Special Scheme for Self-Employed Agricultural Workers

Workers who meet the following requirements (art. 324 LGSS):

• They must own an agricultural holding and derive at least 50 percent of their total income from agricultural or other complementary activities, and this part of their income must derive directly from the agricultural activity carried out on their holding and must not be less than 25 percent of their total income.
• The working time spent on agricultural activities must be more than half of their total working time.
• That the net annual returns obtained from the agricultural holding by each holder of the holding does not exceed an amount equivalent to 75% of the amount, on an annual basis, of the maximum contribution basis for the General Social Security Scheme in force in the financial year in which it is checked.
• Carry out agricultural work even if they a worker employed by another person, provided that there are no more than two workers paying contributions on a monthly basis or, in the case of workers paying contributions in accordance with article 255, that the total number of actual days worked does not exceed 546 in a year, calculated from 1 January to 31 December of each year.
  

The restrictions on the employment of workers referred to in the previous paragraph shall apply to each agricultural holding. If there are two or more owners on the agricultural holding, all of whom are registered in the Special System for self-employed agricultural workers of the Special Scheme for Self-Employed Workers, one more worker will be added to the number of workers or days' wages provided for in the previous paragraph, for each owner of the agricultural holding, excluding the first.

In this special system, an agricultural holding is understood to be the set of assets and rights organised by its owner, in the exercise of agricultural activity, which in itself constitutes a technical-economic unit, and the owner or owners of the holding may be the owner, lessee, sharecropper, assignee or any other similar concept, of the land or material elements of the respective agricultural holding.

In this respect, agricultural activity is understood to mean all the work required to obtain agricultural, livestock and forestry products, including for these purposes the direct sale by the farmer of their own production without processing or the first processing thereof whose final product is included in Annex I to Article 38 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, within the elements that make up the holding, at municipal markets or in places that are not permanent commercial establishments, with agricultural activity also being considered to be any activity that involves the management or the direction and management of the holding.

As well as the owner of the agricultural holding, joining this special scheme will also affect their spouse and family members up to the third degree inclusive who are not considered to be employees, wherever they are over the age of eighteen and carry out agricultural work personally and directly on the family holding.

Children of the owner of the agricultural holding who are under 30 years of age, even if they live with the owner, may be employed by the owner as employees.