Both an employee and a self-employed person can reduce their tax in several ways: the non-taxable part for yourself and for your spouse, contributions to the third pillar, the child tax bonus and the bonus on mortgage interest. A self-employed person also chooses between flat-rate and actual expenses, and deducts the social and health insurance contributions paid. 2026 brought new formulas and new tax rates. We went through the law and the tax authority’s methodological guidelines, and for every statement we give the wording it is based on.
A tax return has two layers of reliefs, and it pays not to mix them up. Non-taxable parts reduce the tax base, that is the amount the tax is calculated from. They save you the tax rate on the amount deducted, so at 19 % that is 19 cents out of every euro. Tax bonuses reduce the tax that has already been calculated, euro for euro, and when the tax is lower than the bonus, the state pays you the difference.
Then there is the question of what the reliefs are actually calculated from. the non-taxable parts and the child bonus are tied only to active income from employment and from business. Anyone whose only income is from renting, from the sale of a property or from capital gets nothing out of them. Anyone who has both a job and a trade deducts the non-taxable parts first from the wage and only the remainder from the trade.
| Relief | 2026 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|
| Non-taxable part for the taxpayer (annual) | 5 966,73 € | 5 753,79 € |
| Full amount only up to this tax base | 26 083,13 € | 25 426,27 € |
| Non-taxable part for a spouse (annual) | 5 455,30 € | 5 260,61 € |
| Third pillar contributions | up to a maximum of €180 | up to a maximum of €180 |
| Tax bonus for a child under 15 (monthly) | 100 € | 100 € |
| Tax bonus for a child aged 15 to 18 (monthly) | 50 € | 50 € |
| Tax bonus on mortgage interest (annual) | up to €1,200 (old contracts €400) | up to €1,200 (old contracts €400) |
| Self-employed flat-rate expenses | 60%, up to a maximum of €20,000 + contributions | 60%, up to a maximum of €20,000 + contributions |
This is the basic relief that almost everyone has. For 2026 it is €5,966.73, if your tax base does not exceed €26,083.13. At a higher tax base the amount is reduced, and here is the new part: above this threshold, the non-taxable part is €14,661.11 minus a third of the tax base. Until 2025 a quarter was deducted. It falls to zero at a tax base of €43,983.32; in 2025 this was only at €48,441.43. Anyone earning around €3,000 a month gross will feel this more than before.
Watch out for pensions. Anyone who on 1 January 2026 was receiving an old-age pension, an early old-age pension or a service pension cannot claim the non-taxable part for themselves, or can claim only the difference if their annual pension including the thirteenth pension is lower than 5 966,73 €. Anyone who became a pensioner only during the year does not lose the non-taxable part, but its amount still depends on their tax base. Do watch out, though, for a pension granted retroactively as at 1 January or as at an earlier date: it is then assessed exactly as if you had been a pensioner from the start of the year.
The most commonly overlooked relief, because people think it is enough to be married. It is not. Your wife has to live with you in the household and, for at least part of the year, care for a child under three (under six if the child has a long-term adverse state of health, is in substitute care or was not accepted into a state nursery school), receive the care allowance, be registered with the labour office, or be a citizen with a disability. Someone who is simply at home without these reasons does not establish the entitlement. In practice it most often falls down on the child's age: parental leave may well carry on, but the entitlement to the relief ends in the month in which the child turns three, and people nevertheless deduct the whole annual amount instead of twelfths for the months when the conditions really did apply.
The amount depends on two incomes at once. If your tax base is up to €43,983.32, it is €5,455.30 minus the spouse’s own income. Above this threshold, it is €20,116.40 minus a third of your tax base minus the spouse’s income; until 2025 the threshold was €48,441.43 and a quarter was deducted.
What counts as the spouse's own income is set out expressly by the law, and it comes as a surprise: the parental allowance and child benefit are state social benefits and do not count, but maternity benefit, sickness benefit, unemployment benefit and a pension all do. Maternity benefit from the Social Insurance Agency therefore often wipes out the entitlement altogether. Own income is moreover counted only after deducting the insurance contributions the wife had to pay from it, not from the gross amount. And one more catch: the care allowance does establish the entitlement, but at the same time it counts towards her own income, so it often pulls the relief down to almost nothing. If the conditions applied for only part of the year, you claim one twelfth for each month at the beginning of which they were met.
