Blog

For about ten years, almost all Spanish administrations have been implementing improvements so that you can carry out all kinds of online procedures. If you used to wait in line at the Treasury, Social Security or SEPE, now you can save time and do it all with your digital certificate. 

In this article, we will show you what it is, what it is for, how you can get and install it and everything it can do for you.

What is a digital certificate?

Let’s say it is like your ID card but on the Internet. It is a file that is installed in your browser and the different pages of the Administrations look for it when they need to know who you are. On our Tools page, you can find a tutorial on how to obtain it.

There are three types of digital certificates: for individuals, for legal entities (companies, for example) and for non-profit entities. If you are self-employed, you must request a free certificate for individuals.

What is it for?

The digital certificate helps to accredit you online before the different administrations and thus be able to carry out the procedures you need. Below we will see examples of what you can do with it. 

What should be clear to you is that if you are self-employed, you cannot manage your business without a digital certificate!

No, it is not a phrase used hastily. Most documentation and procedures of the Tax Agency and Social Security require an installed digital certificate.

How do I get a digital certificate?

You must request it through the website of the FNMT (Fábrica de Monedas y Timbres). In this tutorial, we explain step by step how to do the whole process.

Don’t forget to back up the certificate once you have downloaded and installed it! We recommend that you keep this copy in the cloud or somewhere that you know you can access at any time. 

By our experience, many clients forget to make this copy. When they urgently need it, they must ask for the certificate again.

Also, write down a reminder in your calendar with the expiration date of your certificate once you have downloaded it. In the case of individuals, it is four years, and then you have to renew it. Usually, if you leave your email to the FNMT when requesting the certificate, they remind you of the expiration by sending you a reminder email.

What can I do with the digital certificate?

Soon we would have to change this question to what you cannot do, but there we go:

– Register or deregister from Social Security and the Tax Agency

– Ask for your working life and other reports in pdf

– Request certificates to be up to date with the payment of the self-employed fee and your tax obligations

– Make an appointment in Hacienda

– Change your tax address, telephone and email in Social Security and the Treasury

– You can file your taxes and consult the forms already submitted (the most common are personal income tax, that is, form 100 and the annual VAT summary, form 390)

– You can change the bank account in which Social Security domiciles the self-employed payment (another tutorial about that)

– Change Mutual for the following tax year

– Submit claims and resources

– Pay your fines at DGT (General direction of traffic)

– For many regional or state grants they ask you to register with your digital certificate, and you can track and upload documentation

– Ask for deferrals on Social Security debts or deferrals of your tax payments at the Treasury

We can continue this list for at least two more pages. You can see everything you can do in Social Security by clicking on the Electronic Office and the same at the Treasury.

Once you have the digital certificate installed, try accessing some Social Security reports, for example, to verify that everything works correctly. Please do not leave it for the last moment when you need it and find out it doesn’t work!

You may have to change some options in your browser or even in your computer settings. If you have problems, don’t hesitate to look for solutions in the technical support part of the FNMT website! We encourage you even to call them because they solve the problem for you quickly.

Related articles

How to Make an Appointment in Hacienda

Calculate Your Self-employed Payments In Spain

Taxes Paid By The Self-employed In Spain