In 2018, Spain unanimously and with acclaim approved the report intended to establish the Artist's Statute. Eight years later, it is worth examining what has been enacted into law and what remains pending, as the distance between the two speaks volumes regarding how we treat the work of creation.
I begin with what has been achieved, which is not insignificant, and it would be unjust not to acknowledge it. Since 2019, a reduced VAT rate of ten per cent has applied to certain artistic services. Since 2023, the minimum personal income tax withholding for the special employment relationship of artists has been reduced to two per cent, and to seven per cent for the self-employed with earnings under fifteen thousand euros. It was approved to allow the compatibility of retirement pensions with continued creative work, a measure that may appear minor but is not for those who have dedicated their lives to a profession that is not abandoned at sixty-five. Furthermore, since July 2023, a special unemployment benefit designed for artists has existed. These are genuine advancements, and those who campaigned for them for years have the right to count them as a victory.
Consider, however, what these measures have in common. Almost all are fiscal or limited in scope: lowering a withholding rate, reducing a tax, permitting compatibility, or granting a one-hundred-and-twenty-day benefit. These are matters that may be approved by royal decree, which are easily measured and even more easily announced. What remains unresolved is the fundamental issue, that which truly structures the life of a creator and is far more difficult to legislate: intermittency.
Cultural labour does not function as other sectors do. It is not a career of regular income interrupted by occasional stoppages; it is the inverse, a succession of peaks and troughs that constitutes the normal state of the profession, not a breakdown of it. A production, an exhibition, a shoot, followed by months without billable activity whilst the next project is prepared. Protection systems are designed for the exception: one becomes unemployed and receives benefits for a period until the next role, rather than for an entire life defined by discontinuity. France recognised this decades ago with its intermittent entertainment worker regime, which treats such discontinuity as what it is—a structural condition—rather than an individual anomaly that every artist must manage to survive.
Spain lacks this, and it must be stated clearly, as the contrary is sometimes suggested. What exists is a special benefit for one hundred and twenty days, incompatible with self-employment or salaried work whilst in receipt of it, and a reduced contribution rate for self-employed artists with the lowest earnings. These are sensible patches, yet they remain patches. The comprehensive system—a contribution model designed for intermittency, and an unemployment benefit for cessation of activity that accounts for it—remains, eight years after the unanimous report, a stated line of work rather than an enacted regulation. It appears in ministerial notes as a priority. It does not appear in the Official State Gazette.
This is not a technical matter: whilst fundamental protection remains pending, the material reality of the sector is clear. According to the latest socio-labour study by the AISGE Foundation, which surveyed more than three thousand performers, seventy-seven per cent of artists earn less than twelve thousand euros per annum and seventy-two per cent live below the poverty threshold; almost half earn less than three thousand euros annually, and more than half require secondary employment to make ends meet. The study covers actors, dancers, and related profiles, not the entire ecosystem, and this must be stated to avoid exaggeration; however, there is no reason to assume that visual artists, writers, or those working in research and mediation are, on average, significantly better off.
A society that celebrates its artists, that fills museums and prides itself on culture, that unanimously approved their protection, yet has seventy-two per cent of those artists living below the poverty threshold, with protection that has advanced fiscally but fallen short structurally. That distance has a name, and it is not a lack of resources or legislation: it is a hierarchy of priorities. Legislation has been enacted for what is visible and can be announced, whilst that which would require sustained funding and effort has been deferred.
I do not write this as a professional grievance, even though I am an artist and it affects me. I write it because recognition and protection are two distinct concepts, and we have spent years conflating them. To recognise an artist is to applaud them, to cite them, to feature them on a poster, to lower their VAT. To protect them is to ensure they can sustain themselves through their work when that work, by its very nature, does not provide a monthly income. The former is inexpensive and visible. The latter is costly and does not generate headlines. We have done much of the former and little of the latter, and then we are surprised when so many creators abandon their craft, depart, or live on the margins.
The Artist's Statute has not failed; it has accomplished the easier half. The difficult half remains, which is the part that would truly determine whether one can be an artist in this country without also being something else to pay the rent. As long as that half remains in ministerial notes rather than in the Official State Gazette, we shall have recognised much and protected little. And applause, however sincere, does not contribute to social security.
On the open conversation
I write this as an artist and as the head of a cultural entity, not as a specialist in labour law: I rely on published regulations and available studies, and I distinguish between what is in force and what remains announced. The fundamental issue is that recognising creators and protecting them are distinct matters, and that what has been approved thus far has advanced more in the former than in the latter. If anyone wishes to intervene from the perspective of labour law, cultural management, professional associations, or the personal experience of living by one's trade, this notebook remains open.
Sources
Congress of Deputies. Report of the Subcommittee for the drafting of the Artist's Statute, approved by the Plenary on 6 September 2018.
Royal Decree-Law 26/2018 (reduced VAT and intellectual property withholding, effective from 2019). Royal Decree 31/2023 (personal income tax withholdings of 2% and 7%, in force January 2023). Royal Decree-Law 1/2023 (compatibility of retirement with artistic activity and special unemployment benefit, in force 2023). Royal Decree-Law 5/2022 and Royal Decree 607/2026 (special employment relationship; the latter, approved in July 2026, with entry into force on 25 May 2027). BOE.
SEPE. Special unemployment benefit for artists (duration, amount, and requirements).
Ministry of Culture. Note of 12 March 2024 regarding pending lines of work (cultural self-employed, intermittency, irregular earnings).
AISGE Foundation. 5th socio-labour study of artists (performers), via RTVE, 2 February 2024.