The State Public Employment Service (SEPE) has launched a notice on its social networks for all those people who collect an unemployment benefit or subsidy, and that is that collecting unemployment does not in itself require you to submit the Income Tax return. Now, that doesn’t mean no one has to do it. Everything will depend on whether or not the Treasury considers that that person is obliged to declare.
The website of the State Public Employment Service explains that for the 2025 financial year, which is the one presented during the 2026 campaign, the SEPE does not require the personal income tax declaration to continue collecting or request a benefit or subsidy, as long as tax regulations do not require it to be presented. That is, the organization clarifies that it is not going to impose this obligation generally on all unemployed people.
Now, we must take into account the exceptions. Although the SEPE does not require it for collecting unemployment, there will be people who have to pay the Income because that is what the Tax Agency establishes. In the 2024 personal income tax campaign, the general limit for not being required to declare is 22,000 euros per year when the income from work comes from a single payer. This threshold drops to 15,876 euros in some cases, for example, when there is more than one payer.
What happens if I have worked and collected unemployment during the year?
This is where many of the usual doubts come in. A person may have worked part of the year for a company and then started collecting unemployment benefits. In that case, there is no longer just one payer, but two, so the limit drops to 15,876 euros gross per year, provided that the second and other payers have paid more than 1,500 euros.
Therefore, the SEPE announcement should not be interpreted as “no one has to pay the Income”, but rather as “collecting unemployment does not automatically obligate you”.
Finally, remember that, although the message is clear, it is possible that some workers may have doubts, since let us remember that last year, the Ministry of Finance made it mandatory to present the declaration if a benefit of this type was collected and then reversed it, which generated some confusion.