Freelancing across southern Europe has never been more common, or more cross-border. A designer in Valencia bills a client in Berlin; a developer in Lyon invoices an agency in Amsterdam; a consultant in Milan works with a startup in Dublin. In all three cases the practical question is the same: how do you get paid quickly, cheaply and without payment headaches? It starts with holding the right kind of account.
2card is a marketing partner of myTU, an EU-licensed Electronic Money Institution supervised by the Bank of Lithuania. It provides a single EU IBAN with SEPA access plus virtual Visa cards for your business expenses. 2card is not a bank; the account and cards are provided by myTU under EU rules.
The freelancer context: autónomo, auto-entrepreneur, partita IVA
Each country has its own status for solo professionals. In Spain you register as autónomo; in France many freelancers operate as auto-entrepreneur (micro-entrepreneur); in Italy you hold a partita IVA. The labels and the tax mechanics differ, but the financial fundamentals rhyme: you invoice clients, you receive payments, you incur deductible expenses, and you need clean records for your accountant and the tax authority.
Keeping business money separate from personal money is the single most useful habit. It makes bookkeeping simpler, supports your expense claims, and gives you a clear picture of what the freelance activity actually earns. As always with tax, the details vary by country and change over time, so confirm specifics for your status with a local gestor, expert-comptable or commercialista and check current local rules rather than relying on general descriptions.
Getting paid by SEPA, without IBAN discrimination
For cross-border freelancing within the euro area, SEPA is your best friend. A SEPA credit transfer moves euros between EU accounts cheaply and predictably, and for a freelancer that means clients can pay you the same way whether they sit in your country or two borders away.
The catch some freelancers hit is IBAN discrimination: a client, platform or payroll system that refuses a valid IBAN simply because it begins with a different country code than expected. This practice is unlawful under EU rules, which require that any euro account reachable via SEPA be accepted regardless of the EU country that issued the IBAN. In reality it still happens, so the fix is twofold: hold a clean, clearly European IBAN that behaves like a domestic one for SEPA, and know your rights when a counterparty pushes back. Our guide on IBAN discrimination and your EU rights explains what the law says and how to respond.
If the underlying concept is new, the explainer on what an EU IBAN is covers how these accounts work across the single euro payments area.
If a client or platform refuses your euro IBAN because of its country code, that is IBAN discrimination, and it is against EU rules. A clean EU IBAN plus knowing your rights usually settles the matter quickly.
Why a dedicated business IBAN beats a personal account
Many freelancers start by using a personal current account, then regret it once invoices and expenses pile up. A dedicated business IBAN gives you:
- Clean separation between personal and professional money, which simplifies tax and accounting in any of the three countries.
- A single euro hub for receiving client payments and paying your own suppliers and subscriptions over SEPA.
- Clear records that make quarterly or annual filings far less painful.
- A professional footing when you put a business IBAN on your invoices.
One EU IBAN sits behind everything, so receiving payment and spending on business costs happen from the same place, fully traceable.
Cards for freelance expenses
Freelancers spend on a steady stream of tools and services: software subscriptions, cloud storage, stock assets, domain and hosting fees, the occasional ad campaign to win clients. Virtual Visa cards from 2card, all drawing on your EU IBAN, make that spending easy to control and to categorise:
- Per-card hard limits — cap a card to a subscription's monthly cost so nothing surprises you.
- Instant freeze and replace — kill a card immediately if a service looks dodgy or a number is exposed, then issue a new one.
- Merchant whitelists — lock a card to a single vendor for a recurring tool.
- Apple Pay and Google Pay — pay on the go from your phone.
Some freelancers also bill expenses back to clients or manage costs on behalf of small teams. If your work shades into paying others, the payroll and contractor cards setup uses the same controls to handle recurring payouts and contractor expenses cleanly.
What to check as a freelancer in Spain, France or Italy
Before adopting any account, run a quick checklist:
- Eligibility. Provision is oriented to business entities and registered activity; confirm your status (autónomo, auto-entrepreneur or partita IVA) fits the provider's onboarding. Cardholders can be in 30+ countries, useful if you travel or relocate within Europe.
- Genuine EU IBAN and SEPA. Make sure it is a real euro IBAN that works cleanly for SEPA, so clients across the EU can pay you without friction.
- Online onboarding. Look for fully online KYB through myTU so you can verify without paperwork by post.
- Fund protection. Funds are safeguarded and segregated under EU EMI rules through myTU.
- Pricing. 2card is in early access; compare on capability now and confirm costs once pricing is published.
For a freelancer working across Spain, France and Italy, the destination is simple: get paid in euros from anywhere in the EU without IBAN games, keep business and personal money cleanly apart, and control expenses with cards you can cap and freeze. A real EU IBAN with SEPA does the heavy lifting; the rest is good habits.