Deductible expenses for an autónomo in 2026: what Hacienda accepts and what it rejects

A web designer in Corralejo works from the spare room of a rented flat, drives to her clients' hotels in the south of Fuerteventura, has lunch out when a meeting runs long and pays for most of it with the card that also buys the groceries. On 20 October the third quarterly instalment of income tax is due for most of the self-employed: 20 % of the profit of the year so far, less what has already been paid on account. Every euro of expense she can defend comes off that profit, and the question is which euros those are. Spain has no list of deductible expenses for the self-employed. It has one general rule, a few special ones written into the income-tax Act, and the binding answers the tax directorate gives to taxpayers who ask. This piece reads them as they stand in October 2026: the tests every expense has to pass, a table of the common ones with their rule and their proof, the four that are argued most (the home, the car, the lunch and the phone), what is never accepted, the IGIC side of the same invoices and the paper that has to exist before anyone asks for it.

The four tests behind every expense

The income-tax Act does not define a deductible expense. It says that the net yield of a business is calculated según las normas del Impuesto sobre Sociedades, by the rules of corporate income tax (article 28.1), and then adds a few rules of its own in article 30. From that reference the Dirección General de Tributos, the directorate whose rulings bind the tax office, draws the same conditions in answer after answer. The expense must be linked to the activity, which it calls correlation with income: an expense shown to have been incurred in the exercise of the activity is deductible, and one whose link is missing or not sufficiently proved is not. And it must meet the requirements of correcta imputación temporal, de registro en la contabilidad o en los libros registros que el contribuyente deba llevar, así como estar convenientemente justificados, correct allocation to its year, entry in the accounts or record books the taxpayer has to keep, and proper justification (ruling V1153-26, of 20 May 2026, among many).

Two articles of the General Tax Act decide what happens when the tax office questions an expense. The burden lies with whoever claims it: quien haga valer su derecho deberá probar los hechos constitutivos del mismo, whoever asserts a right must prove the facts on which it rests (article 105.1). And the proof has an order: expenses are justified de forma prioritaria, mediante la factura entregada por el empresario o profesional que haya realizado la correspondiente operación, as a priority, by the invoice issued by the business or professional that carried out the transaction, yet la factura no constituye un medio de prueba privilegiado respecto de la existencia de las operaciones, the invoice is not privileged proof that the transaction took place (article 106.4). Once the office questions it with reasons, it is for the taxpayer to show that the purchase was real. The invoice is necessary and not always enough.

The table: expense, rule, proof

Working from home

A home can be affected to a business in part, but only the parts that are susceptibles de un aprovechamiento separado e independiente del resto, capable of being used separately and independently from the rest (income-tax Regulation, article 22.3): a room, not a corner of the dining table. Once a room is affected, two rules apply to two kinds of cost.

The cost of having the home follows the square metres. A tenant deducts the rent in proportion to the part affected to the activity (ruling V1153-26). An owner deducts in the same proportion the depreciation of the building, without the land, the property tax, the loan interest, the rubbish charge, the community fees and the home insurance (ruling V2554-23, of 25 September 2023).

The supplies have had a rule of their own since 2018. Water, gas, electricity, telephone and internet are deductible en el porcentaje resultante de aplicar el 30 por ciento a la proporción existente entre los metros cuadrados de la vivienda destinados a la actividad respecto a su superficie total, salvo que se pruebe un porcentaje superior o inferior, in the percentage that results from applying 30 % to the proportion between the square metres of the home used for the activity and its total area, unless a higher or lower percentage is proved (income-tax Act, article 30.2.5.ª.b).

The designer's flat measures 80 m² and her study 12 m², which is 15 %. Of the €10,200 of rent she pays in a year, €1,530 is deductible. Of the €1,800 of electricity, water and internet, she deducts 30 % of 15 %, which is 4.5 %: €81. The supplies rule is modest by design. What moves the figure is the rent.

And the rent is where to stop and ask. The Canary text exempts from IGIC the letting of buildings destinados exclusivamente a viviendas, used exclusively as homes (consolidated text of 2025, article 21). Reading the same words in the VAT Act, the directorate answered that a home rented partly as a professional office is not exempt, and that the landlord must charge the tax on the whole rent (ruling V2993-20, of 5 October 2020). Rent paid in the exercise of a business also carries a withholding of 19 % on account of the landlord's own income tax, with few exceptions, the main one being a rent of €900 a year or less to the same landlord (income-tax Regulation, articles 75, 76 and 100). Both points belong to a conversation with the landlord, and with an adviser, before the first euro of rent is deducted.

