The employers shut the door to negotiating a rise in self-employed quotas for 2026 | Economy | EUROtoday

The lack of settlement between the Ministry of Social Security and the self-employed associations when negotiating a brand new part of the deployment of the contribution system for actual revenue led the Government to increase for this yr the charges of social contributions in drive in 2025. However, the negotiation for the rise in these contributions remains to be pending, however Lorenzo Amor, president of ATA, the principle affiliation of the group built-in into CEOE, this Monday closed the door on the potential of agreeing on a rise in contributions for this yr. “We are not going to allow an increase for this year, at least not with the agreement of CEOE-Cepyme and ATA,” he indicated.

Amor, who offered this Monday the outcomes of the barometer of the scenario of self-employment on the finish of 2025, has justified his group’s refusal to just accept the continuation of the deployment of the brand new system with new increased quotas this yr, declaring that “before accepting an increase in the quotas, the Government has to comply with its commitments regarding pluriactivity of self-employed workers, who continue to contribute above the maximum base in exchange for nothing; also regarding the improvement of access to the benefit for cessation of activity, since it continues to be rejected to six out of ten workers who request it; or regarding the approval of the subsidy for those over 52 years of age or the two weeks of leave for breastfeeding.”

However, according to Amor, it does not seem that the Ministry of Social Security is in a hurry to resume negotiations to continue deploying the new contribution system agreed upon in 2022 and whose implementation was to be progressive until 2032. “We haven’t acquired any sort of communication from the ministry since final October 20, not even a Christmas greeting.” For this reason, the president of ATA has also complained about not knowing how the regularization of these workers is working (data crossing between Social Security and the Treasury to adapt their contributions to the declared income) corresponding to 2024.

Minimum wage

Amor has also suggested that the CEOE-Cepyme employer association, to which ATA belongs, will not accept the increase in the minimum interprofessional wage (SMI) by 3.1% to 1,221 euros per month in 14 payments, as the Government has proposed. For this he has given two reasons: the first is that it would be “unaffordable for the weakest link” of the business class, which is the self-employed. And, secondly, because, in his opinion, the incentive for businessmen to support this increase – consisting of the Government relaxing the deindexation rules in public contracts of companies with administrations – is not going to occur. “It is a promise that has been brought to the dialogue table and then the Minister of Finance has already said [María Jesús Montero] “No,” Amor reproached.

In fact, the business leader has shown himself willing to accept an increase in the minimum wage of between 1.5% and up to 2%, but no more. And he has suggested that the Government’s proposal of 3.1% is the result of the “statistical trilerism” of the group of experts appointed by Labor to analyze the evolution of this minimum wage floor. Furthermore, he has pointed out that these accusations were made by “a ministry” in clear reference to another economic department.

According to this barometer, one in each 4 self-employed staff consulted (25.6%) expects their enterprise to be worse in 2026 than the earlier yr. Given this, the bulk demand a discount in administrative and monetary burdens, which 9 out of ten self-employed staff assume have elevated within the final three years. In reality, they estimate that every of them spends a mean of 200 hours a yr performing administration duties.