Not everyone can be considered as a collaborating self-employed person. Neither can distant relatives who do not have any degree of consanguinity with the self-employed owner of the business be considered as collaborating self-employed.

For this reason, a series of requirements are established in order to be considered as a collaborating self-employed person:

• They must be a direct relative of the self-employed: spouse, descendants, ascendants and other relatives up to the second degree of consanguinity or affinity.
• The collaborating relative must be employed on a regular basis with the self-employed person. It must not be a one-off or sporadic collaboration.
• The collaborating relative must live in the self-employed person’s home and be dependent on him/her.
• They must not be registered as an employee, i.e. they must not be contributing to the general social security system.

Minors under 16 years of age cannot be considered collaborating self-employed because they cannot work legally according to the Workers’ Statute.

The collaborating self-employed have large bonuses on the self-employed contribution that must be paid monthly to the Social Security. This is an incentive for self-employed workers to hire family members.

The aim of these bonuses is to put an end to family members who work for the self-employed without paying contributions. Therefore, these measures aim to ensure that these people enter the labour market and find themselves carrying out an activity in a completely legal manner.

The main advantage of being a collaborating self-employed worker is that he/she does not have the obligation to present quarterly VAT and Personal Income Tax returns, as these are the obligation of his/her relative, the self-employed owner of the business. In other words, the collaborating self-employed person does not have to file the VAT form 303 or the personal income tax form 130 every three months.

The collaborating self-employed will only have to file their annual income tax return, as any other worker does, and pay the corresponding taxes based on the income obtained. This income must be justified by means of receipts or pay slips. There are large allowances for self-employed collaborators, which allow them to reduce their tax burden considerably.

On the other hand, the self-employed holder is obliged to pay the social security contributions of the collaborating family member and pay him/her a salary in accordance with his/her professional category. The self-employed owner must count the salary of the collaborating self-employed as deductible expenses for the business he/she owns.

In order to be eligible for unemployment benefit in the case of self-employed collaborators, the following conditions must be met:

• Not being a spouse, children, grandchildren, parents or grandparents.
• The worker is not a relative up to the second degree.
• The worker does not live in the same household as the employer.
• The time during which the contract has been maintained and the period of social security contributions will be taken into account.

There is no single element that enables or prevents the self-employed collaborator from collecting unemployment benefits. Each case is different and the SEPE will be the body in charge of stipulating this.

However, the objective will be to prove that there was in fact a real employment relationship with payment of actual wages, and economic independence from the business owner.

If you want to hire a family member as a collaborating self-employed person so that they can benefit from unemployment benefit, go to your nearest Social Security office first, so that they can give you detailed advice on your situation.