Spain taxes company profit at one general rate with a stack of cheaper ones underneath it. The calculator works down that stack in the order the law sets, which is not the order most founders assume.
The rate you pay is decided by last year’s turnover
The general rate is 25%. Everything below it is an exception you have to qualify for, tested in this order:
- A newly created company pays 15% in its first profitable period and the one after.
- Net turnover below €1,000,000 puts you on the micro scale: 19% on the first €50,000 of tax base, 21% on the rest.
- Net turnover below €10,000,000 gets the reduced-size rate: 23%.
The turnover test reads the previous tax period, not the one you are being taxed on. A company that tripled its sales this year is still measured on last year’s books.
Both small-company rates are transitional for tax periods starting in 2026. The micro scale drops to its permanent level in 2027, and the reduced-size rate steps down once a year until 2029. Whatever rate you see here, it is not the one you pay next year.
The new-company rate counts profitable periods, not birthdays
The condition is a positive tax base, not an anniversary. The 15% rate belongs to the first tax period in which the base comes out positive, and to the period after that one. Founders remember the phrase “two years” and start the count at the notary, which is the wrong clock entirely.
Loss-making periods cost you nothing. A company three years underwater has not burned any of the cheap rate: it is still sitting there unclaimed on the day the base finally turns positive, which is the day a company can actually use it.
The same-activity rule was written for freelancers who incorporate
The reduced rate is refused to patrimonial entities, which hold assets rather than run a business, and to members of a group. The third exclusion is the one that catches people. It is refused where the same activity was previously carried on by a related party, or by an individual who ends up holding more than half of the new company.
If you have been invoicing that work as an autónomo and you now put it inside an SL, that clause has your name on it. It does not stop you incorporating. It means the SL pays the ordinary rate for its size, so price that against the autónomo route before you assume the company is cheaper.
The minimum tax is not about you
Spain’s 15% minimum tax gets quoted at small founders constantly. It reaches companies whose net turnover in the twelve months before the tax period began was at least €20,000,000, and companies inside fiscal consolidation. That is the entire population it applies to. A standalone founder-owned SL is not in it.
Our number is too high, and we know which way
Reserva de capitalización and reserva de nivelación cut the tax base before the rate is applied, and neither is in the model. A company that uses either one pays less than the figure above says. That is the only direction our error runs in: never against you.
The model is built for one kind of company, a standalone SL owned by its founder, and it does one thing. It takes a tax base you already know and applies the right rate to it. It does not decide which of your expenses are deductible, carry losses forward, or touch groups, consolidation and transfer pricing. Feed it revenue minus costs off a spreadsheet and it will answer a question your accountant is not answering.
What the company pays is not what you keep. The rest of the route runs through the dividend calculator, and the whole trip from profit to cash in hand is priced on the founder page. If the company does not have to be Spanish, Portugal’s ladder is a different shape.