How to start as a psychologist by registering with the Spanish Social Security?
A small guide on how to register with the Spanish Social Security as a psychologist.
After so much time studying and having already finished, you start to consider the possibility of opening your own practice as a psychologist but you do not know what you have to do.
Despite how much you have studied you discover that you know rather nothing about the laws, procedures and various steps that must be taken if you want to register with the Social Security and work as a professional in your field.
Fortunately, today we bring a little light into the darkness and in the following lines you will find an explanation about how to start as a psychologist by registering with the Social Security, applied to freelancers in Spain. in Spain.
Guide to start working as a psychologist by registering with the Social Security.
Throughout the degree, those of us who study psychology learn all kinds of knowledge related to our discipline, of course. We learn about personality, neurodevelopment, social behavior, statistics, psychophysiology and many other areas that are part of the essentials that every psychologist must know in order to practice their profession.
Although they teach us everything, there is one aspect that is left a little aside and that I think they should explain a little better throughout the degree: what procedures are necessary to be able to practice as a psychologist..
While it is true that there are subjects that introduce us to it a little and, also, in some postgraduate training is taught on what procedures to do to be able to work in a private practice, the truth is that the average bulk of recent graduates of psychology students have no idea what to do.
In order to shed some light on this issue, today we are going to talk about how to start as a psychologist by registering with the Social Security, something that although the website of the Ministry of Social Security itself explains in detail, here we are going to address the most important points.
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Registering with Social Security as a self-employed psychologist
The law that manages the Social Security registration for self-employed workers, in our case psychologists, is Law 20/2007.of July 11, which was last updated on 12/31/2020. This is the Statute of the Self-Employed Worker, in which it is made explicit what is understood as a professional working as such, defining it as follows:
"Natural persons who habitually, personally, directly, on their own account and outside the scope of management and organization of another person, carry out an economic or professional activity for profit, whether or not they give employment to employees".
According to this law, as long as an economic activity is carried out on a self-employed basis and on a regular basis, it will be obligatory to register with the Special Regime for Self-Employed Workers (RETA), also known as "RETA", or "Régimen Especial de Trabajadores Autónomos". (RETA), also known as the Special Regime for Self-Employed Workers. This procedure is mandatory regardless of the duration of the work, its schedule and the remuneration received for it.
With respect to this procedure it is necessary to highlight something. It is often heard that people who do not earn the Minimum Interprofessional Wage (SMI) do not need to register as self-employed. This is not true, since the key idea of the law that regulates this aspect is not the amount of money we earn, but the frequency of the activity we perform. we perform. The obligation to register as self-employed occurs when an economic activity is carried out on a regular basis, regardless of the salary received for it.
As a curiosity to this fact, if we carry out any economic activity on a regular basis and, in exchange for it, we receive 0€ (either because we do it in a welfare way or because we are paid in other ways) we have to register as self-employed anyway.
On the other hand, if the activity we carry out is rather sporadic in nature, in principle there is no obligation to register.. However, in the event that even if working sporadically we receive a salary higher than the SMI (1,108.33 euros per month/13,300 euros per year 2021) it will be required to carry out this procedure, although it should be noted that this is more related to the cases of individuals who exceed the annual SMI than the monthly one.
Likewise, a manager should be consulted in the event of receiving a one-off salary that is higher than the SMI in order to clarify the need to register with the Social Security.
But, what is understood by regular and occasional? The word "habitual" is related to "habit", and in this context it can be understood as any activity carried out by a psychologist that has continuity and repetition over time, while "punctual" can be related to an activity that, although related to psychology, has been done in isolation, sporadically. In order to understand better between both situations and to discern them better, we are going to put four cases below.
Examples
Let's see first several punctual cases by way of example, and then cases of habitual work as psychologists.
Case 1
We are graduates in Psychology and we have the General Health Master's Degree, but we do not practice.. However, at a given moment, an acquaintance who knows that we are psychologists asks us as a favor to listen to a problem that distresses him and try to help him. As compensation for having helped him and spent some time with him, he pays us 50€.
Cases 2 and 3
We are working in our father's masonry company even though we are psychologists. Our task is to help him and, in case new candidates apply, we interview them and we evaluate their profile acting a bit like "human resources personnel".
