The Ministry of Social Security, headed by Elma Saiz, has corrected its first proposal to increase the contributions of the self-employed according to their income, which it had proposed for the next three years. Looking ahead to 2026, it proposed installments of between 217 and 796 euros per month. The Ministry has explained to the social agents a new proposal, which elDiario.es has learned about from negotiation sources, now only for 2026, and which keeps the quotas of the self-employed with lower earnings frozen and raises those of the rest, but much less than what was initially proposed. The workers who earn the most would increase their quota by 2.5% (compared to the initial 35%), even below inflation, which stood at 3% in September.
Thus, the new proposed quotas range from 200 euros to 605 euros per month in 2026, the latter in the case of workers who earn more than 6,000 euros per month, explained from the social dialogue.
The new proposal includes the freezing of the contributions of self-employed workers who are in the first three income brackets, with earnings below the minimum interprofessional wage. In the subsequent sections, a progressive increase of 1%, 1.5%, 2% and 2.5% is proposed, as reflected in the following table.
Thus, at most, the monthly fee increases in 2026 would be 15 euros in the highest bracket. The new scenario that Social Security has transferred to social agents is very different from the one proposed a week ago. On the one hand, they maintain unchanged the quotas of the self-employed workers who earn the least, compared to the increases between 8.5% and 4% initially proposed, against which criticism had been directed from leftist groups such as Sumar, including Vice President Yolanda Díaz herself, and ERC, for example, as well as the progressive group of self-employed workers UATAE (linked to CCOO). The measure was not liked by the right either, who called it a general “tax increase” for the group, although the Social Security contribution is not a tax.
The modifications are not only aimed at self-employed workers who earn less, but at everyone. The proposal for quota increases for 2026 explained this Monday includes much smaller increases than in the previous table for all sections, also for those with the highest yields, as the following table shows.
If in the first Social Security approach the increases ranged from 4% to 35% for the rest of the sections with earnings above the minimum wage, now Elma Saiz’s department has gone to the negotiating table with increases of between 1% and 2.5%. The 2.5% increases for the self-employed with the most earnings stand out, since it is even below inflation (3%), the reference that the ATA self-employed group had requested, within the business association.
Minister Elma Saiz stated at an event in Barcelona that the new approach “recognizes all the sensitivities” of the different groups and has appealed to the “responsibility of the representatives of the autonomous groups and also of the political groups” to carry out the measure, which must pass through Parliament.
Furthermore, now the Ministry proposes addressing only the 2026 quotas, instead of those for the next three years (2026 to 2028), in line with what was approved at the start of the new contribution system based on real income. The reform approved in 2022 agreed on the quotas for three years, 2023 to 2025, and included in the law itself the final goal: the contribution for the real income of workers in 2032.
The intention was to gradually agree on an increase in contributions so that it would progressively approach the workers’ income at the end of the period, but now the Ministry is limiting its proposal only to 2026 and with a reduced increase.
From UATAE they indicate that there is “deep concern and disagreement with the Ministry of Social Security after the meeting held this morning.” The self-employed group describes it as “incomprehensible and deeply unfair” that Social Security maintains its intention to freeze contributions for the lower brackets. They defend “reducing the quota for the lowest-income group, maintaining it in the middle brackets and increasing it in the highest-income brackets,” says María José Landaburu, general secretary of UATAE.
From UPTA, the group of self-employed workers linked to UGT, they have also expressed that “an important opportunity has been lost to improve the future pensions of self-employed workers,” stated its president, Eduardo Abad. In the progressive organization, they consider that a “very small, very slight” contribution increase for the lowest contributions would improve the protection of workers with lower earnings and get closer to the spirit of the reform agreed in 2022, and they consider the 2.5% increase for workers with higher incomes to be “very low.”
In the conservative association ATA, its president Lorenzo Amor has celebrated the Ministry’s reversal in the increase in quotas, but he does not support the new approach either because they demand “the equalization of social protection”, for example, with the right to subsidy for unemployed people over 52 years of age. Amor has stated that those who indicate that “you have to pay more to have more social protection are wrong”, since he has maintained that “social protection is a right”.
However, Social Security social protection is contributory. That is, sick leave, maternity leave or retirement pensions, for example, are recognized based on what workers contribute to the system. The system is also supportive: there are some minimum assistance benefits, such as pensions, to which the self-employed are already entitled.
Improvement of several features
The department led by Elma Saiz went to the negotiating table this Monday, also insisting on the “improvement of the protective action” of the system. That is, several of the benefits to which Social Security contributions entitle you.
On the one hand, as it had already announced, the Ministry is committed to a new reform of the benefit for cessation of activity (the so-called ‘self-employed strike), which currently receives many complaints about the difficulties in accessing it, with 60% of the applications rejected by the mutual insurance companies.
Saiz’s department intends for the benefit to reach more people and “homogeneously”, that is, avoiding differences in criteria between mutual insurance companies, as well as “reduce resolution times”, according to negotiation sources.
Regarding leave for birth and care of a minor – still called paternity and maternity leave by many citizens –, Social Security proposes calculating it according to “the last three months” of contributions (instead of the current three), which Elma Saiz’s department indicates will “make it possible to better adjust the amount of the benefit” and avoid problems in the regularization process. The Ministry has also opened up to studying formulas to protect breastfeeding.
In addition, Saiz’s team is committed to improving the care provision for minors affected by cancer or another serious illness (the so-called CUME). The Ministry offers to allow the adaptation of the regulatory basis of the benefit “depending on the duration of the illness” of the child.
At UPTA, Eduardo Abad has celebrated the proposed improvement in several benefits. “We are satisfied because it meets the requirement that we had set for ourselves.”
Source: www.eldiario.es