The car

No expense is refused more often. The Regulation tolerates the private use of most business assets outside working hours, but that tolerance no será de aplicación a los automóviles de turismo, does not apply to passenger cars (article 22.4), nor to motorbikes or off-road vehicles. A car is affected only if it is used for the business and for nothing else. The directorate's answer to a dental technician who delivered his work in his own car is the one it has given for years: si el vehículo se utiliza para fines particulares no se podrá considerar afecto a la actividad, lo que implica que no se podrá deducir gasto alguno, if the vehicle is used for private purposes it cannot be considered affected to the activity, which means that no expense at all can be deducted (ruling V2122-25, of 11 November 2025). Not the fuel, not the insurance, not the depreciation, and not a share of them: an asset that cannot be divided cannot be affected in part.

The Regulation lists the exceptions, the vehicles that stay affected even if they are also used off duty: vans and other mixed vehicles used to carry goods, vehicles that carry passengers for a fare, driving-school cars, the cars of commercial representatives and agents on their professional journeys, and vehicles that are hired out. An electrician's van is on the list. A designer's hatchback is not.

Two things follow that surprise newcomers. There is no mileage allowance for the self-employed: the €0.26 per kilometre of the Regulation is for employees reimbursed by an employer, and the directorate has said that the Act borrows from that article only the limits for meals (ruling V0117-21, of 28 January 2021). And exclusive use has to be proved by the person who claims it, by any means the law admits; the directorate declines to say in advance which proof is enough (V2122-25). The usual pieces are a second vehicle for private life, the car entered in the books and kept where the business is, and a record of journeys that matches the diary.

Meals, travel and clients

The self-employed person's own meals have had a rule of their own since 2018. They must be incurred in the course of the activity, and siempre que se produzcan en establecimientos de restauración y hostelería y se abonen utilizando cualquier medio electrónico de pago, provided that they take place in restaurants and hospitality establishments and are paid by any electronic means of payment, within the daily limits the Regulation sets for employees' allowances (article 30.2.5.ª.c): €26.67 a day in Spain and €48.08 abroad, or €53.34 and €91.35 when the night is spent in a municipality other than those of home and work.

Three rulings draw the edges. The meal does not have to be in another town: what the Act borrows from the employees' rule is its limits, not its requirement of a different municipality (V0124-21, of 28 January 2021). Cash does not qualify, even where the bar takes nothing else (V2350-21, of 18 August 2021). And the link with the activity still has to exist: that a lunch falls on a working day no implica por sí sola la consideración de que dichos gastos son gastos incurridos en el desarrollo de una actividad económica, does not in itself mean that it was incurred in the course of a business (V1184-22, of 26 May 2022). A €40 lunch between two client visits in Morro Jable, paid by card, is a €26.67 expense. The daily menu round the corner from home is the one the office will ask about.

Travel and accommodation have no special rule and no daily limit: flights, ferries, taxis and hotels follow the four tests. Clients are different. Corporate tax refuses gifts, takes the entertainment of clients and suppliers out of that category and then caps it: such expenses are deductible con el límite del 1 por ciento del importe neto de la cifra de negocios del período impositivo, up to 1 % of the net turnover of the tax year (Corporate Tax Act, article 15.e). On a turnover of €48,000, that is €480 a year for every lunch, hamper and bottle.

Phone, insurance and social security

The mobile phone follows the car, not the home. The 30 % rule is for the supplies of a dwelling, and a mobile line is not one of them; it falls under the general rule, and the directorate reads that rule strictly: where the line se utiliza indistintamente tanto para fines particulares como para fines profesionales, no podrá deducir gasto alguno, is used without distinction for private and professional purposes, no expense at all can be deducted (ruling V2554-23). A second line used only for the business is deductible in full, and so is the handset bought for it, through depreciation.

Health insurance has a rule that looks generous and is narrow. The premiums the self-employed person pays for their own cover, for the spouse and for children under 25 who live at home are deductible, and El límite máximo de deducción será de 500 euros por cada una de las personas señaladas anteriormente o de 1.500 euros por cada una de ellas con discapacidad, the maximum deduction is €500 for each of those persons, or €1,500 for each of them with a disability (article 30.2.5.ª.a). A premium of €780 is a €500 expense. Children have to meet both conditions, age and living at home (ruling V1510-26, of 12 June 2026). And the rule is for health cover only: life and funeral policies are not deductible (ruling V0946-22, of 29 April 2022).

The self-employed contribution is deductible in full, and since 2023 it comes in two parts. The monthly amounts are provisional; the Social Security settles the year later, against the income the tax office reports to it, and asks for more or pays some back. The directorate has ruled that the earlier year is not reopened: the extra payment is treated como un mayor gasto deducible por cotizaciones a la Seguridad Social correspondiente a ese ejercicio, as a larger deductible expense for social security contributions of that year, the year in which the regularisation is made, and a refund reduces that year's expense (ruling V2472-25, of 11 December 2025).