One day, a high school in our municipality contacts us asking us if we can give a conference on psychology in their school, talking about what training is necessary, what is the best way to teach psychology and what is the best way to teach it.We talk about what training is necessary, what opportunities are available and what the psychologist's profession is like. We do the conference and the institute pays us 450€.
In these two cases we can see that the activity related to psychology is done sporadically. In the first case, we act as a clinical psychologist only once, attending to a single patient and in isolation, without carrying out psychotherapy as such. In the second case we act very occasionally as something similar to a human resources person and only once as teachers of psychology. In neither case would it be necessary to register with the Social Security as a psychologist.
Case 3
We have just started a psychology practice and we advertise ourselves as psychologists and psychotherapists in our city..
Regardless of whether or not we have clients on a given day, we have a full-time office and we are willing to receive calls from 9.00 to 17.00, performing psychotherapy from Monday to Friday and we indicate that we charge between 25 and 45 euros per hour depending on whether it is the first session, type of problem to be treated and couple therapy.
Case 4
We opened a web page where we offer online clinical psychology sessions.. As in the previous case, we have a schedule of attention to our patients from 9-17h, with similar prices and we indicate that we specialize in sexology and couple relationships.
In both situations we have to register as self-employed in the Social Security because, even if we are very unlucky and do not receive any client for a whole week, we are offering a regular job.
Important: regardless of whether or not we are obliged to register as self-employed, it does not mean that we are not obliged to invoice and declare any income from work to the Tax Office. income from work to the tax office.
Formalities and other paperwork
To register as a psychologist with the Social Security we have to follow a procedure, specifically that of registering with the Social Security in the Special Regime for Self-Employed Workers. As we have mentioned, this procedure it will be obligatory to carry it out when the activity that we are going to carry out as psychologists is made of habitual form or it is a question of a punctual task but in which we perceive an economic retribution bigger than the SMI..
The requirements to be able to register are:
- To have been discharged in the Treasury in the 30 days previous to the date of discharge in the Social Security.
- In case that the registration in the Tax office was for a punctual activity it will be necessary to explain and to demonstrate that such it was a punctual activity.
- Bank account in our name
- Digital certificate
The necessary documentation to request such procedure is:
- Model TA0521
- DNI / NIF
- Copy or original of our Tax Authorization.
- Card of Affiliation to the Social Security (only in case of having worked as an employee before).
This procedure, as with everything in the matter of bureaucracy, can be done in two ways: online (recommended) and in person (not recommended).. The first one can be done through the Electronic Headquarters of the Social Security website and using the Digital Certificate, where we will be asked for the relevant documents and from the comfort of our home. In the face-to-face procedure, if we dare, we will have to make an appointment and go to the corresponding territorial delegation of the Social Security.
Once the formalities have been completed, the documentation that we will be given will be the receipt of the TA0521 Form.
In principle, this procedure involves a total cost of 0€ but some of the formalities that have to be carried out related to this require specialized legal knowledge such as, for example, the contribution base, the calculation of benefits, the coverage for which contributions are made and many others. To facilitate the process it is advisable to turn to specialists, such as a manager and advisor to help us in this process. This will mean that we will have to pay, of course, but it is preferable since they will take away a real headache.
Monthly payment or self-employed fee
From June 1, 2021 and until the end of the same year, the monthly self-employed fee in Spain will be 289 if you pay the minimum rate and 1,245.45 if you pay the maximum rate..
Flat Rate
The Social Security Flat Rate consists of a temporary reduction of the Social Security contribution, and is applicable to the new self-employed when they register. This flat rate consists of starting with a monthly payment of €60 (until recently it was €50) to the Social Security instead of the 286.15 that constitutes the minimum monthly contribution in 2021..
The requirements to be eligible for the Flat Rate are:
- To register for the first time as self-employed.
- Not to have been registered as self-employed in the last two years (3 in case of having enjoyed some type of previous bonus).
- It must have been at least three years since we registered as self-employed in case we had been registered as such before.
- Not to be self-employed collaborator (special regime for relatives of the self-employed).
- It can be repeated as long as 3 years have passed between the discharge and the following discharge.
(Updated at Apr 15 / 2024)