EOR for Spain
Employer of Record in Spain
Employ staff in Spain without a local entity. Spanish contracts under the applicable collective agreement, registration with the Social Security before day one, monthly payroll with income tax withheld on the national scale, or the foral tables in the Basque provinces and Navarra, and the 2026 employer contributions, run by a named account team.
Last reviewed
The short answer
A company can employ staff in Spain without setting up a local entity by using an Employer of Record, where a company already registered as a Spanish employer holds the contract, applies the collective agreement that covers the role, runs Spanish payroll and carries the employer social security contributions.
Employer social security in Spain is about 32% of salary for an office role on an indefinite contract, but the contribution base is capped at 5,101.20 euros a month, so the effective rate falls as the salary rises; the cost most often missed is not the percentage but the sector collective agreement, which binds by activity rather than by choice.
Aspirock supports deployments into Spain for companies with no local presence, covering Spanish contracts and collective-agreement application, Social Security registration before the first day of work, monthly payroll with income tax withheld on the national scale, or the foral tables in the Basque provinces and Navarra and the 2026 employer contributions.
Worth knowing
Three things worth knowing
In Spain the collective agreement finds you, whether or not you have heard of it
Spanish sectoral agreements have what the statute calls eficacia general erga omnes: they bind every employer and every worker inside their scope for as long as they are in force. What triggers application is the economic activity of the employer and the territory it operates in, not membership of the association that signed and not any act of the employer. A company hiring its first person in Barcelona is therefore covered by an agreement it never joined, which sets the salary table for that professional group, the annual hours, the treatment of overtime and the extraordinary payments. In Denmark, by contrast, nothing binds an employer until it signs. In Spain the agreement arrives with the activity and it is the single largest source of Spanish employment cost that a percentage-based budget will not contain.
Spanish employer cost is regressive and the state is closing the gap by 0.25 points a year to 2045
The full employer stack for an office role on an indefinite contract is 32.15% in 2026. It stops at a ceiling: the monthly contribution base is capped at 5,101.20 euros, so a salary above roughly 61,000 euros a year attracts no further ordinary contributions. On a 90,000 euro hire that brings the effective employer rate down to about 22%. The solidarity contribution introduced in 2025 exists to recover some of that, charging the employer between 0.96% and 1.22% on the excess above the ceiling, but in 2026 it recovers around 295 euros of the roughly 9,000 the cap saves. It rises every year until 2045, when the three brackets reach 5.5%, 6% and 7% combined, employer plus employee. Note the arithmetic trap: the fixed block comes to 29.90% before the intergenerational equity contribution and the activity-rated accident percentage are added, so a stack quoted in that range has left both out and describes neither end of this correctly.
Assigning workers between companies is a statutory question in Spain, with joint liability attached
Article 43 of the Estatuto de los Trabajadores reserves the assignment of workers to another company to authorised temporary-work agencies. Where an arrangement falls outside that channel it is cesion ilegal and the consequences attach to both companies: the worker may elect to become a permanent employee of either and both are jointly and severally liable for what is owed to the worker and to the Social Security. It is enforced and not only against arrangements outside that channel. In June 2026 the Supreme Court upheld a 180,000 euro penalty against a company that used a temporary-work agency's placement contracts to staff permanent posts between 2019 and 2022. What the courts examine is substance rather than description and any one of the statutory circumstances is enough on its own: that the arrangement is a mere putting of workers at another company's disposal, that the company holding the contract lacks its own stable activity or organisation, that it lacks the means to carry that activity on, or that it does not perform the functions of an employer. The Court of Justice of the European Union sharpened the analysis in October 2024, holding that administrative authorisation is not what makes a company a temporary-work agency and that what matters is who organises and supervises the work. So the question worth putting to any provider in Spain is how the Spanish employing company is constituted and where direction of the work sits.
Reference
Employment terms in Spain
Why can a company not simply pay a Spanish employee from abroad?
Because Spain closes both of the doors that other European markets leave ajar and it closes one of them before the employee has worked a single day.
Start with tax. Spain's income tax regulation places the obligation to withhold on non-resident persons and entities that operate in Spanish territory without a permanent establishment, as well as on those with one. A foreign employer paying someone who lives and works in Spain cannot simply treat withholding as the employee's problem and pay a gross figure into a Spanish bank account. Where other markets shift the liability to the individual when the employer has no local presence, Spain reaches back.
Social security is stricter still and it is the part companies rarely anticipate. A company with no establishment in Spain that employs someone there must register with the Social Security treasury before activity begins, must give an address in Spain, and, if it is resident abroad for more than six months of the year, must appoint a representative domiciled in Spain. Those are not optional refinements of a simple arrangement. They are the arrangement.
Then there is the deadline that cannot be recovered. The employee's registration, the alta, has to be filed before they start work, not in the payroll run that follows. It can be filed up to sixty days in advance. Filing it late is an infringement that brings back contributions with a surcharge and the treasury reports late registrations to the labour inspectorate. A company that hires someone on Monday and sorts the paperwork on Friday has not been slightly disorganised; it has committed a reportable breach on a date that is now fixed in the record.