Equipment, and the 5 % nobody has to prove

What lasts more than a year is not an expense but an asset, and it is deducted in slices. In simplified direct estimation the slices come from a short official table of maximum yearly rates: 26 % for computers and software, 10 % for furniture and fittings, 16 % for vehicles, 30 % for tools. A €1,400 laptop is a deduction of at most €364 a year. The exception is small equipment: new items cuyo valor unitario no exceda de 300 euros, hasta el límite de 25.000 euros referido al período impositivo, whose unit value does not exceed €300, up to a limit of €25,000 in the tax year, can be written off at once (Corporate Tax Act, article 12.3.e). A €280 monitor is an expense of the year it is bought.

The same method carries the one deduction that needs no paper. For provisions and expenses that are hard to justify, the Regulation allows a flat amount, calculated aplicando el porcentaje del 5 por ciento sobre el rendimiento neto, excluido este concepto, sin que la cuantía resultante pueda superar 2.000 euros anuales, by applying 5 % to the net yield, before this item, with a ceiling of €2,000 a year (article 30). On a net yield of €32,000 that is €1,600; from €40,000 upwards it is €2,000. The 7 % that applied in 2023 was a rule for that year alone, and the only special percentage of 2026 is for businesses in Ceuta. The flat amount exists only in the simplified method, which a business leaves when its turnover passes €600,000 or when it chooses the normal one. A company has no such allowance, one more line in the comparison we draw in autónomo or SL.

What never passes

• Fines, surcharges and penalties. Corporate tax excludes Las multas y sanciones penales y administrativas, los recargos del período ejecutivo y el recargo por declaración extemporánea sin requerimiento previo, criminal and administrative fines and penalties, enforcement surcharges and the surcharge for filing late without a prior demand (article 15.c). What those surcharges are, and how to keep them small, is in our piece on filing late.
• Private life. Assets destinados al uso particular del titular de la actividad, como los de esparcimiento y recreo, intended for the private use of the owner of the business, such as those for leisure and recreation, are never affected (income-tax Regulation, article 22.1), and what is spent on them follows them: the family holiday, the television at home, the boat in the marina.
• Gifts with no business reason. Donations and gifts are not deductible. Only what is spent on clients, suppliers, staff and promotion escapes that rule, and client entertainment only within its 1 %.
• Anything bought before registering. The census return has to be filed before the activity starts, and the Tax Agency's manual for the income-tax return reads the rule to its end: only expenses incurred after registering and starting are deductible. Register first, buy the laptop afterwards.
• IGIC that can be recovered. The tax that goes into the IGIC return is not an income-tax expense as well. Only IGIC that cannot be recovered becomes part of the cost.
• Your own mutual society. Contributions to the owner's own mutual society are not a business expense; like those to a pension plan, they reduce the taxable base separately, within their own limits. The exception is the professional whose mutual society stands in for the self-employed scheme.

The IGIC side of the same invoice

Every invoice in the islands raises two questions, because the IGIC printed on it has rules of its own, stricter than those of income tax in most places and kinder in one. The starting point is strict: no deduction for purchases que no se afecten, directa y exclusivamente a su actividad empresarial o profesional, that are not affected directly and exclusively to the business or professional activity (Ley 20/1991, article 29.5), and goods or services used at the same time for the business and for private needs do not count as affected.

The kind exception is the car. Since 2023, passenger cars and motorbikes bought, imported, leased or hired as investment goods se presumirán afectados al desarrollo de la actividad empresarial o profesional en la proporción del 50 por 100, are presumed to be affected to the business in the proportion of 50 % (article 29.7), and the same goes for their fuel, repairs, parking and tolls. A different proportion has to be proved, and some vehicles are presumed at 100 %, such as goods vans, taxis, driving-school cars, agents' cars and surveillance vehicles. So the designer's hatchback, if it is in her books, can give back half of its IGIC in the IGIC return while giving nothing in the income-tax return: two taxes, two rules, one car.

The strict part is the table. The law refuses en ninguna proporción, in any proportion, the tax on Los alimentos, las bebidas y el tabaco, food, drink and tobacco, on shows and recreational services and on goods or services intended as gifts for clients, employees or third parties; and it refuses travel, hotel and restaurant services salvo que el importe de los mismos tuviera la consideración de gasto fiscalmente deducible a efectos del Impuesto sobre la Renta de las Personas Físicas o del Impuesto sobre Sociedades, unless their amount is a deductible expense for income tax or corporate tax (article 30.1). The restaurant lunch that passes the income-tax test can recover its IGIC; the client's Christmas hamper never does.

Two formalities close the list. The right is exercised with the invoice in hand, and only for the tax expresa y separadamente consignada, shown expressly and separately on it (article 31); and it lapses four years after it arises (article 33). And whoever is in the small-business regime, the REPEP, deducts no IGIC at all: for them, as with any indirect tax that cannot be recovered from the tax office, the IGIC paid becomes part of the price of the purchase and is deducted with it in income tax.

