Nora Lindqvist is Swedish and has lived in Málaga since 2024. She works as a developer for a software company in Amsterdam that has no office or subsidiary in Spain. When they hired her, the company suggested that she register as an autónomo (self-employed) and send a monthly invoice for 5,500 €. Nora has fixed hours from 9 to 6 with daily meetings, a company laptop and email account, a team leader who approves her holidays and access to the intranet like the rest of the staff. In 2025 she invoiced 66,000 € to that company and 3,000 € to a small client in Málaga. Now they are offering her a promotion and she wonders whether her situation is what it ought to be.
The name of the contract does not decide
Article 1.1 of the Workers' Statute, Spain's main employment law, applies to those who "voluntarily provide their paid services for another and within the scope of organisation and management of another person". Article 8.1 adds a presumption: an employment contract is presumed to exist between anyone who provides a service for another and within the scope of another's organisation and management and anyone who receives it in exchange for pay.
Calling the relationship a "services contract" and documenting it with invoices does not make it a commercial one. What counts is how it works in practice. The employment courts look above all at two features: dependence (working within someone else's organisation, under their instructions) and working for another's account (the fruits of the work and the business risk belong to the company, not to you).
The indicators, one by one
| Indicator | Points to employment | Points to self-employment |
|---|---|---|
| Hours and working time | Set by the company | You organise them |
| Work equipment | Provided by the company (equipment, email, licences) | Your own |
| Holidays | Approved by a superior | You decide them and give notice |
| Pay | A fixed monthly sum, regardless of results | Per project, per hour or per result, with risk |
| Clients | Just one, on a stable basis | Several, or a real possibility of having them |
| Integration | You appear on the organisation chart, have a boss and appraisals | You are an external supplier |
| Substitution | You must do the work personally | You can subcontract or delegate |
No single indicator decides the matter on its own. In Nora's case almost all of them point to the first column. The fact that the company is in Amsterdam and has no base in Spain does not change the analysis: if Nora habitually works from Málaga, the question of whether the relationship is one of employment is also examined from the standpoint of Spanish employment law.
The middle ground: the TRADE
Between the classic self-employed person and the employee there is a legal category: the economically dependent self-employed worker, known in Spain as a TRADE. Article 11 of Law 20/2007, the Self-Employed Workers' Statute, defines it as someone who carries on an activity habitually, personally, directly and predominantly for one client from whom they receive at least 75 % of their income from work and business activities. It also sets conditions, among them having no employees and not subcontracting the activity, not carrying it on in the same way as the client's staff, and having their own productive infrastructure and materials.
The calculation for Nora:
- 2025 income from the Amsterdam company: 66,000 €.
- Total business income: 66,000 + 3,000 = 69,000 €.
- Percentage: 66,000 ÷ 69,000 × 100 = 95.65 %.
- It exceeds 75 %, so the economic criterion for a TRADE is met.
- But a TRADE is a self-employed person who works with their own resources and according to their own organisational criteria. Nora uses the company's laptop and has a boss and hours imposed on her. What her day-to-day describes is not economic dependence but someone else's management and organisation.
The TRADE is not, therefore, a way out for regularising a relationship that is already one of employment. It is for someone who genuinely is self-employed but depends on one main client.
What each classification means for tax
As a self-employed person, Nora declares her income as earnings from business activities, deducts her expenses and makes payments on account. Her invoices to Amsterdam carry no Spanish VAT, because they are services to a company in another member state which are located where it has its seat (art. 69.One.1 of the VAT Law); that is why she needs to be registered in the ROI and to file Modelo 349.
If the relationship is held to be one of employment, what she earns is employment income. VAT no longer makes sense and there are no longer deductible business expenses, but other rules come in: the reduction for earning employment income, contributions under the general Social Security scheme and, where applicable, the obligation to withhold tax. A company with no establishment in Spain is not a withholder here, and an employee paid by someone who is not obliged to withhold has filing obligations of their own.
For people who have recently arrived in Spain, the classification also has consequences for the special regime in article 93 of the IRPF Law (commonly called the Beckham regime): employment for a foreign company and self-employment are treated differently, as we explain in Beckham and remote work for a foreign company and in can I opt in if I come as a self-employed person.
If a labour inspection or a court declares that the relationship was one of employment, the effects reach back into the past: contributions not paid under the right scheme, VAT declared on transactions that were not VAT transactions and income tax calculated under the wrong rules. Some of those effects fall on the company and some on the worker. It is not possible to predict the outcome of a claim or to guarantee that a regularisation will come out in anyone's favour, but it is worth knowing that the status quo is not neutral.
The EOR: hiring without a company in Spain
Many foreign companies that want to have someone in Spain without opening a subsidiary use an employer of record (EOR). This is a company established in Spain that acts as the formal employer: it signs the employment contract, registers the worker with Social Security, withholds tax and pays the salary. The foreign company directs the work day to day and pays the EOR a fee for the service.
For Nora, moving to an EOR would mean leaving the RETA (the Social Security scheme for the self-employed), paying contributions as an employee and receiving a payslip with IRPF withheld. Her rights change too: paid holidays, protection against dismissal and unemployment benefit. The company, for its part, avoids having to register as an employer in Spain.
There is another route mentioned less often: the foreign company registering directly as an employer with Spanish Social Security. Which formula is better depends on how many people it will have here and on whether its activity in Spain might come to constitute a permanent establishment, a question the company must study with its own advisers.
Before accepting the promotion
If the relationship is going to grow, this is a good moment to raise the change with the company. It is worth taking to that conversation a table of what you have invoiced in recent years, a description of the real work and the alternatives (EOR, direct registration or a commercial relationship that genuinely is one). You can send us the contract and the invoices through the form for self-employed people with international clients so that we can review how the activity is currently declared. If you carry on invoicing in the meantime, the guide to being employed and self-employed at the same time explains what happens if at some point you combine a payslip and invoices.
What invoicing companies in other countries from Spain involves, with its VAT, income tax and Social Security obligations, is brought together on the Salama Tax page on self-employed people with international clients.