Ask the internet how to turn a salary into a freelance rate and you get one answer, over and over: multiply by 1.5. It is a useful starting point and a dangerous finishing point. At Remote Work Europe we watch people move abroad, go freelance, and then undercharge for a year, because the quick rule misses half of what a rate has to carry – especially once you are self-employed in another country. This is the honest version of the sum.

(General information, not tax advice. Figures below are illustrative and rounded to show the shape of the calculation; confirm your own numbers for your situation.)

The short version

“Multiply your salary by 1.5” is a starting point, not the answer – and it is usually too low, especially if you are moving abroad. Your freelance rate has to cover everything an employer used to fund invisibly – tax, social security, pension, holidays, sick days, equipment, downtime – spread across the roughly 180 days a year you can actually bill, not 220. Work it out properly and your rate can still cost a client less than employing you, while paying you more than your old take-home.

Why “multiply by 1.5” isn’t enough

The 1.5 rule exists because people sense that a freelance rate has to be higher than the salary-equivalent, and it is roughly right for a settled freelancer in their home country with steady work. It falls apart in exactly the situation many readers are in: you are moving countries, becoming self-employed for the first time, and taking on costs a home-country employee never sees – another country’s social security, a new tax system, and the gaps of a client base you are still building. The multiplier hides all of that inside a single number that is easy to set too low.

The wrong sum, and why it feels right

The instinct is to take your salary, divide by the number of working days in a year – call it 220 – and use that as your day rate. It feels rigorous because it involves division. It is wrong because both numbers are wrong: the salary understates what your work was really worth to an employer, and 220 wildly overstates how many days you can actually bill.

The right sum

Turn it around. Add up everything your rate now has to produce in a year – the money you want to keep, plus every cost you used to have handled for you – and divide by the days you can genuinely bill. That gives you the rate you need, rather than the rate that merely matches your old take-home while leaving you out of pocket.

Two numbers make the difference: the costs, and the billable days.

The costs no one counts

When you were employed, a lot was handled for you – some of it deducted from your pay before you ever saw it, some of it paid by your employer entirely out of sight. As a freelancer, your rate has to generate all of it. (We use a UK-to-Spain move as the running example here, but the principle is the same wherever you are moving from and to.)

  • Income tax – now yours to calculate, set aside and pay on a schedule.
  • Social security / state contributions – called different things in different places: National Insurance in the UK, the autónomo contribution to Seguridad Social in Spain, and their equivalents elsewhere. Two things are worth grasping here. First, you already paid this as an employee – it came out of your gross pay before it ever reached your account, so it felt invisible even though it wasn’t. Second, your employer paid a further slice on top that you never saw at all. As a freelancer, both of those become yours to fund. In Spain the autónomo contribution is income-based and due whether or not work is flowing (see our guide to autónomo social-security payments for current figures).
  • Pension – as an employee, your employer very likely paid into your pension on top of your salary (a workplace auto-enrolment minimum in the UK, and often more). That contribution simply stops when you go freelance, and it is one of the most-overlooked lines in a rate calculation. If you want to keep saving at the same level, you now fund both your old contribution and the employer’s former share yourself, out of your rate.
  • Holidays and sick days – nobody pays you for a day you don’t work. A month of time off across the year is a month of unbilled income to price in.
  • Equipment, software, insurance, and an accountant or gestoría.
  • Downtime and admin – the hours spent invoicing, chasing payment, doing your books and finding the next client, none of which you can bill to anyone.

That last group is the one people forget entirely, and it is substantial.

How many days can you actually bill?

Start from 365. Take out weekends. Take out the holidays and sick days you are now funding yourself. Take out the time you will spend on admin, marketing and finding work. Take out the honest gaps between contracts, especially in your first year or two. A full-time freelancer who plans well bills somewhere around 180 days a year, not 220 – and often fewer at the start.

This is the number that breaks the naïve sum. A rate calculated on 220 days but delivered across 180 leaves you roughly 18% short before you have paid for anything on the list above.

The reveal: you can charge more and still cost less

Here is the part that gives people the confidence to price properly. Because your old employer was also paying employer social security, pension contributions, equipment and overheads on top of your salary, the true cost of employing you was well above your headline pay. A freelance rate that covers all your new costs and pays you more than your old take-home can still come in below what it cost to employ you.

Take a £50,000 salary. You took home around £39,000 after tax and National Insurance. You cost your employer closer to £60,000 once their on-costs are added. A sustainable freelance rate sits in the space between those two numbers: more than £39,000 in your pocket, less than £60,000 to the client. Priced there, everyone wins – which is exactly why underpricing is a mistake, not a kindness.

The cross-border twist

Everything above is true for any freelancer. Moving country adds a layer the calculators ignore. You are now inside a different tax and social-security system, and in Spain the autónomo contribution is a real, recurring cost you pay whether or not the work is flowing. Your billable-days estimate should be more conservative in a new country, not less, because your network and pipeline start closer to zero. And you will want a larger buffer than a settled freelancer, because the safety nets you had as an employee – notice periods, redundancy pay, sick pay – are gone.

None of this makes the move a bad idea. It makes the rate higher than the quick rule suggests, which is the whole point of doing the sum honestly.

A quick sanity check

Two rough checks keep you honest:

  1. Work back from what you need to keep. Decide the annual income you actually need, add your best estimate of the costs above, and divide by ~180. If the resulting day rate makes you wince, that is information, not a reason to discount – it is what the work has to be worth.
  2. Compare to your employer’s real cost, not your salary. If your rate comes in below what it cost to employ you, you are competitive. If it sits below your old take-home, you are subsidising your clients.

Don’t talk yourself down

The most common and most expensive freelance mistake is charging what feels comfortable rather than what the numbers require. A rate that only matches your old salary means you are working without a pension, without paid leave, without sick pay and without cover, for the same money you earned when someone else provided all of those. That is not a rate; it is a pay cut you volunteered for.

Frequently asked questions

How much should I charge as a freelancer compared to my old salary? More than a simple uplift. Your rate has to cover everything employment funded on top of your pay – employer social security, pension, paid holidays, sick days, equipment and the gaps between jobs – across the roughly 180 days a year you can actually bill. Matching your old salary usually means an effective pay cut.

Is the “multiply your salary by 1.5” rule accurate? It is a rough starting point, not a reliable answer. The rule works loosely for a settled freelancer at home with steady work; it tends to fall short for someone moving countries and going self-employed for the first time, who takes on another country’s social security and a pipeline built from scratch. Do the full sum rather than trusting the multiplier.

How many days a year can a freelancer actually bill? Far fewer than the roughly 220 working days in a salaried year. After weekends, holidays, sick days, admin, marketing and the gaps between contracts, a well-organised full-time freelancer bills around 180 days – and often fewer in the first year or two. Pricing on 220 days leaves you roughly 18% short before you have paid for a single cost.

Should I charge more if I’m moving abroad to freelance? Usually yes. A new country means a new tax and social-security system (in Spain, the autónomo contribution you pay whether or not work is flowing), a pipeline starting near zero, and a bigger buffer needed because employee safety nets are gone. Be more conservative on billable days, not less.

How do I set a rate if I’ve never freelanced before? Work backwards: decide the income you need to keep, add every cost you now self-fund, and divide by about 180 billable days. Then sense-check it against what it cost to employ you – if your rate comes in below that, you are competitive; if it is below your old take-home, you are subsidising the client.

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