For years, be influencer In Spain it was a ghost profession. It promoted million-dollar campaigns and even seemed to modify consumer habits, but legally it remained suspended in a kind of limbo. Brands invested increasingly large amounts in digital creators while the laws were still designed for billboards, radio spots and television spots. In these first years of boom influencer There was an understandable feeling of impunity because the Internet was a kind of lawless territory: many creators began by charging for campaigns without registering as freelancers, accepting international transfers through PayPal, believing that if the money arrived from abroad it was impossible to trace.
And the jug has gone so far to the source that the 2026 Income Tax campaign marks a turning point, because the Treasury no longer observes digital creators as an anecdotal and residual phenomenon, but rather the BOE itself recognizes that there is specific surveillance on digital economic activities and a tightening of fiscal controls for content creators. Come on, during this year at the Treasury they are going to get tired of watching TikToks. Although the classic image of the inspector reviewing dusty folders has been adapted and today data cross-checking is automatic, as Jose María Peláez, spokesperson for the Association of State Treasury Inspectors, told me in the podcast Influ-Realismo Mágico, in the nineties it was gossip magazines that gave a good account of the financial health of celebrities. Therefore, at that time there were already officials dedicated to this purpose. And now social networks are the perfect showcase for the Administration to reconstruct the economic activity of these famous 2.0 and ask for the pertinent explanations. That is to say, in the sin (showing us the buffet breakfast of that cruise that a brand has seen fit to give them) they carry the penance (having to share stories of the buffet breakfast and that the Treasury knows, therefore, that it is a gift).
In addition, the aforementioned Treasury inspector also recognized that technology now facilitates the process: from tools to track from where in the world content is shared to automatic data crossing with any bank. Brands and intermediary agencies have also become serious and now usually require the influencer to provide certificates proving that they are up to date with Treasury and Social Security payments before even starting conversations to close a campaign. Even so, there is still a huge gray area, especially because the influencer economy does not work like a traditional job, since a content creator can receive money but also trips, products, payment in cryptocurrencies, in shares and in services that range from aesthetic interventions to comprehensive home renovations. And all from companies that may or may not be foreign. What a commotion.
What does the Treasury consider income?
There is a scene that repeats itself daily in the email of any influencer: a brand contacts you and proposes a collaboration and then the question comes: is it remunerated or an exchange?
For a long time that difference seemed crucial in the sector. And on a practical level it is: no one can pay the rent with t-shirts. But at the tax level it seemed that if there was money involved we were playing in the grown-ups’ playground, but if it was a gift we could continue sealing the deal without further ado. And one of the biggest clashes between influencer culture and the traditional tax system appears precisely here, in the erroneous perception that a gift is not income, and of course it is: the internet has normalized a parallel economy based on the exchange of visibility for products or services. And the shockwave of the bubble itself, inflated by brands that shower their favorite creators with gifts, has been turning those everyday gifts they received at the dawn of this industry—for example, a pack of creams—into €6,000 luxury bags or a week at a resort in the Maldives. The phenomenon becomes especially delicate when we talk about high-value products, since in practice many influencers have never declared these gifts, either due to ignorance or because for years the industry itself has operated under a collective normalization of that opacity.
The topic is uncomfortable, and none of the parties involved are too interested in regulating it because it dismantles part of the aspirational narrative of social networks. He influencer It asks: what happens when the lifestyle I show to my followers is partially financed by assets for which I will never pay taxes? The brands: what happens if my target audience discovers that I send tons of free product while I don’t give them, my loyal clientele, even a sample for Christmas? So no one is too interested in delving into the subject. Who was interested, by the way, is the measurement platform Traackr, which already in 2023 surveyed 300 marketing professionals, and 60% recognized that less than half of the influencers To those who send gifts, publish something about them.
