Pluriactividad: recovering excess contributions if you are employed and self-employed

You are in pluriactividad when you contribute simultaneously to 2 Seguridad Social regimes for different activities: the typical case is having a job as an employee (general regime) and, at the same time, your own activity registered in the RETA (special regime for self-employed workers). Do not confuse this with pluriempleo, which is having 2 jobs as an employee within the same general regime.

In this situation, you pay double contributions for common contingencies: the one from your payroll (the company's contribution plus yours as a worker) and the one from your autónomo fee. To compensate for this, article 313 of the Ley General de la Seguridad Social (the Spanish General Social Security Act) recognises the right to a 50% refund of the excess when the sum of both common contingency contributions exceeds the amount set each year (by the Budget Act or the regulation that replaces it).

You do not need to have been in pluriactividad for the whole year: the common contingency contributions actually paid during the financial year in both regimes are calculated. If the sum exceeds the annual limit, you are entitled to a refund.

The legal formula has 3 steps. First, your common contingency contributions for the year are added together: in the general regime, both the employer and worker contributions count; in the RETA, your common contingency fees. Second, the amount set for that financial year is subtracted (€17,323.68 in 2026). Third, the refund is 50% of that excess, with a limit: it can never exceed 50% of the fees you paid into the RETA for common contingencies.

Only common contingencies are included in the calculation. Professional contingencies, cessation of activity, professional training and the MEI are not calculated.

Do not confuse this refund with the annual regularisation for an autónomo: if you also contributed above the bracket corresponding to your real income, the TGSS (the General Treasury of the Social Security) will also refund that difference. They are 2 different concepts and can coincide in the same year.

Since 1 January 2023 (Real Decreto-ley 13/2022), the TGSS pays the refund automatically, without a request, within a maximum period of 4 months from the annual regularisation of autónomo fees, unless there are special circumstances in the contribution or missing data that you must provide. For financial years prior to 2023, the rule was to pay it before 1 May of the following year.

In practice, the calendar is delayed with respect to the contributed year, because Hacienda (the Spanish Tax Agency) first communicates the income and then the TGSS regularises it: the payments for a financial year do not start until its regularisation is closed, which usually places them 1 or 2 years after the contributed year.

The real problem is that the automatic payment fails more often than it seems: contribution incidents, pending data or financial years that remain unpaid without anyone notifying you. If the refund does not arrive, a request for the return of undue income must be submitted to the TGSS. The right can be exercised within the 4-year limitation period, so unpaid past years can also be recovered. Managora checks your case, quantifies the amount and submits the claim for you.

Until 31 December 2022, an autónomo starting an activity in pluriactividad could choose reduced bases (50% of the minimum base for the first 18 months and 75% for the following 18, with percentages of 75% and 85% if the employment was part-time). That benefit was not in article 313 of the LGSS, but in articles 31 and 32 of the Estatuto del Trabajo Autónomo (the Self-Employed Workers Statute), and it disappeared with the entry into force of the real income contribution system. Article 313 of the LGSS regulates, and has always regulated, only the refund of excess contributions. Since 2023, an autónomo in pluriactividad contributes based on the income from their own activity, without counting what they earn as an employee.

What does remain in force: the reduced fee for starting an activity (the so-called flat rate, of €80 per month for 12 months, extendable for another 12 if your income does not exceed the minimum wage), currently regulated in article 38 ter of the Estatuto del Trabajo Autónomo and compatible with also working as an employee if you meet the general requirements.

If you control a certified emerging company and at the same time work as an employee for another employer, you have a specific bonus: 100% of the fee corresponding to the minimum RETA base for a maximum of 3 years, as long as the pluriactividad is maintained (article 38 quinquies of the Estatuto del Trabajo Autónomo, introduced by Ley 28/2022). The article itself declares this bonus incompatible with the benefits of articles 31 and 32 of that law, which were those of the old repealed flat rate; its text was not updated to cite the current reduced fee of article 38 ter, so in practice these are benefits that fall on the same fee and it is advisable to analyse which one is better before requesting them.

Furthermore, as your employment as an employee already covers temporary disability, in the RETA this coverage becomes voluntary for the duration of the pluriactividad: you can waive it and save that part of the fee (article 315 of the LGSS).

Contributing to 2 regimes is not lost money: it generates rights in both. If you meet the requirements of each regime separately (in retirement, among others, the qualifying period of 15 years in each), you can end up receiving 2 pensions, 1 from the general regime and another from the RETA. The sum of both is subject to the maximum limit for public pensions.

If you only meet the requirements in 1 of the regimes, the contributions from the other are not lost: they are added together through the reciprocal calculation of contributions to calculate a single pension.

In temporary disability, if you contribute for that contingency in both regimes, you can trigger the benefit in both. The refund of the excess operates on the fee paid above the annual limit and does not imply a deregistration or a cancellation of the registration periods, although there is no express official pronouncement on its effect on future benefits.

The Directorate General for Taxes has resolved this (consultations V1364-20 and V1434-25): if the RETA fees were a deductible expense of your activity, the refund is an income from the economic activity of the year in which the TGSS recognises it. You do not have to rectify the tax returns for the years in which you deducted the fees.

The claim before the TGSS has no tasas (official fees): you do not pay any official amount. Managora takes care of everything: we check your simultaneous registration periods, calculate the excess year by year, monitor whether the automatic payment has arrived and, if not, we submit the request for the return of undue income and track the file before the TGSS. It is a work of means, not of results: the resolution depends on the Treasury, so we cannot guarantee the recognition or the amount. As the scope depends on how many financial years need to be reviewed and whether an appeal is appropriate, the service is priced by quote: write to us and we will indicate the scope and conditions for your case.