That leaves two routes that actually resolve the position. Employ the person through a company that is already a registered Spanish employer, which is what an Employer of Record provides, or become one by incorporating.
What does an employer actually pay for in Spain?
About a third of salary on the statutory side, until it abruptly stops.
Employer social security in Spain is charged as a set of percentages on a contribution base. For an office role on an indefinite contract in 2026 they stack as follows.
| Contribution | Employer | Employee |
|---|---|---|
| Common contingencies | 23.60% | 4.70% |
| Unemployment, indefinite contract | 5.50% | 1.55% |
| Wage guarantee fund (FOGASA) | 0.20% | None |
| Vocational training | 0.60% | 0.10% |
| Intergenerational equity (MEI) | 0.75% | 0.15% |
| Accident and occupational disease, office work | 1.50% | None |
| Total | 32.15% | 6.50% |
Two lines in that table are the ones that move. The accident and occupational-disease percentage is rated on the activity and 1.50% is the figure for staff doing exclusively office work; commercial, industrial, transport and security roles sit well above it, so no single all-in figure is honest across a workforce. And a fixed-term contract pays 6.70% for unemployment rather than 5.50%, which is one of several ways Spanish law makes temporary hiring the expensive option.
The intergenerational equity contribution is worth pausing on, because it is easy to miss. It is a fixed employer charge of 0.75% in 2026, set by Real Decreto-ley 3/2026 and carried into the year's contribution order. Note the arithmetic: the other four fixed lines come to 29.90% on their own, so a stack quoted at that figure has left the intergenerational equity contribution out and one quoted at 30.65% has left out the accident percentage as well.
Now the part that changes the arithmetic. The monthly contribution base is capped at 5,101.20 euros, so ordinary contributions stop once a salary passes roughly 61,000 euros a year. Above the ceiling the employer pays only a solidarity contribution on the excess, in three brackets, at between 0.96% and 1.22%.
A 45,000 euro hire
The whole base sits under the ceiling, so the full 32.15% applies. Employer social security is about 14,470 euros and the all-in cost is roughly 59,470 euros.
This is the shape most cost models assume and for most roles it is right.
A 90,000 euro hire
Contributions stop at the ceiling. The employer pays about 19,680 euros on the capped base, plus roughly 295 euros of solidarity contribution on the excess.
That is an effective employer rate of about 22%, not 32%.
Spanish employer cost is therefore regressive and the state is closing the gap deliberately rather than by accident. The solidarity contribution was created in 2023 and rises every year until 2045, when its three brackets reach 5.5%, 6% and 7% combined, employer plus employee. In 2026 it recovers around 295 euros of the roughly 9,000 that the ceiling saves on a 90,000 euro salary. That gap will narrow every January for the next two decades.
None of which is the largest variable in a Spanish budget. That is the collective agreement.
Which collective agreement applies and who decides?
The activity decides and the employer does not.
Spanish sectoral agreements have what the statute calls general effect: they bind every employer and every worker inside their scope, for as long as they are in force, regardless of whether the employer belongs to the association that negotiated them or has ever read them. What triggers application is the economic activity of the business and the territory it operates in. Membership is irrelevant. Consent is irrelevant.
The practical consequence is that a company hiring its first person in Valencia is covered by an agreement it never joined, usually negotiated for its sector in that province. That agreement will set the salary table for the professional group the role falls into, the annual working hours, how overtime is treated, the two extraordinary payments and often supplements and a holiday entitlement above the statutory floor of thirty calendar days.
In Denmark nothing binds an employer until it signs. In Spain the agreement arrives with the activity.
It is also why the statutory minimum wage, 1,221 euros a month across fourteen payments in 2026, is rarely the operative number. It is a floor of last resort. The agreement's salary table is usually higher and it is what an inspector or a tribunal will measure the payslip against. Identifying the right agreement is the first step in a Spanish cost model, not a detail to confirm later.
Is an Employer of Record lawful in Spain?
In Spain this is a statutory question with joint liability attached and it deserves a straight answer rather than a reassuring one.
Spanish law has no category called Employer of Record. What it has is Article 43 of the Estatuto de los Trabajadores, which reserves the assignment of workers to another company to authorised temporary-work agencies. Assignment outside that channel is unlawful assignment: the affected worker may elect to become a permanent employee of either company. This is enforced and not only against arrangements outside that channel. In June 2026 the Supreme Court upheld a 180,000 euro penalty against a company that used a temporary-work agency's placement contracts to staff permanent posts between 2019 and 2022.
The position moved in October 2024, when the Court of Justice of the European Union held that administrative authorisation is not what makes a company a temporary-work agency under the EU directive and that the decisive question is who organises and supervises the work. Spanish practitioners have read that as significant for arrangements of this kind, though it awaits national case law and legislation to work through.