A small but reliable relief. Contributions you paid yourself into supplementary pension savings or a pan-European personal pension product are deducted from the tax base, up to a maximum of €180 a year. At a 19% rate that is a saving of €34.20. Employer contributions do not count, only your own.
The catch is in old contracts. the contract must have been concluded after 31 December 2013 or must have had its benefit plan cancelled, and at the same time you must not have any other old contract without this change. Anyone who withdraws the money early must add the amounts claimed back into the tax base within three years.
Since 2025, new, stricter rules have applied, and they did not change in 2026. For a child under 15 the bonus is €100 a month, from 15 to 18 it is €50 a month, and for a child over 18 there is nothing, even if they are still studying. That is a maximum of €1,200 a year for a younger child.
The bonus has two caps. The first depends on the amount of your tax base: for one child, at most 29% of the tax base, for two 36%, for three 43%, for four 50%, for five 57% and for six or more 64%. A parent on a low salary may therefore not receive the full €1,200, but in the tax return they can add the other parent’s tax base to their own. The employer’s annual reconciliation cannot do this, but the tax return can.
The second cap is for higher incomes. If your 2026 tax base exceeds 27 432 €, the bonus for each child is reduced by a tenth of the difference. At a tax base of 33 432 €, the difference is 6 000 €, a tenth is 600 €, and out of the annual 1 200 € per child, 600 € remains; at a tax base above 39 432 €, the bonus for the younger child is zero. The bonus belongs only to someone whose income comes at least 90 % from sources in Slovakia; anyone who earns a larger part abroad gets nothing. And if you add the other parent's tax base to your own, they too must meet that 90 %.
Only a narrow group of people can claim this bonus, and there are more conditions than people expect. When you applied for the loan you were between 18 and 35, and the loan is for one Slovak property that serves exclusively for your permanent housing or for your permanent housing together with close persons, and for contracts concluded from 1 January 2024 your average monthly income in the year before signing the contract did not exceed 1,6 times the average wage, which for a 2026 contract means 2 592 €. Income is examined only once, as at the date the contract is concluded; a later pay rise does not cancel the entitlement.
The co-debtor is what people forget most often. They too have to meet the age condition of 18 to 35, and your average incomes are added up against a multiple of the limit according to the number of debtors, which with two of you is 5 184 € for a 2026 contract. Only the debtor claims the bonus, though, not the co-debtor. Anyone who is at the same time a co-debtor under another contract for which the bonus is being claimed has no entitlement at all.
The amount depends on the date of the contract. For contracts concluded from 1 January 2024 it is half of the interest paid, up to a maximum of 1 200 € a year; for contracts concluded up to 31 December 2023 the whole of the old wording applies: half of the interest, up to a maximum of 400 € a year, interest only on principal up to 50 000 €, and a stricter income test of 1,3 times the average wage (for a 2023 contract the amount is 1 695,20 €); the limit of 1,6 times does not apply to old contracts. The entitlement lasts five years from the month in which the loan started to bear interest, with the first and the last year apportioned by months.
An unused bonus is not lost. If your tax after the child bonus is lower than the bonus on interest, the tax office pays you the difference as a refund. You need a certificate from the bank about the interest paid. The bank has to issue it free of charge within 30 calendar days from the day you ask for it. Many banks send it out themselves at the start of the year, but your legal entitlement is to one you have requested, not to having it sent automatically.
The choice between the flat rate and actual expenses is the most important thing in a sole trader's return, and it is made afresh every year. Flat-rate expenses are 60 % of income, up to a maximum of 20 000 € a year, and they can be used both by someone who is not a VAT payer and by someone who was one for only part of the year. Only a person who was a VAT payer for the whole tax period is excluded. You reach the 20 000 € cap at an income of 33 334 €; above that amount the flat rate falls in percentage terms and actual expenses start to become interesting.
A lot of people think the flat rate is the end of it. It is not. On top of the flat rate you also deduct the contributions to the Social Insurance Agency and to your health insurance company that you actually paid during the year, including any underpayment from the annual health insurance reconciliation, if you paid it in that year. With actual expenses the contributions are a tax expense just the same, but there they are part of the records like any other expense.
| Insurance | Rate | Minimum per month |
|---|---|---|
| Social Insurance Agency (sickness, old-age, disability, reserve fund) | 33,15 % | 303,11 €* |
| Health insurance | 16% (severely disabled 8%) | 121,92 € (severely disabled 60,96 €)* |
* Two exceptions that are easy to get wrong. The micro-contribution of 131,34 € is not a new minimum for everyone. From July 2026 it is paid by a self-employed person whose income for 2025 exceeded 2 876,90 € and did not exceed 9 144 €, and also by a sole trader just starting out, once six months of contribution holiday have passed. Above 9 144 € at least 303,11 € is paid, with income up to 2 876,90 € compulsory insurance does not arise at all, and where the filing deadline has been extended everything is recalculated only as at 1 October. And the minimum health insurance advance of 121,92 € does not apply to a sole trader who is at the same time an employee or a person insured by the state, for example a student, a pensioner or someone receiving a parental allowance. They pay from their actual base and the advance can even be zero.
