Spanish Quarterly Income-Tax Instalment (Modelo 130) Calculator
Work out this quarter’s Spanish income-tax instalment from your year-to-date income and expenses, with the result broken down box by box, a check on whether you are exempt from filing at all, and the two deadlines that are not the same date.
The amounts run from 1 January to the last day of the quarter, not the quarter on its own. That is the commonest confusion: the modelo 130 looks at the whole year every time.
If you want it collected by direct debit your deadline is shorter: you must file by 15 April 2026. Filing later is still valid, but direct debit is no longer available and you will have to pay another way.
Do I have to file the modelo 130 at all?
Article 109.2 exempts PROFESSIONAL activities from the instalment where at least 70 % of the previous year's income was subject to withholding tax. A business activity has no such exemption, because nobody withholds tax on its invoices. If you started this year, look at the percentage for the quarter itself rather than for last year.
Withholding, earlier quarters and the reductions
Instalments paid in earlier quarters means the sum of the positive box 07 figures of this year's earlier returns; negative results means the sum of the negative box 19 figures you have not yet used. They are two different things and they travel through different boxes.
How the result is reached, box by box
| Gross computable incomebox 1 | €15,000.00 |
| Tax-deductible expensesbox 2 | €5,000.00 |
| Net business incomebox 3 | €10,000.00 |
| 20 % of the net business incomebox 4 | €2,000.00 |
| Instalment for the activitybox 7 | €2,000.00 |
| Result of the self-assessmentbox 19 | €2,000.00 |
Educational estimate, not tax advice. It settles section I of the form, meaning direct assessment for activities other than farming, livestock, forestry and fishing; the módulos regime is declared on the modelo 131. The return itself is filed on the Spanish tax office's electronic site.
Video: how to use the calculator
What the modelo 130 is, and what it is not
The modelo 130 is an advance on your own income tax. Each quarter you pay the Spanish Treasury part of what you will owe on the year’s income, and in the annual return those four payments are set against the final bill. It is not an extra tax: it is the same tax paid earlier. The right comparison is therefore not the modelo 303, which settles VAT you collect on the state’s behalf and which was never yours, but the withholding an employee sees on every payslip. A self-employed person has nobody to do it for them, so they do it themselves four times a year.
The first question is not how much, it is whether you file at all
Article 109.2 of the Regulation exempts anyone carrying on a professional activity from the instalment if, in the previous calendar year, at least 70 % of that activity’s income was subject to withholding tax. A designer who invoices almost everything to Spanish companies, who withhold 15 %, is exempt and files nothing. Note the word professional: a business activity, a shop, a bar, a workshop, never has that exemption, and the reason is simple, nobody withholds tax on its invoices. If you have just started, article 109.5 tells you to look at the percentage for the quarter itself rather than at a previous year that does not exist. And the exemption is per activity, not per person: someone combining an exempt professional activity with a business one still files for the second.
Cumulative, not quarterly: the most expensive mistake on the form
Boxes 01 and 02 do not ask for the quarter’s income and expenses. They ask for those of the period running from the first day of the year to the last day of the quarter. In the third quarter you declare nine months, not three. The mechanism closes in box 05, where what earlier quarters already paid is subtracted, so each quarter contributes only the difference. Entering the quarter on its own and leaving box 05 blank appears to give the same figure in the first quarter and stops doing so from the second. The upside of this design is that it self-corrects: a bad quarter after a good one pulls the cumulative figure down and pulls the payment down with it.
Box 05, which almost no tool gets right
The official instruction for that box says three things and all three matter. First: you add the positive box 07 figures of the earlier quarters. Second: negative ones are not counted, so a quarter that came out negative subtracts nothing here. Third: that sum is reduced by the box 16 figures of those same returns, meaning the main-home deduction taken then. What is NOT subtracted, and this comes straight from article 110.1.a, is the low-income reduction of box 13: the law requires the earlier instalments to be measured as if letter c had never been applied. Two similar-looking deductions with opposite treatments in the same box.
The two dates that are not the same date
Article 111.1 of the Regulation gives the 1st to the 20th of April, July and October for the first three quarters, and the 1st to the 30th of January for the fourth. But if you want the bank to collect the amount, article 1.2 of Order EHA/3398/2006 names this form expressly and closes the direct-debit window on the 15th in April, July and October, and on the 25th in January. Five days earlier in both cases. Filing on the 18th while counting on direct debit leaves the return filed and the debt unpaid, with its surcharge. They are calendar days, not working days, and if the last one falls on a Saturday, Sunday or public holiday the deadline moves to the next working day.
