Employer of record in Spain: costs, rules and how to hire

A collective agreement binds employers and workers within its scope and can determine the salary scale, job classification, working time, extra payments, leave and employment procedures. It sits above whatever you write, so a national minimum alone is not a complete offer. Ask the provider to name the actual agreement and explain why it applies to your hire.

Start with the collective agreement and written terms

Record the employer and employee, start date, expected duration where temporary, workplace, role, gross salary and supplements, pay frequency, hours, leave, notice rules and the applicable collective agreement. Spanish law requires written contracts for specified arrangements, including part-time, fixed-discontinuous and remote work, and understandable terms should be provided before the start even where another form is permitted.

Choose the correct contract and probation terms

Employment is presumed indefinite in Spain, which is the opposite of the default many foreign employers assume. An ordinary fixed-term contract requires a production-circumstances or substitution ground with the reason explained, unforeseeable production needs normally allow up to six months extendable to one year by a sector collective agreement, and a generic project label establishes nothing.

Recurring seasonal or intermittent work can require an indefinite fixed-discontinuous contract, with written terms and a lawful recall process, and repeated production contracts can create indefinite status: the statute includes a threshold exceeding 18 months within 24 months through two or more such contracts, including agency placements. Have the full contract and assignment history checked.

Probation must be agreed in writing. Subject to the collective agreement, the ordinary default maximum is six months for qualified technical staff and two months for other workers, with employers of fewer than 25 workers able to use three months for other staff, and one month for a temporary contract of up to six months unless the agreement provides otherwise. Probation cannot be repeated for the same functions already performed for the employer.

A part-time contract must state the agreed hours and their distribution in writing, ordinary overtime is generally prohibited apart from the statutory emergency exception, and additional hours follow a separate regulated arrangement. Keep daily time records and give the employee the monthly summary with the payslip; part-time status removes no employment rights.

Protect confidential information and work-product rights

A post-employment non-compete requires a real commercial or industrial interest and adequate financial compensation, with a statutory maximum of two years for technical staff and six months for other workers. Have the role, scope and payment assessed rather than adding the same restriction to every EOR contract.

Ask the provider to show how confidentiality and intellectual-property rights are documented and, where needed, assigned to your business, checking the actual employment and client agreements, the type of work and the enforceability of restrictions. The EOR service description does not establish that every employee-created right belongs to the client.

Misclassification risk, and the assignment question behind it

Spain starts from a presumption that works against a contractor label. An employment contract may be concluded in writing or verbally, and it is presumed to exist between anyone who provides a service within the scope of another's organisation and direction and the person who receives it in return for payment. Our own approved guidance puts the same point plainly: assess how the person will actually work before using an independent contractor agreement, because a freelance label does not settle the status of someone who will function as your employee. Source: Workers' Statute article 8.1, boe.es, and the approved Spanish contractor guidance, checked 18 September 2026.

There is a second exposure here that is specific to hiring through a third party, and it is the one I would ask about. Spanish law treats the unlawful assignment of workers as its own wrong, and where it is found the worker is entitled to become permanent, at their own choice, in either the assigning or the receiving company, with the rights and obligations that ordinarily apply to a worker in the same or an equivalent post, and with seniority counted from the start of the unlawful assignment. Source: Workers' Statute article 43, boe.es, checked 18 September 2026.

So the practical question is not only whether your contractor is genuinely a contractor. It is whether the arrangement you have with the provider is a genuine, properly authorised one, because a finding that it is not can put the employment with you, backdated. Ask the provider which authorisation it holds and on what basis it assigns staff, and keep the direction of the work consistent with the answer.

Eight points account for most of the trouble on Spanish hires, and the first is the one that can invalidate the whole arrangement. Ask the provider to resolve each of them in the proposed contract and quote before you confirm a start date.

Check these points before signing the offer

Each row names something with a specific answer for your hire rather than a national one.

Standard 2026 employer contributions for an ordinary indefinite General Scheme hire total 30.65% before occupational injury insurance, against 6.50% for the employee. Those are clean, published rates, which makes Spain easier to budget than most of Europe. What is not in that figure is the injury tariff, which depends on the activity and work classification.

