Deductible expenses for freelance translators in Spain: what you can deduct and what you cannot

Scope

This guide is for freelance translators with their tax residence in Spain who calculate their business income under direct assessment (estimación directa), normal or simplified. It sets out what the Income Tax (IRPF) Act and Regulation, the Corporate Tax Act, the VAT Act and the Tax Agency's practical Income Tax manual say, with the source behind each statement. It is not tax advice: in a doubtful case, ask your accountant or the Tax Agency itself.

1. The three requirements for any expense

Business income is calculated under the Corporate Tax rules, plus the IRPF's own rules (IRPF Act, art. 28.1). According to the Tax Agency's practical Income Tax manual, an expense is deductible if it is:

• Linked to the business: incurred in carrying it out and related to the income.
• Supported, primarily by the supplier's invoice. Even so, the invoice is not privileged proof: if the Tax Agency questions the expense, it is up to you to show it was real.
• Recorded in the record books you are required to keep.

And only expenses incurred after you registered the business count.

2. What the law or the Income Tax manual names expressly

• Your self-employed social security contribution (RETA). If the following year Social Security adjusts it to your actual earnings, what you pay extra is an expense of that following year, and any refund reduces that year's expenses (Income Tax manual).
• Health insurance: what you pay for your own cover and that of your spouse and children under 25 living with you, up to €500 per person (€1,500 per person with a disability) (IRPF Act, art. 30.2.5.a).
• Your own working meals, in restaurants and other hospitality establishments and paid electronically, within the limits for subsistence allowances (art. 30.2.5.c). Those limits are, per day, €26.67 in Spain and €48.08 abroad if you do not stay overnight, and €53.34 and €91.35 if you do (IRPF Regulation, art. 9).
• Business taxes, such as the business activities tax (IAE), and input VAT you cannot deduct in your VAT returns (Income Tax manual).

3. If you work from home

If you use part of your main home for the business, utilities (water, gas, electricity, phone and internet) are deductible at this percentage: 30% of the ratio between the square metres used for the business and the home's total floor area, unless a different percentage is proven (IRPF Act, art. 30.2.5.b).

The manual's own example: a 40 m² office in a 100 m² home is 40%; 30% of that is 12%; with €5,000 of utilities a year, €600 is deductible.

4. Your computer, phone and software

• Your computer and other equipment are depreciated: they are not deducted in full in the year of purchase but spread over several years under the official table, which has its own lines for computer equipment and for software (Corporate Tax Act, art. 12.1.a). The simplified method uses a table of its own (IRPF Regulation, art. 30.1).
• The €300 exception: new items with a unit value of no more than €300 can be freely depreciated, up to €25,000 a year (Corporate Tax Act, art. 12.3.e). The Income Tax manual lists this case among those available to self-employed people under direct assessment.
• Your mobile phone: the line is deductible if it is used exclusively for the business, and the handset through depreciation (Income Tax manual).
• Personal use outside working hours does not stop an asset from counting as assigned to the business: using it on days or at hours when you are not working counts as incidental. That rule does not apply to cars, motorcycles, mopeds, aircraft or leisure boats, except in the cases the article itself lists (IRPF Regulation, art. 22.4).

5. Licences, dictionaries, training and associations

Trados or memoQ licences, dictionaries and terminology databases, training or a professional association's fee are not listed in the law. The requirements in section 1 apply: a link to the business, an invoice and a record. If the link to your translation work can be explained and documented, the expense fits that rule; if it is doubtful, ask before deducting it.

6. What is not deductible, or only up to a limit

• Fines and penalties, enforcement-period surcharges and the surcharge for filing late without a prior request (Corporate Tax Act, art. 15.c).
• Donations and gifts (art. 15.e).
• Expenses for hospitality towards clients or suppliers, which are deductible only up to 1% of your net turnover for the year (art. 15.e).

7. Input VAT follows a different path

An expense being deductible for income tax does not mean its VAT is deductible in your quarterly returns. The VAT Act has its own rules:

• Only VAT on what is used directly and exclusively for the business is deductible. What is used for both work and private needs is not treated as used for the business (art. 95.Uno and Dos).
• The exception is capital goods, whose VAT is deductible to the extent they are expected to be used for the business (art. 95.Tres). But the Act does not treat as a capital good anything with a purchase value below 500,000 pesetas, about €3,005 (art. 108.Dos.5). A computer costing less than that is not a capital good for these purposes.
• No invoice, no deduction, and never for more than the VAT shown separately on it (art. 97).
• You can deduct it even if you invoice foreign clients without VAT. The Act gives the right to deduct VAT on what you use for services supplied outside the territory of the tax that would give that right if supplied within it (art. 94.Uno.2). That is the case, for example, of a translator who invoices an agency in another country without VAT.
• Restaurants and travel: their VAT is deductible only if the expense is deductible for income tax (art. 96.Uno.6).

8. If you are under simplified direct assessment

On top of the above, provisions and hard-to-justify expenses are calculated together by applying 5% to net income before this expense, up to €2,000 a year (IRPF Regulation, art. 30.2). In 2023 it was 7% (IRPF Act, fifty-sixth additional provision); if you see that figure somewhere, it refers to that year.

What this guide does not cover

• Objective assessment (módulos) and companies.
• The specific rates in each depreciation table.
• Vehicles, which have their own rules for income tax and VAT.
• The Canary Islands, Ceuta and Melilla, and the Basque Country and Navarre.

Sources and currency

The articles were read in their consolidated text in force in the BOE, and the 2025 practical Income Tax manual on the Tax Agency's website, on 2026-10-24. The texts are in Spanish; the English wording above is a description, not an official translation.