Compulsory subjects

The self-employed worker him/herself is directly responsible for complying with the obligation to apply for his/her affiliation. The self-employed worker shall have the same subsidiary responsibility regarding his/her collaborating relatives.

Regular Joint Companies, Limited Partnership Companies, and Associated Work Co-operatives shall have the same subsidiary responsibility regarding their associates.

Automatically by the Treasury General of the Social Security when, as a result of actions by the Labour and Social Security Inspection, data in the possession of the Social Security management bodies and common services, or by any other means, non-compliance with the obligation to apply for affiliation on the part of workers subject to said obligation is verified.

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Coverage for the risk of Temporary Disability

Coverage of the economic benefit for temporary disability is obligatory, as of 1 January 2008, in accordance with Law 20/2007 of 11 July, on the Self-Employed Workers' Statute, for:

• Workers affiliated to the Special Scheme for Self-Employed Workers
• Workers who are economically dependent
• Workers who carry out activities for which coverage for occupational contingencies is obligatory due to the high risk of accidents,

and it is optional for:

• Self-employed workers who are entitled to temporary disability benefits from another Social Security Scheme to which they are also affiliated because they carry out more than one activity
• Workers included in the Special Scheme for Self-Employed Agricultural Workers.

The option must be formalised with a Social Security work-related accident and occupational disease mutual society at the time when affiliation to this Special Scheme occurs and its effects will start with this affiliation.

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Coverage for the risk of professional contingencies

Self-employed workers included within this Social Security Special Regime may voluntarily improve the scope of the protective action offered by said Regime, except in the case of dependent self-employed workers and for those who are obliged to accept the said protection because they perform a professional activity with a high risk of accident rate.

For a self-employed worker, work-related injury shall be understood to mean the injury arising as a direct and immediate consequence of the work he or she performs on his or her own account and which determines his or her inclusion within the field of application of said Special Regime. For the same purposes, occupational disease shall be understood to mean the disease contracted as a consequence of the work performed on his or her own account, caused by the action of those elements and substances in those activities specified in the list of occupational diseases and the lists of the main activities capable of causing them, attached to Royal Decree 1995/1978, of 12th May, whereby the set of occupational diseases within the Social Security System was approved.

Self-employed workers' coverage for professional contingencies shall be conducted with the same management or collaborating Body which formalised the temporary disability coverage.

Those established percentages will be applied in determining the contributions for work-related injury and occupational disease contingencies Additional Provision Four   of Law 42/2006 28 December 2006.

Effects of affiliation and termination

Effects of affiliation:

• Initial or successive affiliations become effective from the first day of the calendar month in which all the requirements are met, provided that they have been applied for within the statutory period.
• Affiliations applied for outside the statutory period also become effective from the first day of the calendar month in which the requirements for inclusion within this Special Scheme are met.
• In such cases, notwithstanding the applicable administrative sanctions for late payment, the contributions corresponding to the periods prior to the formalisation of affiliation are due and become effective for the purpose of benefits once they are paid, with the legally applicable surcharges, except when these payments are not required due to expiry and, therefore they are not valid for the purpose of benefits, provided that affiliation was formalised after 1st January 1994.

Effects of termination of affiliation:

• Terminations of affiliation applied for within the specified period and in the specified manner become effective from the first day of the month following the one in which the worker ceased the activity determining his/her inclusion.
• If the worker does not request the termination of affiliation or requests it in a manner and during a period different from the ones specified for this purpose, or if this termination be performed automatically, the continued affiliation will have the effect of making contributions obligatory but the worker will not be considered to have the status of an active contributor regarding entitlement to benefits.
• In this case, the obligation to make contributions does not expire until the day on which the Treasury General of the Social Security becomes aware of the termination of the self-employed activity or of the situation determining inclusion within this Special Scheme.
• Despite the provisions of the previous paragraph, the interested parties may prove, by any of the means admitted by the law for the purpose of terminating the obligation to make contributions, that the termination of the activity took place on a different date.
• Simply requesting the termination of affiliation and its being granted does not end the obligation to make contributions nor does it have the same effects as termination, if the conditions needed for being included in this Special Scheme continue.

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