A sole trade alongside employment in Slovakia: employer consent, contributions and the 2026 tax return

You may set up a trade (živnosť) alongside your job. You need your employer’s consent only if your business competes with the employer’s activity.^⁠[1]

Employment does not exempt you from contributions on the trade, however, and after the year ends you file the tax return yourself. This guide covers what applies in 2026 to employer consent, social and health insurance and income tax.

Employer consent

An employee may carry on other gainful activity that competes with the employer’s business only with the employer’s prior written consent. If the employer does not respond within 15 days of receiving the request, consent is deemed given.^⁠[1]

The employer may withdraw consent in writing for serious reasons, and you must then end the activity without undue delay. No consent is needed for scientific, teaching, journalistic, lecturing, literary and artistic activity.^⁠[1]

A business that does not compete with your employer needs no consent. To be safe, still read your employment contract and the employer’s internal rules.

Social insurance: each status separately

The Social Insurance Agency assesses the duty to pay contributions for each status separately, so employment does not exempt you from contributions on the trade.^⁠[2]

As a sole trader you pay from July 2026 according to your income for 2025: nothing up to 2,876.90 €, the 131.34 € micro-contribution above that up to 9,144 €, and at least 303.11 € a month above 9,144 €.^⁠[3] A sole trader starting out is insured from the first day of the sixth calendar month after the month in which they obtained the licence.^⁠[4]

If your assessment bases from employment and from the trade together exceed the maximum assessment base, 16,764 € in 2026, you pay as a sole trader only on the difference. You do, however, pay into the solidarity reserve fund on your whole sole trader base, up to the maximum.^⁠[2]

Income thresholds and due dates are covered in detail in Sole trader contributions in Slovakia 2026.

Health insurance: no minimum advance

A sole trader who is also an employee does not pay the minimum health insurance advance. The advance is worked out only from the actual business tax base of two years earlier, and if it would be less than 3 €, nothing is paid.^⁠[5]

Someone without a tax base from two years earlier, for example because they started recently, sets the advances themselves. The difference is settled in the annual settlement, which the health insurer carries out by 30 September of the following year.^⁠[5]

Income tax: a type B return instead of the annual settlement

Only an employee whose taxable income came solely from employment may ask the employer for the annual settlement. With trade income you file the type B tax return yourself, by 31 March of the following year.^⁠[6]⁠[7]

The return shows both your salary and your trade income. The personal allowance, at most 5,966.73 € for 2026, is deducted first from the tax base from your salary, and from the trade tax base only the part that exceeds it.^⁠[6]⁠[8]

For the trade you may claim flat-rate expenses of 60 %, at most 20,000 € a year. If your trade income does not exceed 100,000 €, its tax base is taxed at 15 %; your salary is taxed by the 19-35 % bands.^⁠[6] The step-by-step procedure is in Slovak tax return type B for 2026; as your turnover grows, also watch the threshold in VAT registration threshold in Slovakia.

The personal allowance at your employer

If you signed the declaration for the personal allowance with your employer, it is deducted monthly during the year, by 497.23 € in 2026. After the year ends it is settled in your tax return, in full or in the amount your tax base allows.^⁠[8]

With a tax base above 26,083.13 € the allowance shrinks, so what you claimed monthly during the year may turn into additional tax in the return. Expect this especially when your trade does well.^⁠[8]

Checklist

• If your business competes with your employer, you have written consent.
• You know from which month and how much you will pay for social insurance.
• You pay health insurance advances as your insurer notifies you; the minimum does not apply to you.
• You do not ask your employer for the annual settlement and file the type B return yourself.
• You keep your trade income and expenses separate from your salary.

vporiadku alongside a job

With a few clients, the free Start plan is enough: invoices with no monthly limit for up to five clients. You can also write an invoice as a single sentence, and artificial intelligence suggests the customer, the lines and the amounts, which you check before saving.

If your company profile has a bank account, the payment QR code is printed on invoices in euros automatically. Open a free account; what we offer sole traders is summed up on the page for sole traders, and your first invoice is covered in How to issue an invoice in Slovakia.