Higher pay and the solidarity charge

Above the ordinary monthly ceiling, a marginal solidarity charge applies to the excess, so the ceiling does not end contributions on higher pay.

Apply each rate to the relevant excess band rather than to the whole remuneration.

Income tax and payroll filing

Ordinary employment income has a variable IRPF withholding rate calculated under the tax authority's procedure, affected by pay, deductible amounts and personal or family circumstances, and AEAT has a 2026 version effective from 10 September, so payroll should use the version applicable to the payment. Final income tax can also involve the autonomous community's scale, so a single flat percentage is not a take-home estimate for any employee.

The employer generally remits Social Security contributions during the following month and is responsible for both its own share and the employee amount withheld. Form 111 filing follows the employer's tax category, with ordinary quarterly filing within the first 20 calendar days after the quarter, adjusted for non-working deadlines, so have payroll confirm its filing category and current calendar.

Business-tax context

The general corporate income-tax rate is 25%, with qualifying reduced regimes: for tax periods beginning in 2026, qualifying small companies can use 23%, while qualifying businesses with prior turnover below €1 million use 19% on the first €50,000 of taxable profit and 21% on the rest. Spain's general VAT rate is 21%. These are business and transaction taxes rather than extra percentages deducted from an employee's salary.

Spain's 2026 minimum wage is €1,221 a month in 14 payments, which is €17,094 gross a year, or €1,424.50 a month spread over 12 equal payments, from 1 January 2026. The 14-payment structure is the thing to get right: two extra payments are a statutory right, and quoting a monthly figure without saying which structure it assumes is how Spanish offers get misread. There is no single statutory hourly figure that fits every job and schedule.

Set the annual salary and payment schedule

Check the applicable collective-agreement floor and working hours too. For market context, INE's Annual Labour Cost Survey reports gross annual pay of €28,410.78 per worker for 2025, published on 23 July 2026, covering surveyed industry, construction and services workplaces: a broad average rather than a median, take-home pay or a quote for your role, and different again from INE's total employer labour-cost figure and OECD purchasing-power comparisons.

The settlement and payment period for regular wages cannot exceed one month, so agree the payday and provide a payslip separating pay components and lawful deductions, remembering that the salary payday is distinct from the employer's Social Security and tax-remittance deadlines. Workers have a right to two extra payments a year, one at Christmas and the other at the time set by the collective agreement, which sets their amount and can allow proration across the 12 monthly payments. State the total annual gross salary and payment schedule so the extras are neither omitted nor counted twice.

Working time, rest and overtime

The statutory maximum ordinary week is 40 hours of effective work averaged over the year, with an ordinary daily limit of nine hours unless a collective agreement or agreement with employee representatives sets another distribution while respecting rest.

Check whether the applicable agreement provides shorter hours, and note that a proposed 37.5-hour week is not the current general limit in the reviewed statute. The 15-minute break for work exceeding six hours counts as working time only where the collective agreement or contract provides for it, and special and young-worker rules can be stricter.

Overtime must be paid at least at the ordinary hourly rate or compensated with equivalent paid rest, due within four months where there is no agreement on compensation, and the ordinary limit is 80 overtime hours a year excluding hours compensated with rest within four months and specified emergency work. A collective agreement does not create a general right to exceed that cap.

Night work runs from 22:00 to 06:00, with covered night workers generally limited to an eight-hour daily average over 15 days and unable to work overtime, subject to special rules. Night-work compensation is set through collective bargaining, with exceptions where pay already reflects night work or compensatory rest is agreed, so there is no universal 25% statutory night premium.

One obligation applies to every employer: keep a daily record of each worker's start and finish times and retain it for four years, available to workers, representatives and the labour inspectorate. Agree how your team and the EOR record remote work, overtime and leave, because a flexible schedule does not remove the recording duty.

Paid annual leave cannot be less than 30 calendar days a year, set in duration by the collective agreement or contract, and the employee must know the dates at least two months in advance. Calendar days is the trap: do not convert it into an automatic 22-working-day figure for every schedule. What decides the actual entitlement is the applicable agreement.

