The grounds for which a self-employed worker may be considered to have legally ceased their activities with a right to the benefit are as follows:
- Economic, technical, production or organizational grounds that lead to the infeasibility of continuing the economic or professional activity.
If there is a premise open to the public, it must remain closed while receiving the benefit for cease of activity except in cases of professionals who work together. Notwithstanding, a self-employed worker who owns the property where the premises is located may continue to enjoy the use of the property as long as it does not involve the self-employed worker’s continuity in the ceased activity.
Infeasibility to continue an activity is assumed when there are losses in a complete year of more than 10% in revenue, there is an enforceable court or administrative decision to collect a debt comprising 30% of their revenue and/or an insolvency filing.
- Force majeure which determines the cease of activity.
- A loss of an administrative licence, when said licence is needed to develop the activity and the loss is not due to having committed a criminal violation.
- Gender violence which led to the cease of activity, only in the case of female self-employed workers.
- Divorce or marital separation when the self-employed worker held a position as a family-member assistant in the ex-spouse’s business.
And if you are autonomous economically dependent…
In addition to the foregoing situations, you must also prove one of these reasons:
- The end of the established duration of your contract.
- A serious contractual breach by your client.
- An unjustified cancellation of the contractual relationship by the client as per the Self-Employed Workers’ Statute.
- The client’s death, incapacity or retirement if such situation prevents the continuity of the activity.
These grounds also apply to self-employed workers not recognized as economically dependent whenever their activity complies with the conditions for being considered economically dependent.
Self-employed workers who voluntarily cease or interrupt their activity, except when there is a serious contractual breach by the client, will not be considered to be in a legal situation of a cease of activities.
Economically dependent self-employed workers will also not be acknowledged as having legally ceased their activities when they enter into another contract with the same client who had previously ended their working relationship in a period of one year. Moreover, in this case, the self-employed worker must return all benefit sums improperly received.