The over -regulatory burden and fiscal pressure have turned business activity into a bureaucratic hell, which has transformed the excess of prohibitions and the rise of taxes and quotes into a ballast for entrepreneurship and business development in Spain. These obstacles already have an impact close to 3.5% of GDP, while regional regulatory fragmentation has another similar impact – of 3.5% of GDP -, and the global cost of regulatory excess and fiscal pressure have reduced the economic capacity of households and companies by 230,000 million.
Mandatory regulations for Spanish companies have triggered more than 1,000%, from 14 standards in 2012 to the more than 180 of the last full year. A percentage that rises by 1,600% if the recommendations on business conduct standards – with 13 in 2012, in front of more than 200 in 2022 – are taken into account. This regulatory tsunami is sinking the investment capacity of companies, discouraging the creation of societies and drowning their resources, especially in the case of SMEs, which represent 98% of the Spanish business fabric. This is noted by the General Council of Economists (CGE), which has criticized that the administration is inflexible and requires compliance with the regulations to companies under the threat of large sanctions, although she “is exempted from the information report when it is precisely this one who should serve as an example to the rest of the actors.”
In total, the cost of this hyperregulation so that companies can operate in the EU and within Spain amounts to 90,000 million euros, a figure equivalent to 4,660 euros for each SME and that will cause Spain to lose up to 100,000 jobs in the next decade for the accumulation of “new requirements, restrictions and regulatory prohibitions”, according to the study “Business Asphyxiation” prepared by the Juan de Mariana Institute.
The second of the obstacles to business development is the growing fiscal pressure. According to the tax indicator of the European Commission applied by analysts of the Juan de Mariana Institute, the tax burden in Spain has increased by 127,744 million euros in nominal terms. With a population of 48.6 million inhabitants and 19.3 million homes, the increase in fiscal burden since Pedro Sánchez arrived at La Moncloa is equivalent to an additional payment of 2,627 euros per person or, discounting inflation, an effort of 1,223 euros, in real terms. Distributing the collection increase between the number of households, the climb would be equivalent to 6,614 euros.
Between the Treasury and Social Security they have raised about 140,000 million more than in 2018, 43% more thanks to the rise of 94 tax figures in seven years, according to sources of the Popular Party. A collection growth that does not go in line with that of GDP, which has done it 22%, or with social security affiliates – 9.2% more – “which proves that the increase in collection is due in large part to an increase in parameters such as affiliation, but another very important part has occurred due to the increase in taxes,” they affect the PP. A reality that is clearer if the comparison is made between the collection of the personal income tax against an increase in employment. While the first thing has shot 45% the second has done just over 9%.
Only in social contributions, the difference between 2018 (115,000 million) and 2024 (165,000 million) is 50,000 million, an increase of 43% and 11,000 million above the year 2023. Therefore, if the 140,000 million extras collected by the Treasury plus the 90 million regulatory cost are added, regardless of the increase in social quotas, the pockets of companies and homes have suffered 230,000 million since Pedro Sánchez is president of the Government.
Special incidence has had the over -regulatory burden in Spanish trade, which suffered only in 2024 the approval and publication of 3.4 new standards per day, so that currently opens a commercial business, it forces to have to comply with 3,000 community, state, autonomic and local standards with direct impact on its activity, in addition to having to attend 1,253 new texts and modifications of the existing standards. In 2019, 1.3 standards were approved per day, so the regulatory volume has practically tripled. A situation that from CEOE and from the sectoral employers of commerce call “unsustainable”, by encrypting this regulatory overload in 13% of GDP and 17% of national employment, and warning that everything suggests that it will continue to increase to the same record of record as until now “for the growing intervention of the government.”
The president of CEOE, Antonio Garamendi, has several times that this situation impacts in an especially negative way on small businesses, because “it is clear that fewer laws are needed, and that these laws are of more quality and do not become improvised.” In the case of Cepyme, it requires political parties to “urgently” approach measures to end this over -regulation for “adverse effects on competitiveness.”
The government seems to make deaf ears and has promised that it will maintain its regulatory roadmap and that there is room to raise fiscal pressure to four more points, which would result in 60,000 million euros of extra collection.