As the third quarter of the year has ended, it becomes evident how the situation faced by thousands of self-employed workers remains virtually unchanged and is far from improving. The ongoing rise in production costs and the inability to continue absorbing the generalized cost increases continue to take a toll on independent workers. Thus, the latest ATA Barometer shows that nearly six in ten self-employed individuals (58.3%) expect to have to raise the prices of their products or services again before the end of 2026. Moreover, seven in ten (70.9%) have already been forced to raise their prices in the last twelve months to cushion the inflationary surge.
This price hike occurs against a backdrop of shrinking revenues: four in ten report that their turnover has fallen compared with the third quarter of 2025, a six-point rise from 33.7% in the previous quarter. The convergence of rising costs, lower sales, and a climate of sociopolitical instability that 86.5% say they experience in their day-to-day lives has fueled mid-term pessimism: the share of self-employed who see their business at real risk of closure or being forced to make a significant reduction over the next three years jumps from 11.0% recorded in June to 17.5% today.
Business Situation and Outlook
As we have been doing since April 2020, we want to understand the situation of the self-employed and their activities in real time. Since 2020 there has been a succession of events – both nationally and internationally, both economic and natural or political – that have made the continuity of many self-employed ventures very difficult. Now, the national and international situation we are living in does not help to create the stability our self-employed people and businesses need.
In this third quarter of 2026, the perception of how the business has evolved over the past year shows a clear slowdown. More than a third of the self-employed surveyed, the 35.6%, say their business has declined compared to the third quarter of 2025, a figure that worsens considerably compared with the 29.7% recorded in the June barometer. Meanwhile, only two in ten self-employed (19.6%) say their activity has increased (two points lower than the previous 21.6%), while 42.2% have managed to keep it stable.
Outlooks for the remainder of 2026 remain characterized by restraint and pessimism. Practically three out of ten self-employed (the 29.3%) believe their activity will get worse in the coming months, surpassing the 25.6% reflected in the second quarter. The 47.2% expect to stay at current levels and only 15.4% foresee growth in their business volume.
In the medium term, the most alarming indicator sits in the outlook for the next three years: the share of self-employed who admit their business is at real risk of closing or facing a significant reduction shoots up by almost seven points, from 11.0% in June to 17.5% in September. If you add the 21.6% who foresee a moderate decline in activity, nearly four in ten self-employed (39.1%) view their operations with concern over the next three years. On the positive end, almost one in four self-employed, 19.4%, expects an improvement (14.8% modest and 3.6% notable).
Another aspect that was requested is that quantify how their turnover has evolved compared with the same quarter in 2025. Thus, it is clear that the situation has worsened versus the previous quarter: only 22.7% of self-employed say their turnover has increased, compared with 23.8% in the second quarter of the year.
Meanwhile, 34.6% of self-employed respond that their turnover has remained similar to that recorded in the third quarter of 2025 and 39.5% consider that it has decreased. With these data in hand, about three-quarters of self-employed (the 74.1%) report that their turnover has been lower or similar to the previous year, a share of dissatisfaction that rises from 71.6% recorded in the previous barometer.
Of the 22.7% who say their turnover has grown, the vast majority note that the increase has been below 15% (51.9% grew less than 10% and 33.0% between 11% and 15%). At the opposite end, only 4.7% of this group say their turnover increase was above 21%.
Regarding the 39.5% who have seen their turnover fall in this period, the decline is more pronounced: 41.6% quantify the drop in their activity at more than 11%, surpassing the 40.4% recorded in the second quarter. The remainder of those affected by the loss of turnover is split between 42.2% who suffered a decline of between 6% and 10%, and 16.2% who experienced a fall of up to 5%.
In the chapter on the costs affecting self-employed activities, the squeeze from costs continues without relief: eight in ten self-employed, 81.0%, say their expenses have risen in the last 12 months, a slight uptick from 79.9% in the second quarter. And of that 81.0% of self-employed facing continued cost increases, more than one in five (21.9%) say this rise is over 16% (10.8% place the increase between 16% and 20%, and 11.1% — two and a half points more than in June — say their costs have surged by more than 20%). Moreover, almost half of those affected (46.4%) place the cost increases between 5% and 10%, while 26.9% place it between 11% and 15%.
Meanwhile, 14.5% of self-employed explain that their expenses have stayed the same as in the same period last year, versus 15.2% in the previous barometer. On the opposite end, there remains a merely token percentage of businesses that manages to breathe a little, with only 3.4% of those surveyed in ATA’s Barometer reporting a reduction in expenses over the last year, staying at levels virtually identical to 3.3% recorded in the second quarter.
On the other hand, ATA’s data show that seven in ten self-employed say they have had to raise their prices due to the continued escalation of costs, a figure that, while slightly down from the 75.6% reached in the second quarter, confirms that the vast majority of the sector has had to raise their rates in the past year to cushion the added costs. In contrast, 26.3% say they have shouldered the price increase alone, keeping their prices frozen, four points higher than the 22.2% reflected in the previous barometer.
Regarding what they expect to do in the short/medium term through year-end, the outlook worsens: almost six in ten self-employed, 58.3%, state that if things continue as they have been, they will be forced to raise them again in the final stretch of the year, representing an increase of more than four percentage points from 54.2% in Q2. Meanwhile, 24.4% of respondents expect not to have to do so, while the share who admit “don’t know yet” what will happen with their tariffs falls to 16.0%, down from 22.7% trapped in uncertainty in June.
