Your pension tells a very different story

In Spain, those who have worked as self -employed are that, upon reaching retirement, The amount of your pension It is significantly lower than that of its equals employees. This situation, a priori, seems entirely unfair, since, for setting a more or less close example, an autonomous electrician who works alone, will charge a salary similar to a salaried electrician for his work, and both pay a social security price that will then determine the amount of his Retirement pension.

However, the main difference between the two is that, in the case of the wage earner, a part of that price is assumed by the company that hires it, while the autonomous does not do so in the same way. That difference is what causes the self -employed to retire a pension much smaller than employees.

Difference of pensions between employees and autonomous. The difference between retirement pensions of salaried workers and self -employed remains considerable in 2025. According to the official data Of the Ministry of Inclusion and Social Security, the average pension of the self -employed is 1,008.8 euros per month, while the employees of the general regime receive 1,665.5 euros per month on average.

A relevant aspect is that this difference is even greater depending on gender. Autonomous men receive an average pension of 1,150.10 euros after retirement, while women receive 863.97 euros. This inequality is also due to the quoted years and the sections chosen during working life according to the data collected by Social Security.

On average, this is a monthly difference of 657.72 euros in the retirement pension and more than 9,200 euros a year between both groups.

The monthly quota: key to inequality. The pension gap between salaried and self -employed workers remains stable in the historical data, and has an obvious reason: most self -employed opt for the minimum contribution base to maximize their monthly fee. As can be seen in the lower picture, in the case of wage earners, both company and worker assume a certain percentage of the price for the employee, starting from a contribution base, being the company who assumes most of that cost and enters it in the Social Security on account of its employee.

However, the calculation of the self -employed contribution base is not made based on the salary he receives as in employees, but based on their net benefit and, depending on that amount, is welcomed by the adequate fee section. That section defines its minimum contribution base, although the autonomous can choose to quote for a larger base.

Broadly speaking, so that a salaried salaried salaried salary is 1,600 euros, its contribution base must be about 2,000 euros. On the other hand, the autonomous electrician who works only from our example that receives the same net salary of 1,600 euros, will have a monthly fee of about 300 euros, but Your contribution base It will be about 960.78 euros. That implies that both charge similar wages, but the autonomous quotes for a much lower contribution base.

THE PROBLEM: Most quote the minimum base. According to the Ministry statistics, of the 3,436,929 freelancers that exist in Spain, 2,858,865 are quoted for the minimum base for their net income or by 1.5 of the minimum base. Only 72,935 would be quoting for a base near what an salaried worker would have, which would be something close to 3 times or more than the minimum base.

Returning to the example of our autonomous electrician with a net profit of 1,600 euros, it would be limited to a maximum price of 1,700 euros, which would mean an increase in its monthly fee to about 534 euros.

The self -employed do not pay more quotation. In a first glance it may seem that an autonomous has a greater economic pressure than a wage earner. However, both contributions are close to 30% of the contribution base (it is an approximate percentage since it varies depending on the type of contract, sector, etc.).

The main difference is that, as can be seen in the quotation box above, in the case of the wage earner the company assumes a higher percentage than the wage earner (although all part of the Gross Employee salary), while the autonomous is a company and employee in turn, which is perceived a greater impact on the relationship between net benefit and contribution base.

How to save that gap. Since the totality of the quota of the contribution falls on the autonomous, to excessively elevate the monthly fee (and therefore its contribution base) to collect a retirement pension near a wage earner it is a great considerable economic effort. So it is best to increase the price base progressively as it is approaching The retirement ageto quote for the largest possible base in recent years to raise the amount of the pension.

The amount of the final pension is calculated on the contribution basis of the last 25 years quoted (300 months) and, if the base has always been low, the resulting benefit is insufficient compared to employees, which are quoted according to their real salary. Therefore, in more than 60% of the Spanish provinces, the Medium Retirement Pension Of the self -employed barely exceeds 1,008 euros per month and in no community the autonomous retirement pension is equal to the minimum interprofessional salary in 2025.

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Image | Unspash (Matt Bennett)