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One in three self-employed in Spain will have no holiday this summer

Autumn is the preferred season to get away for those who cannot take a break in the summer, but 25% expect that they will not take a single day off in 2025

Monday, 30 June 2025, 18:15

Santiago Matilla has not set foot on the beach for several summers despite living in a coastal town. He has a small fleet of taxis in a town in Mallorca and the months of July and August are synonymous with hard work: not a day off, just trips to and from the airport.

"There is no respite," he says. The summer period, which for millions of Spaniards means rest, represents sacrifice for a good percentage of the self-employed.

One in three self-employed workers will not take a holiday this summer. This is reflected in a recent survey by the national federation of self-employed workers' associations (ATA), according to which only 43.7% of the self-employed plan to take a holiday this summer.

Some 11.4% will get away at another time of the year, while 13.1% have not yet decided whether they will be able to rest. The most alarming figure in the study is that one in four self-employed workers say that they do not plan to take a single day off in 2025 as a whole. The picture does not get any better when you look back: 23.2% have not taken a holiday for more than a year, regardless of the time of year. Of these, 12% say they have not closed their business in more than three years.

When do the self-employed take a break? Half do so in the autumn and 20.9% in the winter. Summer, therefore, is neither viable nor attractive for many of these workers, who prefer to wait until activity or prices fall.

Sectoral differences

But the situation varies considerably depending on the sector in which they work. Among the self-employed in tourism, only 10.2% rest in the summer and almost half (49%) do so out of season. In the hotel and catering sector, only 25.4% rest in the summer.

Matilla, for example, has preferred to take a break in December and January for decades, because that is when he returns to the mainland to visit his family at Christmas and when he takes a trip outside Spain, because prices go down.

In contrast, in transport and construction, around 44% do take a break during the holiday months, while in agriculture and industry, less than 30% take a summer break.

Why don't they rest? The main reason is financial. More than half of the self-employed who do not go on holiday attribute this to a lack of financial resources. Another 37.5% said that they could not take time off, because they had to manage their business personally. In total, almost 9 out of 10 self-employed who do not go on a holiday do so for economic or structural reasons.

For those who do take time off, the main reason is that their activity is reduced in the summer (37.1%), which allows them to enjoy a few days with family and friends (35.1%). "What is undeniable is that the holidays of the self-employed, if they have them, last two weeks, while the vast majority cannot disconnect, because they have to take care of their business," says ATA president Lorenzo Amor.

Who takes a holiday?

On the other hand, having employees also makes a difference. One in four workers go on holiday, because they have workers to delegate to and 16.2% combine their holidays with work, so they never completely disconnect. Only 56.6% can completely close their business.

"Another important aspect to highlight is that women take more summer holidays than men," says Amor. The main profile of the self-employed person who can take a holiday, according to the ATA's survey, is that of a woman - 47.9% compared to 40.7% of men - located in an urban environment with a professional activity not in the tourism sector and in the interior of the country, with dependent workers.

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surinenglish One in three self-employed in Spain will have no holiday this summer

One in three self-employed in Spain will have no holiday this summer