A quarter with nothing to pay is still filed
Article 111.1 says so in a sentence that is rarely read: where no amount is payable, taxpayers shall file a nil return. Not filing because the result would have been zero is an infringement with its own penalty. And there are two different ways of ending at nothing, which the form marks with two different boxes. A negative result in the first, second or third quarter is marked "a deducir", and that amount is deducted in any later quarter of the same year whose positive figure allows it. A negative result in the fourth is marked "negativa", because there is no later quarter to deduct it from: it is recovered through the annual tax return and nowhere else.
The withholding already taken from you, and why it is not lost
Box 06 collects the withholding tax borne from 1 January to the end of the quarter. A professional invoicing with 15 % withheld soon discovers that 15 % is below the 20 % instalment only while expenses stay low: as soon as costs bite, cumulative withholding exceeds 20 % of the profit and box 07 goes negative. When that happens box 12 is entered as zero and nothing is paid that quarter. The excess is not lost: boxes 04 and 06 are both computed on the whole year, so the next quarter takes it into account again, and whatever is left in December is set against the final bill in the annual return, where it often becomes a refund.
The two reductions almost nobody claims
The first is the article 110.3.c reduction: if your net business income last year was 12,000 euros or less, you knock off 100, 75, 50 or 25 euros a quarter depending on the band. A previous year with no activity counts as zero income, meaning the top band, and the instruction for box 13 says exactly that. If the reduction is larger than the quarter can absorb, the difference carries into later quarters. The second is the main-home deduction of article 110.3.d: 2 % of the net business income, capped at 660.14 euros a quarter, but only for someone who bought before 1 January 2013 and still holds the right under transitional provision 18, and only while foreseeable annual gross income stays below 33,007.20 euros.
Modelo 130 or modelo 131, and why they are not interchangeable
The 130 is for anyone whose income is determined by direct assessment, normal or simplified. Anyone taxed under módulos, meaning objective assessment, files the modelo 131, which does not take a percentage of real profit but a percentage of the income produced by applying the módulos to a set of base data. They are different forms with different arithmetic, and anyone operating under both regimes files both. This calculator settles section I of the 130: direct assessment for activities other than farming, livestock, forestry and fishing, which belong in section II at 2 % of the quarter’s turnover rather than 20 % of the year’s profit.
Worked example
Example: a self-employed developer has 22,000 € of income and 7,000 € of deductible expenses between January and June, and paid 1,400 € in the first quarter. Year-to-date net income is 15,000 €, 20 % of that is 3,000 €, and after deducting the 1,400 € already paid the second quarter comes to 1,600 € payable, by 20 July or by the 15th if he wants it collected by direct debit. Now suppose he invoices companies that withhold 15 % and has had 3,300 € withheld so far this year. Box 07 then gives 3,000 less 1,400 less 3,300, which is minus 1,700 €: box 12 is entered as zero, he pays nothing this quarter and still files a nil return. Nothing is lost, because in the third quarter both figures are computed on the whole year again.
Frequently asked questions
Who has to file the modelo 130?
How much do you pay on the modelo 130?
When is the modelo 130 due?
What happens if the modelo 130 comes out negative?
Do you file the modelo 130 with no invoices at all?
How is the modelo 130 different from the modelo 303?
What about the modelo 131? Which one applies to me?
Can I deduct my self-employed social security contributions on the modelo 130?
Related calculators & reading
- What the modelo 130 is and how to fill it in →
- Modelo 303 calculator: the quarter’s VAT →
- Self-employed contribution calculator →
- Form 131 calculator: the same instalment, but under módulos →
- Modelo 111 calculator: the withholding you pay over →
- The self-employed contribution base, explained →
- All calculators for the self-employed →
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Sources
- Spanish income-tax Regulation (RD 439/2007): articles 109 to 112, who pays the instalment, how much and when · Boletín Oficial del Estado
- Spanish Income Tax Act 35/2006: article 68.4 (Ceuta and Melilla deduction) and transitional provision 18 (main-home deduction) · Boletín Oficial del Estado
- Order EHA/672/2007, approving the modelo 130 and modelo 131 instalment forms · Boletín Oficial del Estado
- Order EHA/3398/2006, article 1.2: the direct-debit window for the modelo 130 · Boletín Oficial del Estado
- The modelo 130 and its official instructions, box by box · Agencia Tributaria
Author: Thorben Rasmus Idel · Reviewed by: Nahar Geva · Last reviewed: