How to read the tax forms we file on your behalf (Self-employed)

Every quarter we send you a copy of the forms we’ve filed, and it’s normal for them to raise questions: what each one is, why the amount is what it is. Here’s a quick reference.

Note: forms starting with 1 relate to personal income tax (IRPF) and withholdings, and forms starting with 3 relate to VAT (IVA).

Modelo 100: annual income tax return (Declaración de la Renta)

This is the final settlement of your annual IRPF, and it isn’t limited to your business: it includes employment income if you have any, personal and family allowances, and deductions that don’t show up in the quarterly calculation. This is where you see whether what you’ve paid through the year via Modelo 130 matches what you actually owed. It can result in a refund or an additional payment.

Modelo 111: withholdings on employees and professionals

This is the quarterly return for the withholdings that you, as the payer, apply to your employees’ payslips (if you have any) and to invoices from other professionals who bill you with a withholding applied (for example, another self-employed worker or a lawyer). That money isn’t yours: you’ve deducted it from that person’s payment and you pay it to the tax agency on their behalf. If you have no employees and receive no invoices with withholding, this doesn’t affect you.

Modelo 115: withholdings on rent

Similar to Modelo 111 but only for rent: if your business pays rent for premises or an office, you have to withhold 19% of that rent and declare it here every quarter. This only applies if you rent business premises. If you work from home, or your landlord is a company exempt from withholding (such as some SOCIMIs), this doesn’t affect you.

Modelo 130: quarterly IRPF payment on account

This is your quarterly advance payment of income tax on your business profit. It’s calculated by adding up income and expenses since January, applying 20%, and subtracting what you’ve already paid in previous quarters and any withholdings applied on the invoices you’ve issued. We explain it with an example in how quarterly IRPF is calculated.

Modelo 303: quarterly VAT return

This compares the VAT you’ve charged on your issued invoices with the VAT you’ve paid on your expenses and purchases. If output VAT is higher than input VAT, you pay the difference; if it’s the other way round, it carries over to offset future quarters or, in the last quarter of the year, you can request a refund.

Informational forms:

Modelo 390: annual VAT summary - informational form

This is informational only, nothing extra is paid when filing it. It gathers and reconciles the four quarterly Modelo 303 returns for the year, and is filed in January of the following year.

Modelo 180: annual summary of rent withholdings - informational form

This is the annual close-out of Modelo 115: it gathers and reconciles the four quarters of the year into a single summary. It’s filed in January. If any quarter’s Modelo 115 had an error, this is usually where the discrepancy shows up.

Modelo 190: annual summary of withholdings on employees and professionals - informational form

This is the annual equivalent of Modelo 111: it brings together the four quarters of the year, and unlike Modelo 111 (which uses aggregate amounts), this one breaks it down recipient by recipient: who was paid what and how much was withheld. It’s also filed in January, and the figures must match exactly with the sum of the year’s four Modelo 111 returns.

Modelo 347: return of transactions with third parties - informational form

This is informational, nothing is paid: you declare which clients or suppliers exceeded €3,005.06 across the whole year (adding up all invoices with that person or company). It isn’t a withholding or a tax in itself, it’s a data cross-check the tax agency uses to verify that what you declare as an expense matches what the other party declares as income, and vice versa. It’s filed in February.

Modelo 349: return of intra-community transactions - informational form

This is an informational return (nothing extra is paid) covering purchases and sales of goods or services with companies in other EU countries registered in the ROI (Register of Intra-Community Operators). It only affects you if you invoice European suppliers or clients. If all your business is domestic, you don’t file it. How often it’s filed (monthly, quarterly or annually) depends on the volume of those transactions.

Where the numbers come from

All of these forms are built from your income and expense ledger, which in turn comes from the invoices you issue and receive. That’s why we insist you send us every invoice, not just the ones that seem relevant to you. Any expense without an invoice can’t enter the calculation.

If a particular quarter’s amount surprises you, ask us directly about that form: we can always break down where the figure comes from.