Retención de IRPF is the part of your IRPF that your Spanish client subtracts from your invoice and pays to the tax office for you. The standard rate is 15%, or 7% during your registration year and the two calendar years that follow.
Retención de IRPF is the part of your IRPF that your Spanish client subtracts from the invoice and pays to the tax office for you. You don't collect it — it arrives already deducted, which is why you don't have to set it aside.
The standard rate is 15% on the invoice's taxable base. If you're a new freelancer, during your registration year and the two calendar years that follow you can apply a reduced rate of 7%. It only applies when you invoice Spanish companies or freelancers: private individuals and foreign clients don't withhold.
Example: an invoice of €1,000 + €210 IVA − €150 retención (15%) = €1,060 landing in your account. Of that, €210 is the IVA (the tax office's) and the €150 retención was kept by your client to pay in on your behalf.
Important: retención is not the same as the [modelo 130](/en/glossary/modelo-130). Retención is applied by the client on the invoice; the modelo 130 you pay yourself when your income doesn't carry enough retención.
Retención is good news: it's IRPF you've already paid effortlessly. When the annual return comes, those retenciones are deducted from what you owe (or refunded if you prepaid too much).
15% on the invoice's taxable base, or 7% during the registration year and the two calendar years that follow if you're a new freelancer. The client pays that retención directly to the tax office, so you don't have to set it aside.
Only Spanish companies and freelancers, who are required to withhold. Private individuals and foreign clients don't apply retención: in those cases IRPF is prepaid, where applicable, through the modelo 130.
Cece takes care of what weighs on your day-to-day (projects, payments, proposals, tax calculations) and surfaces the numbers that matter, so they stop weighing on you and you can get back to what counts.
