What Spain's self-employed should know about getting paid through Bizum

Local Spain

26-05-2025

Some self-employed people (autónomos) in Spain heavily rely on getting paid through Bizum, an app, which allows you to make payments or request money from a phone number, if you have a Spanish account number from a bank linked to it.
Bizum has over 20 million users in Spain and is how many Spaniards choose to split the bill, pay small amounts for services and even pay their rent.
If you get paid part of your income through Bizum, however, you should already know that you have to be careful because it has certain limits and conditions when it comes to paying taxes in Spain.
This means that payments are recorded in the same way as other banks, so you must make sure you're declaring any income you receive through the app, including gifts from family and friends.
Up until now, only amounts over €3,000 were recorded and sent to the Tax Agency, but starting in January 2026, the authorities will begin receiving detailed data every month on all transactions carried out by freelancers and small businesses through Bizum and other payment platforms, regardless of the amount of each transaction.
From this date onwards platforms must submit the identification of the professional or company receiving payments, the merchant number, the sales terminals used, whether or not they are in Spain, the monthly amount billed, the type of payment method and payment destination.
This means that any amount, no matter how small, will be reported to the Treasury from next year.
This cross-referencing will allow the Tax Agency to verify the amount of income compared to your tax returns and detect small amounts of undeclared income, as well as the large amounts, like the current situation.
Under declaring is in fact common for small businesses in Spain and something that the government are intent on fighting against, so you have to be extra careful and make sure you declare everything correctly. Stats show the underground economy represents about 15.8 percent of Spain's GDP.
This all means that from next year the situation will become very complicated for autónomos because if you use Bizum for your business, but you also use it with friends and family, there will be very little distinction between the two.
For example, if a friend pays you back via Bizum for a coffee you bought them or you buy tickets for a group of friends to go to the cinema and they each pay you back individually, it will look as though you've received income. You obviously won't have reported these amounts as income on your quarterly tax return because they're not – it's just friends paying you back for money they owe you.
With this new reform, Bizum will go from being an app for transfers between friends into another tool for tax audits and increase the Tax Agency's control over the self-employed.
If you do work for yourself and use Bizum to collect payments for services or sales, all professional income received through Bizum and similar platforms must be declared along with the corresponding VAT.
Occasional payments between individuals for do not require a declaration if they do not exceed €10,000 per year and are not for commercial purposes. This is the same with reimbursements between friends or family, as long as they are not professional income.
It may however, be confusing for both you and for the Tax Agency to distinguish between the two and decide which are reimbursements and which is income from clients or customers, therefore, you must learn to identify and classify the transactions in order to differentiate between personal and professional income.
Professional income from Bizum must be accompanied by a corresponding invoice and be taxed like any other income from work.
This means it's essential to keep records, invoices, and receipts for payments received via Bizum. Your bank should also allow you to view and download your Bizum transaction history to help.
Failure to declare taxable income can result in fines ranging from €3,000 for a minor infraction, as well as a surcharge of up to 50 percent of the amount that was not paid. ​
For a serious offence when undeclared income exceeds €3,000 there could also be a surcharge of between 50 and 100 percent of the amount that was not declared.
Finally, for very serious offences you will be fined 150 percent of the amount not declared. It is considered a tax crime if the amount defrauded exceeds €120,000.
Our journalists at The Local are not tax experts, we learned the hard way by reading laws and rules, and speaking with experts. If you're unsure about how to declare any payments or which payments you should declare it's important to contact a tax professional in order to advise you.