Anyone using actual expenses does not have to keep accounts. Tax records are enough: income and expenses in chronological order with supporting documents, assets, inventory, receivables and liabilities. Under the flat rate, you keep only income, inventory and receivables. And the decision is binding: once the deadline for filing the return has passed, the method of expenses for that year can no longer be changed, not even by a supplementary return.
The employer deducts the employee's share of contributions from gross pay; for a standard employee with no special exemption, in 2026 the total is 14,4 % (9,4 % social and 5 % health), and only what remains is used to calculate tax. An employee with a disability pays only 2,5 % health insurance. The employer does this automatically; you will find it in the return in the certificate of income.
You deduct a loss from your trade over the following five years: a micro-taxpayer can deduct it in full, others up to at most half of the tax base from business activity. A micro-taxpayer is not just any small trader: they must have business income of at most 60 000 € a year, and at the same time must not trade with a related party, be in bankruptcy or liquidation, or have a shortened tax period. With flat-rate expenses, no loss can arise.
Rental income and occasional income are exempt up to 500 € a year together, not 500 € for each type separately. Only the amount above this limit is taxed, but you then have to reduce your expenses in the same ratio. The non-taxable part, however, does not apply to this income.
It does not reduce your tax, but you decide where 2 % of it goes; volunteers with confirmation of 40 hours can direct 3 %. It is calculated from the tax after deducting the bonuses, and the minimum is 3 €. On top of that, you can also allocate 2 % to each of your parents who, at the end of the year, is a recipient of an old-age pension (or a disability or service pension paid after reaching retirement age). This is not deducted from the share for the non-profit, so with two parents you can split a total of up to 6 % or 7 % of your tax. Here too the minimum is 3 € per parent.
For self-employed individuals there are also special deductions: for research and development, for investment in production technology and, from 2026, also for supporting sports organisations. This does not apply to an ordinary self-employed person, but if you manufacture or develop something, it is worth asking about.
Take a carpenter who invoiced 40 000 € for 2026, is not a VAT payer, paid 6 000 € in contributions to the Social Insurance Agency and his health insurer, has two children aged 6 and 9, and is repaying a 2025 mortgage on which he paid 2 000 € of interest; he met both the age and the income condition when he signed it, because in 2024 he was still earning considerably less. The flat rate on his income works out at 20 000 €: sixty percent would be 24 000 €, but the cap is 20 000 €. The contributions are deducted on top of that, so his business tax base is 14 000 €.
From it he deducts the full non-taxable part of 5 966,73 €, because he is well below the 26 083,13 € threshold at which the reduction starts. So he taxes 8 033,27 €, and at the 15 % rate that applies to business income up to 100 000 € his tax comes to 1 204,99 €.
Then come the bonuses, and they steamroll the tax. Two children under 15 mean 2 400 € a year. With two children the cap of 36 % of the tax base would be 5 040 €, so it cuts nothing, and the 27 432 € threshold above which the bonus is reduced is far away. The bonus therefore uses up the whole tax and the tax office pays out the remaining 1 195,01 €. The bonus on mortgage interest is half of 2 000 €, that is 1 000 €, and since the tax is already at zero, it is paid out as well. The carpenter pays nothing and gets 2 195,01 € back.
Actual expenses would only pay off for him if, on top of the contributions, he could document more than 20 000 € of costs. At his level of income that means expensive materials, a car or an employee; with lower costs the flat rate is better, and once the deadline for filing the return has passed the choice can no longer be changed. Keep your documents anyway, and for longer than people usually expect. The tax office can ask you for the certificate from the bank, the confirmations of contributions and the birth certificates for five years from the end of the year in which you should have filed the return. If it opens an audit on you, the time limit starts running again and can stretch to as much as ten years. Anyone who keeps accounts holds on to the accounting documents for a full ten years.
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