The paper: invoice, receipt, statement

The invoicing Regulation applies to IGIC transactions as it does to VAT ones (Real Decreto 1619/2012, second additional provision), and it gives the buyer a right that most never use. A full invoice is compulsory in Aquellas en las que el destinatario sea un empresario o profesional que actúe como tal, those transactions in which the recipient is a business or professional acting as such (article 2.2.a). The till receipt the petrol station or the stationer hands over is a simplified invoice, allowed up to €400, or €3,000 in retail, restaurants, parking and a few other trades (article 4), and it names no buyer. Asked for at the counter, it has to add the buyer's tax number and address and the tax shown separately (article 7.2), and with those three things it supports a deduction.

Three more pieces of paper matter. Bank charges need no invoice: the bank's own statement or debit note is enough (Real Decreto 1619/2012, article 2). The record books (income, expenses and investment goods, and for professionals also the funds held for clients) are where the tax office starts, and an expense that is not in them fails one of the four tests. And everything is kept durante el plazo máximo de prescripción, for the full limitation period (income-tax Regulation, article 68.1), which is four years from the end of the period for filing the return in which the expense was deducted.

An expense that fails is removed and the year is reassessed: the tax on the difference, late-payment interest and, if penalty proceedings follow, a fine that starts at 50 % of the tax left unpaid (General Tax Act, article 191).

A checklist before 20 October

• Sort the card statement. One account and one card for the business; what is paid from the family account needs its own explanation.
• Ask for the invoice, not the receipt. With your tax number, your address and the IGIC shown separately.
• Measure the room. The square metres of the study and of the home, on a plan, and the same figure in every return.
• Decide the car honestly. Exclusive use, in the books and provable, or no income-tax expense at all; the IGIC presumption of 50 % is a separate matter.
• Pay lunches by card. Cash meals are lost, and each lunch needs a reason that can be named.
• Enter the assets. Anything over €300 that will last goes into the investment-goods book and is depreciated.
• Count the 5 %. It is calculated on the net yield and it needs no receipts in the simplified method.
• Keep four years. Invoices, statements and the books, in a form that can be handed over.

The tax office does not ask whether an expense was useful. It asks whether it was for the business, whether there is an invoice, whether it is in the books and whether it belongs to this year. Most refusals are a no to one of the four.

The tax team at our Caleta de Fuste and Costa Calma offices reviews a year of expenses before the return is filed, sets up the books and the home-office and vehicle files, and answers the tax office's requests when they come. The tax advisory page describes the service and a first meeting can be booked online.

Common questions

Can I deduct my car if I use it for work most of the time?

In income tax, no. A passenger car has to be used exclusively for the activity, and the tax directorate repeats that a car also used privately gives no deduction at all, not even in part. The exceptions are goods vans, taxis, driving-school cars, commercial agents' cars and hire vehicles. The IGIC is different: half of it is presumed deductible.

I work from home in a rented flat. What can I deduct?

The rent, in proportion to the square metres of the room you use only for work, and 30 % of that same proportion of the electricity, water, gas, landline and internet. Before deducting rent, check the lease with the landlord: a home used partly as an office can lose its exemption from IGIC, and business rent carries a withholding.

Are my lunches deductible?

Only those incurred in the course of the activity, in a restaurant or bar, paid by card or another electronic means, and up to €26.67 a day in Spain. A cash payment is not accepted, and a lunch does not become a business lunch because it falls on a working day.

Is there still a 7 % for expenses that are hard to justify?

No. The 7 % applied to 2023 only. For 2026 the figure is 5 % of the net yield, with a ceiling of €2,000 a year, and only in simplified direct estimation.

How long do I have to keep invoices?

For the limitation period: four years from the end of the period for filing the income-tax return in which the expense was deducted. The right to deduct the IGIC on an invoice also lasts four years.

Facts verified in October 2026 (Ley 35/2006, articles 28 to 30 and its 56th and 64th additional provisions; the income-tax Regulation approved by Real Decreto 439/2007, articles 9, 22, 30, 68, 75, 76, 100, 110 and 111; Ley 27/2014, articles 11, 12 and 15; Ley 58/2003, articles 66, 67, 105, 106 and 191; Ley 20/1991, articles 28 to 33; the Canary consolidated text approved by Decreto Legislativo 1/2025, article 21; Real Decreto 1619/2012 and the census rules of Real Decreto 1065/2007; rulings V2993-20, V0117-21, V0124-21, V2350-21, V0946-22, V1184-22, V2554-23, V2122-25, V2472-25, V1153-26 and V1510-26 of the Dirección General de Tributos; the Tax Agency's manual for the 2025 return, chapter 7). The designer and her figures are illustrative.