{"id":642411,"date":"2025-12-19T15:00:23","date_gmt":"2025-12-19T15:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/642411\/"},"modified":"2025-12-19T15:00:23","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T15:00:23","slug":"bureaucracy-costs-each-self-employed-person-in-spain-some-200-hours-in-lost-time-and-3000-euros-per-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/642411\/","title":{"rendered":"Bureaucracy costs each self-employed person in Spain some 200 hours in lost time and 3,000 euros per year"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"v-mdl-ath__fig-a\" href=\"https:\/\/www.diariosur.es\/autor\/cristina-candido-67.html\" title=\"Cristina C\u00e1ndido\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" class=\"v-mdl-ath__img\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/autor-67-foto-1.jpeg\" alt=\"Cristina C\u00e1ndido\"\/><br \/>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"v-mdl-ath__p v-mdl-ath__p--6\">\nFriday, 19 December 2025, 15:43<\/p>\n<p class=\"v-p\">Administrative procedures create thousands of hours of unpaid overtime that weigh down the daily lives of the self-employed in Spain. The more than 3.4 million professionals in this group spend an average of 200 hours a year exclusively on bureaucratic procedures and the fulfilment of tax, labour and social security obligations, as the national federation of associations of self-employed workers (ATA) explains.<\/p>\n<p class=\"v-p\">Self-employed workers have to specifically put time aside for bureaucracy, at the expense of their active and rest hours. Moreover, this activity has a direct economic impact. At an average cost of 15 euros per hour, bureaucracy represents an annual outlay of around 3,000 euros for each self-employed worker, according to ATA calculations. This amounts to 10 billion euros per year and more than 650 million hours spent on administrative procedures for the entire professional segment.<\/p>\n<p class=\"v-p\">The magnitude of the problem is amplified when compared to the average working hours in the sector. Self-employed persons work 47 hours a week on average and spend around four hours a week just to fulfil their administrative duties. Overall, the time spent on bureaucracy is equivalent to the full weekly workload of 278,000 self-employed workers.<\/p>\n<p>More rules and costs<\/p>\n<p class=\"v-p\">Beyond the purely economic aspect, the cost is also social. For nine out of ten self-employed people, the bureaucratic burden has increased in the last year, which significantly reduces their ability to reconcile work and rest. &#8220;Every day, we spend more time on paperwork and less on generating wealth,&#8221; president of ATA Lorenzo Amor says.<\/p>\n<p class=\"v-p\">Workers with dependent employees, who account for almost one million of the self-employed in Spain, have to also add the increasing complexity of labour regulations, which multiplies the time and administrative costs they spend on their personal obligations. &#8220;We have been hearing about administrative simplification and reduction of burdens for years, but this never comes. There are more and more rules, more restrictions and more costs,&#8221; Amor says, as he calls for a profound change in the relationship between bureaucracy and the self-employed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"v-p\">ATA warns that, if there is no real reduction in bureaucracy, the excessive hours spent on administrative obligations will keep hampering productivity, competitiveness and the self-employed&#8217;s capacity to generate wealth, turning the administration into an obstacle rather than a facilitator of economic activity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Friday, 19 December 2025, 15:43 Administrative procedures create thousands of hours of unpaid overtime that weigh down the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":642412,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5312],"tags":[65720,197469,5176,40846,26599,60177,2000,299,34454,93528,38793,130681,104,3118],"class_list":{"0":"post-642411","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-spain","8":"tag-65720","9":"tag-197469","10":"tag-and","11":"tag-bureaucracy","12":"tag-costs","13":"tag-each","14":"tag-eu","15":"tag-europe","16":"tag-euros","17":"tag-hours","18":"tag-person","19":"tag-selfemployed","20":"tag-spain","21":"tag-year"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115746834081511806","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/642411","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=642411"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/642411\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/642412"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=642411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=642411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=642411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}