Annual leave and public holidays

Leave is not normally replaced with cash during employment, and where it overlaps protected pregnancy-related absence or the relevant birth and childcare suspension it can be taken later even after the year ends, with other temporary incapacity allowing later use within 18 months after the end of the accrual year. Check the circumstances before forfeiting unused leave, and reconcile outstanding entitlement at termination.

Labour holidays ordinarily total up to 14 paid, non-recoverable days including two local holidays. The 2026 official calendar lists 1 and 6 January, 3 April, 1 May, 15 August, 12 October, and 8 and 25 December across all autonomous communities, with other dates and substitute holidays depending on the community and municipality. Use the work location's labour calendar rather than a national administrative-office calendar.

Birth, childcare and family leave

Birth and childcare leave changed, and the old 16-week figure is now wrong: each parent has 19 weeks, or 32 in a single-parent case.

The 19 weeks run as six compulsory full-time weeks immediately after birth, 11 weeks available in weekly blocks within the child's first 12 months, and two weeks before the child turns eight, with single-parent cases split six, 22 and four. The right is individual, and optional periods carry notice and scheduling rules.

Eligible workers receive a birth and childcare benefit equal to 100% of the applicable regulatory base, subject to age-related contribution conditions: no minimum contribution period below 21, with different qualifying periods for ages 21 to 25 and 26 or over. The regulatory base can differ from uncapped gross salary, so confirm entitlement, the calculation and any collective-agreement top-up with payroll.

Qualifying adoption, pre-adoption guardianship and foster care carry corresponding 19-week rights per parent, or 32 weeks in a single-parent case, with compulsory and flexible periods, and disability, multiple births or placements and qualifying newborn hospitalisation can extend the ordinary entitlement. The two weeks usable before age eight, or four in a single-parent case, also apply to qualifying events from 2 August 2024, with those periods and the corresponding benefit requestable from 1 January 2026; that transitional rule does not grant the full 19-week entitlement to every earlier birth.

A separate individual parental leave right of up to eight weeks covers care of a child, or a child placed for more than one year, before age eight. It is distinct from the paid birth and childcare periods and is not generally employer-paid, so check any contractual improvement and the statutory notice process.

For a child under nine months, a worker can ordinarily take one hour's daily infant-care absence, divide it into two periods, use a half-hour working-day reduction or accumulate it into full days, and the right is individual. Where both parents exercise matching rights it can extend to 12 months, with proportional salary reduction for months nine to 12.

The statute also includes 15 calendar days for marriage or registered partnership; five days for qualifying serious illness, hospitalisation or surgery requiring home rest of covered relatives or household members needing care; and two days for a covered relative's death, plus two where travel is needed. Urgent family illness or accident can support paid absence equivalent to four working days a year, and separate rules cover unavoidable weather-related access problems.

Longer care needs and working-time requests

Care of a child under 12 or certain dependent people can give a right to reduce daily working time by between one-eighth and one-half with proportional salary reduction, and a worker can separately request reasonable schedule or work-arrangement adaptations for covered family needs. Absent collective-agreement provisions, the statutory negotiation period is at most 15 days, with a presumption of approval if there is no express reasoned opposition within it.

Childcare leave of absence can last up to three years from the relevant birth or placement, while care of a qualifying spouse, partner or relative can allow up to two years unless the collective agreement extends it. These are generally unpaid, seniority counts, and job reservation ordinarily protects the same post for the first year and an equivalent category afterwards, with specified extensions. General voluntary leave has different return rights.

Sickness and benefit top-ups

For ordinary illness or a non-work accident, temporary disability benefit is generally 60% of the regulatory base on days four to 20 and 75% from day 21, with no statutory benefit for the first three days though an agreement can improve pay. Work-related cases generally pay 75% from the day after absence begins, with the employer paying the initial day's full salary.

Funding shifts as the absence runs: for ordinary illness or a non-work accident the employer funds the statutory benefit on days four to 15, and from day 16 it is generally funded by Social Security or the mutual insurer, often paid through the employer. Temporary disability normally lasts up to 365 days with a possible 180-day extension under the medical process. Check the collective agreement and contract for better sick pay, additional leave, insurance or other benefits, and ask the provider to price the actual obligations and agreed improvements in the offer.