The "no activity" box on the 303 exists precisely for this, and using it is correct. What is not correct is not filing: failure to file carries its own penalty even if the result was zero, and in the case of the 130 it also breaks the chain, because the form is cumulative from 1 January and each quarter subtracts what was declared in the earlier ones. How both work is set out in the self-employed person's 303 and Modelo 130.
If the 303 shows a balance to carry forward
That is normal in the first months of a business that invests: you buy equipment, pay for a website, hire services, and the VAT you pay exceeds the VAT you charge. That balance is not refunded quarter by quarter: it is carried forward to the following ones. The refund is requested, as a rule, in the last return of the year, and then a processing period of its own begins, which is not immediate.
The cash-flow consequence is obvious and worth planning for: the VAT on your initial investment will take a while to come back. Counting on it to pay the rent in the second month is a fairly common planning mistake.
The first year's calendar, month by month
| Month | What falls due |
|---|---|
| January | Fourth quarter of the previous year: 303 and 130 by the 30th. Annual summaries: 390, and 190 or 180 if you withhold |
| April | First quarter: 303 and 130 by the 20th. The income tax campaign for the previous year opens |
| June | End of the income tax campaign |
| July | Second quarter: 303 and 130 by the 20th |
| October | Third quarter: 303 and 130 by the 20th |
| Every month | The RETA contribution, and a review of the earnings forecast if anything has changed |
If you pay by direct debit, your filing deadline comes a few days before the last day of the period. Someone who finds this out on 19 April can no longer use direct debit for that quarter. It is worth closing the numbers with room to spare, not on the last day.
The forms that appear without warning
Besides the two usual quarterly returns, there are obligations that arise from decisions in the business itself and were not in the initial 036. It is worth knowing about them before they happen, because they appear just when the business is starting to move.
| If you do this | This appears |
|---|---|
| You rent premises for your activity | Withholding on the rent and filing of the 115, with its annual summary: Modelos 111 and 115 |
| You hire a professional who invoices you with withholding | Paying in that withholding on the 111 |
| You invoice a business in another member state, or receive invoices from European suppliers | Registration on the ROI, the register of intra-EU operators, and Modelo 349: registering on the ROI |
| You sell to final consumers in other EU countries | Possibly the One-Stop Shop once the threshold is passed: the One-Stop Shop |
| You take on an employee | Contribution and withholding obligations of their own, which go beyond this guide |
Each of these obligations has to be switched on in the census with a change on the 036 before the first transaction. Switching it on afterwards works, but it leaves a period in which you operated without having declared it, and that gap is what shows up in any later review.
Your first income tax return
It comes in the following year's campaign, and it is where everything above comes together. The earnings from the activity are added to the rest of your income, the personal and family allowance and the tax scale are applied, and the withholding suffered and the payments on account made on the 130 are subtracted. The two usual outcomes follow: a refund, if you paid in advance above your effective rate, or a further payment, if the advance fell short.
And there is a second-order effect that surprises people in their first year: that return is the one the Tesorería, the Social Security treasury, will use to reconcile your self-employed contributions, as we explain in contributions based on real earnings. A badly prepared return does not only cost income tax: it moves the following year's contribution.
What has to be kept up to date from the first month
- Record books of income, expenses and capital goods, and of invoices issued and received for VAT purposes.
- Consecutive numbering of invoices, with no gaps or duplicates.
- Bank proof of every expense, not just the invoice.
- Keeping personal and business apart, which is what makes a mixed expense defensible.
- Checking the notifications mailbox, with the care that the counting of deadlines demands: how deadlines are really counted.
The first-year cash-flow mistake
There is a pattern that repeats with depressing regularity: the new self-employed person is paid with VAT, sees the account balance and spends according to that balance. But part of that money is not theirs: it is VAT charged that will have to be paid in the following quarter, and another part will go on the income tax payment on account. When the 20th comes round, the money is not there.
The solution is not an accounting one, it is a habit. Setting aside the VAT on each invoice on the day it is paid, in a separate account, turns the quarterly deadlines into a routine instead of a problem. Someone who is a professional and suffers withholding has a head start, because part of their income tax is already paid in advance; a business owner collects one hundred per cent and pays later, and for them the discipline of setting money aside is essential.
If you have missed a deadline
It is not the end of the world, and there is a clear path. Filing on your own initiative, before any request arrives, puts the matter under the surcharge regime of article 27 of the Ley General Tributaria, the General Tax Act, with its reduction if you pay on time and do not appeal. Waiting until they call moves the situation into the penalty regime. The difference, with figures, is in how the surcharge is calculated, month by month and in surcharge, interest and penalty.
If the debt also cannot be paid in one go, there is the option of deferral, with its requirements and its excluded debts. What does not work is letting it run: the cost grows with time, and the possibility of correcting voluntarily disappears as soon as the tax authorities take action.
The following year
From the second year the calendar is the same, with three differences: the 130 now accumulates from 1 January with a full year ahead, the 70 % withholding rule may release you from filing it if you are a professional, and the RETA contribution stops being the reduced one if you had the flat rate and the extension does not apply. The first two arrive in January; the end of the flat rate comes twelve months after registration, which is only January if you registered in January. Worth planning for in good time.
We handle this on a recurring basis, month by month, for self-employed people who would rather get on with their work. If you would like us to take care of the calendar from registration onwards, tell us about your case in the self-employed registration form; the page for this area is registering as self-employed. And if you do it yourself, at least put the dates in this table into your diary: half the surcharges we see start with a deadline nobody had written down anywhere.