And the loop can be even more complicated: resale on second-hand platforms. I have seen bags, clothes, makeup, appliances, mattresses and even vitamin supplements being resold mercilessly with these eyes. In some cases they sell these gifts, and in others, directly the product that hours before they have been paid to promote, in a kind of double monetization with a somersault: first they get a few thousand euros for talking about the product and then they sell it on Wallapop for 30 euros. The Huda Beauty brand exposed some of them weeks ago on its Instagram profile (in front of 56 million followers), which in addition to keeping us very entertained for a couple of days showed us that it is not an isolated practice nor limited to the Spanish picaresque. All of this happens on platforms where we remember that, in addition, there is increasingly greater fiscal traceability.
The Treasury inspector told us that if a influencer He receives a bag worth €3,000 as a gift, declares that amount as profit and decides to sell it for €2,000. He is not obliged to declare this sale because in theory there has been no profit, but a loss. But in practice it is not difficult to guess what is really happening.
Creators who pay taxes as companies
One of the first tools used by those who did not want to pay the corresponding taxes but did not want to move to a tax haven was to create companies to begin paying taxes as companies and stop doing so as individuals. In this way, a influencer Anyone who exceeds the personal income tax bracket of €60,000 per year goes from paying 47% as a self-employed person to paying around 25% if they do so through a company. The savings are so substantial that the national show business is littered with examples of celebrities who have been caught in a waiver. And the use of companies is not illegal, what may be illegal is using them artificially. The legal problem is complex, but in the case of influencers it can perhaps be summarized as follows: if a brand hires a person for their image or ability to influence, the Treasury may consider that the performance belongs to the natural person and not to the intermediary company. That is to say, the conflict appears when society exists only as a screen and the activity remains purely personal. In fact, the Superior Court of Justice of Madrid considered it this way in 2022 and ruled that El Rubius had used one of these companies to pay less taxes, a fact for which he was sentenced to pay almost €73,000.
Following this, numerous inspections have been carried out and the criteria are not always uniform, because in the world influencer almost everything is mixed. The rulings related to artists have been gradually building a jurisprudence, but in the case of content creators there is not such a clear separation between the worker and the company, in addition to the means used, since the economy influencer It adds an even more confusing layer as many of them have real teams: representatives, video editors, stylists, photographers… That is, some actually operate as small audiovisual companies.
Tax residence and center of economic activity
Few countries have generated more conversation in the ecosystem influencer Spanish than Andorra. For years, moving to the neighboring country became almost a generational rite within the world, and once it became a trend, it became a national debate. Some of those who have left can barely contain their laughter while talking about platitudes such as nature or security, and assure, very immersed in their role, that they enjoy a quality of life there by living near the mountains (for money, I imagine). Others, quietly, recognize that they have left to pay less and encourage their streams of followers to do the same. I have to admit that of this whole bunch of profiteers, the latter are my right eye. If one is so petty as to stop contributing to the country where one has studied a degree or has had meniscus surgery, one owes us (as a last resort to the parguelas who are left here holding back) a little sincerity. We do not want more slit-the-lamb speeches like those who, upon being discovered in their new tax residence, claim not to have shared it because it is part of their privacy. Intimacy is if your boyfriend likes otaku stuff in bed, not if the book I buy you is taxed in the country where I live.
Also in this case the issue is much more complex than what is usually summarized on social networks, because tax residence does not depend solely on spending a certain number of days outside of Spain, but on something called a center of economic activity. And this is where the internet once again breaks traditional patterns, because a influencer You can record in Mexico, upload videos from Lisbon, get paid from an American platform and have mainly Spanish followers, since the internet has relocated work as we knew it. So the Treasury analyzes multiple factors to determine the actual tax residence: where the person lives, but also where their family unit is, where they carry out their main activity, where they have economic interests, where they consume… And in the case of influencerssocial networks once again become a huge involuntary generator of evidence, which is why the Treasury always keeps an eye on it.
And so, between storiesdiscount codes, sponsored trips and the brain a little stupid because of the infinite scroll, one thing is clear to us: social networks promised visibility for everyone, and they have delivered. Today the followers, the brands and, of course, also the Treasury have it.
Lorena Macías is the founder of the creative communication agency Make me a public as well, host of the podcast Influ-Realismo Mágico and creator of the Instagram account .
