Spain added 474 self-employed workers per day in September, according to the average RETA affiliation data. This amounts to a total of 14,229 more contributors to Social Security, rising from 3,469,416 self-employed in August to 3,483,645 one month later.
“The employment data we’ve learned today reflect a September that performed well, with more than 14,000 new self-employed workers”, said Lorenzo Amor, president of ATA. “This is the positive figure. But we can’t ring the bells. There are sectors like retail that are going through a very difficult period, with a loss of almost 800 shopkeepers in a single month.”
“There deserves a special mention for Ceuta, a city where the situation is taking its toll on the self-employed: there is a year-on-year loss (44 fewer self-employed than September 2025), annual loss (29 fewer) and monthly loss (9 fewer),” added the ATA president.
Six Spanish regions lose self-employed workers in September
Focusing on the self-employed group, overall there has been a very positive trend. 474 self-employed workers joined the RETA daily, a total of 14,229 Social Security contributors more.
Despite these data, not all regions are registering this growth: there are 6 that keep losing self-employed workers in the last month: Castile and León (-380), Galicia (-298), Aragon (-84), Extremadura (-78), Cantabria (-57) and Asturias and Ceuta, both with a loss of 9 contributors.
On the other end, in absolute terms, the Community of Madrid is the one that adds the most self-employed workers in September, with an increase of 3,642, and a percentage increase that is also the highest in Spain, at 0.8%, doubling the national average of 0.4%.
Followed by entrepreneurial momentum are Andalusia with an increase of 0.5% in its self-employed workers and, in absolute terms, 3,289 more self-employed in September and Catalonia, with an increase of 3,121 new self-employed (+0.5%).
Also notable is the growth of the Valencian Community (+2,653 self-employed in September), up +0.7%. Of the two autonomous cities, Melilla adds 28 self-employed in a month, while Ceuta registers a decline of 9 self-employed workers.
Regarding activity sectors, education, as is typical in September, is the sector that adds the most self-employed (+3,176), followed by construction (+2,904), professional activities (+2,766) and health and social care activities (+2,086).
Conversely, there are sectors that fail to add self-employed, such as retail, which continues its downward trend with a drop of 763 self-employed in a single month, and hospitality, which records a decrease of -2,315, largely due to the end of the summer season in many parts of Spain.
