A self-employed worker without salaried staff and with a rented premises faces around 3,000 euros monthly in expenses just to be able to carry out their activity. This amounts to an average outlay close to 125 euros for each of the 286 opening days of the year, according to an analysis of the cost structure in 2026 prepared by the Union of Professionals and Self-Employed Workers (UPTA Spain).
The report focuses on the figure of a self-employed individual, without staff in charge, who operates in a commercial premises rented for 1,500 euros a month and opens their business 5.5 days a week.
Under these conditions, the structural costs of small commerce or business stand at 35,760 euros annually. This amount, as the organization has emphasized, does not include salaries, invoicing, sales income, or profit or salary of the self-employed person themselves, but only the essential money to keep the activity running.
Within this framework, the rent absorbs more than half of the total expense, reaching 18,000 euros a year. Additionally, the sum of the rent, the contribution to the RETA, and the electricity bill amounts to 24,600 euros annually, which represents nearly 69% of the overall structural cost.
To these figures, other essential current outlays for the operation of the business are added, such as those related to communications, management services, insurance policies, bank commissions, and digital tools, as well as amounts linked to maintenance, cleaning, security, and various fees.
The president of UPTA, Eduardo Abad, has emphasized that "before talking about how much a self-employed person earns or invoices, we need to explain how much it costs to work." In this line, he has pointed out that "with an average opening of five and a half days a week, a small business bears about 125 euros in costs for each day it raises the shutter."
"It's almost 3,000 euros a month and nearly 36,000 euros a year without having a single worker hired," Abad has stated, to emphasize that "every morning you have to start by covering those costs before generating income for oneself," positioning this amount as "the true economic starting point for thousands of small businesses" in the country.