Upon reaching retirement age, the big question that any worker asks is what pension they will receive. This doubt is even greater among self-employed workers, since they contribute under the Special Regime for Self-Employed Workers (RETA). Although the current method of calculating Social Security is the same for both these and employees of the General Regime, their pension is usually lower.
This is a reality, since if we look at the latest data published by the National Social Security Institute (INSS), the average pension of a self-employed person is 1,058.51 euros per month, while that of workers in the General Regime is 1,729.62 euros, that is, a difference of 671.11 euros. Now, what is the reason for this difference?
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Social Security establishes that starting in 2027 the retirement age will be 67 years unless you have 38 years and 6 months of contributions.
The reason is that self-employed workers usually contribute for a lower contribution base, so they contribute less to the system’s “piggy bank.” Let us remember that as the Social Security official, Alfonso Muñoz, explains, “the Spanish system is a pay-as-you-go system.” For 2026, the minimum contribution base for a self-employed person is 653.59 euros (if they fall under section 1 of the reduced table) or 950.98 euros (in section 1 of the general table). On the other hand, the minimum contribution limit for common contingencies of employees of the General Regime is 1,424.40 euros.
The self-employed can contribute for a higher base, with the maximum limit set for 2026 at 5,101.20 euros. Now, statistical reality shows that an immense majority of the self-employed (around 86.6%) choose to contribute for bases that are around the minimum or, at most, up to 1.5 times said base, as stated in the 2023 annual report of the Ministry of Labor and Social Economy (can be accessed through this link).
How to calculate the retirement pension of a self-employed person in 2026
To know what pension is left for a self-employed person who contributes for the minimum base, you must first know how it is calculated. The amount depends on the regulatory base and the total number of years contributed throughout one’s working life. It must be taken into account that, as a novelty, starting in 2026, the method for calculating the regulatory base changes to establish a dual system. Social Security will calculate your pension in two different ways and will always apply the one that is most favorable to you:
- The new formula takes the last 304 months of contributions (25.33 years), of which the system will automatically discard the 2 months with the worst bases. That is, it will add your 302 best contribution bases for that period and divide them by 352.33.
- The classic model: The sum of the contribution bases of the last 25 years (the last 300 months) is divided by 350.
In addition, there is another novelty that benefits the self-employed and that is that, unlike what happened before, now in 2026 the self-employed can benefit from the integration of contribution loopholes. If in the period taken to calculate your pension there are months without contributions (after the termination of a benefit due to cessation of activity), Social Security will fill in up to six months of these gaps using the minimum base of the general RETA table.
Once you have obtained your regulatory base, a percentage is applied based on the total number of years you have contributed throughout your life. In 2026, the scale works like this:
- With the first 15 years of contributions, you ensure 50% of the regulatory base.
- For each additional month between months 1 and 49, 0.21% is added.
- For each of the next 209 months, 0.19% is added.
With these calculations, in order to collect 100% of your regulatory base in 2026, it is necessary to have contributed a total of 36 years and 6 months. In 2027, this changes and it will be necessary to have 37 years of contributions to be entitled to the full pension (which is not the same as the maximum pension).
So, how much would a self-employed person earn the minimum in 2026?
If a self-employed person has contributed throughout his life for the current general minimum base of 950.98 euros and is old enough to collect 100% of his regulatory base, the calculation (300 bases / 350) would leave us with a monthly pension of 815.12 euros (which is equivalent to 11,411.68 euros per year in 14 payments).
As you can see, this amount is below the minimum pension thresholds set for 2026. To give us an idea, the minimum pension for a single-person economic unit (without a spouse) is 13,106.80 euros per year (936.20 euros/month), and if you have a dependent spouse, it amounts to 17,592.40 euros per year (1,256.60 euros/month).
Finally, you should know that, although the resulting pension is lower than the minimum, Social Security has a dynamic and flexible system, so in these cases you can access the minimum supplement, as long as you do not have income higher than 9,442.00 euros/year if you do not have a dependent spouse, or 11,013.00 euros/year if you have a dependent spouse. In this way, the system will complement your benefit until you are guaranteed the collection of the minimum pension established for your family situation.