How to calculate your restaurant’s real profit (and how much of that money you can take)

Myself included.

You close a good Saturday, see the drawer full and take €300. Not for a luxury: for the car payment, for school, because you have not had a day off in six months.

You do not ask whether that money was yours. You ask whether it is there.

The problem is not taking it. It is that three months later something is due, and it comes out of your pocket, or you defer with the tax office, or you call the bank.

The hole does not show up the day you take the money. It shows up the day payment is due.

The month calculation is five lines. All without VAT.

Revenue minus those four cost lines is the month’s result.

That number says whether the business made money. It does not say how much you can take. They are two different numbers, and that gap is this whole article.

One note on the purchases line: the month’s cost is not the month’s purchases; it is what you consumed. Opening stock on day 1, plus purchases, minus closing stock on day 30.

You fill the cellar on 30 June and June looks terrible and July looks great. Both figures are a lie.

Three things leave your account and do not appear in the result.

One: tax on profit. If you are self-employed, each quarter you prepay with form 130 20% of year-to-date net income, filing from the 1st to the 20th of April, July and October, and from the 1st to the 30th of January.

If you have a company, in 2026 a micro-SME with turnover under one million euros pays 19% on the first €50,000 of base and 21% on the rest. A small company pays 23%. New companies pay 15% for the first two profitable years.

Two: loan principal repayment. Interest is a cost and sits in the formula. Principal is not a cost, but it still leaves the account every month.

Three: investment. A €9,000 oven leaves your cash this month in full and is an accounting cost spread over several years. In the month’s result it barely shows. In the bank it shows in full.

And there is a fourth that hits in lumps: extra pay and holiday accruals are earned every month and paid in June and December.

No. Not a euro.

That money enters your account, sits for up to three months and leaves in full on the 20th of the month after the quarter closes. It is money in transit, not a sale. And you do not pay the VAT you charge: you pay output VAT minus input VAT on your purchases.

The detail almost nobody will read: 10% is not flat. Everything consumed on the premises goes at 10%, wine and beer included, because you sell a hospitality service.

But the bottle you sell for takeaway is a supply of goods and goes at 21%, according to the 2026 Spanish Tax Agency VAT rate table, updated 26 February 2026.

If you have takeaway, applying a flat 10% to all sales throws the month off.

You ask for a deferral. It is allowed, and without collateral up to €50,000 under Order HFP/311/2023.

But it costs. The tax late-payment interest rate is 4.0625% in 2026, a rate rolled over from 2025 because the Budget was not passed.

And if the deadline passes without a deferral, you enter enforcement: a surcharge of 5%, 10% or 20% plus interest, depending how late you pay, under article 28 of the General Tax Law.

That is the price of taking €300 on a Saturday.

Neighbourhood bar, self-employed owner, three staff, all on-premise consumption. Our own estimate from a typical cost structure, not a market statistic.

Now the second number. From the result you set aside 20% for form 130, which is €950, and the €900 of loan principal that leaves the account and is not above.

You can take €2,900.

And the bank also holds €1,800 of VAT, the difference between €3,000 charged and €1,200 paid on purchases. It looks like yours until 20 April.

Add the month’s result and the VAT float and you see €6,550 that look available (€4,750 + €1,800). Yours: €2,900. Less than half.

That same bar made −€7,000 in January and +€3,000 in February.

With March’s €4,750, the quarter closes at +€750 of profit.

But form 130 is calculated on the year-to-date, so the tax reserve is €150. And loan principal has left three times: €2,700.

The quarter closes with €750 of profit and €2,100 less in the account than on 1 January.

If in March you take the €2,900 that looked like yours, you close the quarter €5,000 down.

That is the whole rule: until the year-to-date is positive after setting tax aside, you take nothing. Taking money earlier is not yours to keep; it only widens the hole that was already there.

It is the same logic we explain in how often you should review restaurant numbers: a good month does not make up for what you already lost; it only covers it for a while.

Corporation tax rates are still in a transitional regime. They step down through 2029 and 2026 figures are not 2027 figures. Confirm them with your adviser before using them to set reserves.

The 4.0625% late-payment interest rate is a rolled-over rate, not passed for 2026. If a Budget is approved, it changes.

And the numbered example is ours. Your food cost, headcount and loan payment are different, and the result swings a lot with how heavy your debt is.

At Tipi we show you where the money is going. We do not file taxes or give tax advice: reserves and forms are closed with your accountant.

If this year you have taken money from the till and you are not sure you could, write to us and we will see how we can help.

Until the next guide that can help the sector.