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If you live in Spain and we hire you, you will work with us as an autónomo and invoice Luminovo GmbH each month.

Read it as orientation, not as tax advice. Your gestoría decides how the rules apply to your case, and their answer is the one that counts. Where we quote a number, we say where it comes from so you can check it.

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What working from Spain looks like in practice

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Start here Freelancers with Luminovo GmbH to know what it means to be a freelancer at Luminovo for how your fee is built and how the contract works. This page covers the Spanish specifics.

What you need to have in place

Two registrations, both normally handled by a gestoría in a matter of days:

• Alta with Hacienda (the tax office) via modelo 036 or 037, declaring your activity. Because you will be invoicing a German company, you also want to be entered in the ROI (Registro de Operadores Intracomunitarios) at the same time, which gets you an intra-community VAT number.
• Alta in RETA, the social security scheme for self-employed people.

To do this you need the following:

• Spanish bank account: each autonome needs to have a registered bank account in order to pay Social Security deposits and other fees to the hacienda. You may not use a neo bank such as Revolut or Trade Republic to do this. It has to be an old-fashioned bank like Santander, ING, BBVA, etc.
• You will also need a Certificado Digital. You must acquire this from your local Social Security Office. Depending on the city, you may need to book an appointment to do this. Without this certificate, your gestoría will not be able to register you as a freelancer.
• You will also need an NIE (Número de Identificación de Extranjero) if you are not a Spanish citizen. You can get this from your local Oficina de Expedición del DNI y Pasaporte. And you definitely need an appointment to get this. You also need to bring confirmation that you have registered as a freelancer and also paid a nominative fee of about €12, which can be paid at the cash machines in certain banks (you will need to use your passport number instead of your tax number in order to process the payment. You will need to also print confirmation of the payment from the cash machine) and must be paid before your appointment. This is a frustrating process if you do this on your own, but you can also pay people to help you do this beforehand, which would be a bit smoother.

You do not need any of this before applying or interviewing. We plan your start date around it once there is an offer on the table.

Social security: what you will pay

Since 2023, RETA contributions are based on your real income, sorted into brackets. In 2026 the monthly minimum runs from around €200 in the lowest bracket to roughly €600 in the highest, and at the income level of this role you would be in the upper brackets. You can also choose to contribute on a higher base than your bracket requires if you want a better pension later. The official table is published by the Seguridad Social and updated every year.

The reduced rate for new autónomos (cuota reducida, often called tarifa plana) is €80 a month for your first 12 months in RETA instead of the bracket amount. To qualify you must not have been registered in RETA in the previous 24 months (36 months if you have used this benefit before), and you must have no outstanding debts with Social Security or the tax office.

It can be extended for a second 12 months, but only if your net income in the first year stays below the annual minimum wage (€17,094 in 2026). At the income level of this role that will not be the case, so plan on one year at €80 and normal bracket contributions after that.

Several regions (Madrid, Andalucía, Galicia, Murcia, Extremadura, Castilla-La Mancha, La Rioja and others) run their own schemes that reimburse the €80, sometimes marketed as tarifa/cuota cero. Conditions, budgets and deadlines change every year and the application windows are easy to miss, so ask your gestoría early if you are in one of those regions.