What the courts and the labour inspectorate actually examine is substance. Does the company holding the contract have its own stable activity and organisation? Does it have the means to carry that activity on? Above all, does it genuinely perform the functions of an employer, or does the contract amount to supplying people?
What follows is a better question for a buyer than the one usually asked. Not whether a provider calls itself an EOR, which tells you nothing, but how the Spanish employing company is actually constituted, what it does besides hold contracts and where day-to-day direction of the work is understood to sit.
What has to happen before a Spanish employee starts?
Four things and the order matters more than the effort.
- 01
Identify the collective agreement that covers the role
Determined by the employer's economic activity and the province, not by choice. It sets the salary floor for the professional group, the annual hours and the extraordinary payments, so it has to be settled before an offer is made rather than after.
- 02
Issue the contract, with probation written in
Indefinite by default since the 2021 reform, which left temporary contracts available only for genuine production circumstances or to substitute an absent employee. Where the applicable collective agreement sets no limit of its own, probation is up to six months for qualified professionals and two months for other staff and it exists only if it is agreed in writing in the contract.
- 03
Register the employee with the Social Security before the first day
The alta can be filed up to sixty days in advance and must be in place before work begins. A late filing brings back contributions with a surcharge and is reported to the labour inspectorate. This is the deadline that cannot be repaired retrospectively.
- 04
Set up payroll, withholding and the time record
Monthly payroll with income tax withheld on the national scale, the employee's social security share deducted and a daily record of start and finish times kept and available for four years.
If the role is remote for a meaningful share of the week, a fifth document is compulsory. Where remote working reaches at least 30% of the working day over a three-month reference period it counts as regular remote work, which requires its own written agreement signed before it starts, obliges the employer to supply the equipment and prevents the associated costs being passed to the employee.
What changed for Spanish employers in 2026?
Less than the headlines suggested and the way it changed is itself worth knowing.
The 2026 contribution figures took four legislative steps to settle. A decree of 23 December 2025 introduced a new accident-contingency tariff with effect from 1 January. Congress then declined to convalidate that decree and repealed it on 27 January 2026, taking the tariff with it. A second decree of 3 February re-established the tariff with retroactive effect to 1 January and set the year's contribution ceiling and the intergenerational equity rate and it was convalidated at the end of that month. The contribution order that actually fixes the rates and bases was not published until 31 March. Any Spanish cost page written before the spring was working from figures that were provisional and for part of January from an instrument that had been repealed.
| Reported change | Actual position | What still applies |
|---|---|---|
| Working week cut to 37.5 hours | Bill rejected by the Congreso in September 2025, with no successor in progress | 40 hours a week of effective work, averaged over the year |
| Digital time recording made compulsory | Draft regulation received a negative opinion from the Consejo de Estado in March 2026 and has not been published | A daily record of start and finish times, kept for four years, in any reliable format |
Neither is law. The statutory position on working time and time recording is where it was and an employer that rebuilt its policies around either announcement rebuilt them around something that has not happened.
For the full cost arithmetic, including both worked examples and the activity-rated accident percentages, see what a Spanish hire costs. For contracts, leave, working time, payroll and termination, see hiring in Spain. For the structural decision between using an Employer of Record and incorporating, see EOR or a Spanish entity.
Cost transparency
What does it cost to employ someone in Spain?
Key statutory employer costs in Spain. Employer of Record pricing sits on top of them and is confirmed after a short discovery call, once the role, location and timeline are known.
- Employer social security
- 32.15% for an office role on an indefinite contract
- Contribution ceiling
- 5,101.20 euros a month
- Extraordinary payments
- Two a year minimum, so salaries are usually quoted over 14 payments
- Severance
- 20 days per year of service on objective grounds, 33 days if the dismissal is unfair
The provider
About Aspirock
Aspirock is an Employer of Record and payroll provider operating across 70+ countries from six global offices, founded on more than 22 years of operational EOR experience and supporting more than 5,000 workers. Every client works with a named account team that owns the deployment end to end, so contracts, payroll, visas, and compliance filings in each market are handled by people accountable for the outcome.
For deployments into Spain that means contracts drafted against the collective agreement that covers the role, registration with the Social Security before the first day of work, monthly payroll with income tax withheld on the national scale, or the foral tables in the Basque provinces and Navarra, the 2026 employer contributions including the intergenerational equity and solidarity charges and statutory time-record compliance.
Common questions
Frequently asked questions
Last reviewed
A company already registered as a Spanish employer holds the employment contract while the client directs the work day to day. That company registers the employee with the Social Security before the first day of work, issues a contract under the collective agreement covering the activity, runs monthly Spanish payroll, withholds income tax on the national scale, or the foral tables in the Basque provinces and Navarra, together with the employee's share of social security, pays the employer contributions, keeps the statutory daily time record and handles notice and any severance on exit. No Spanish incorporation is needed on the client's side. Aspirock provides that route into Spain for companies with no local presence, with a named account team owning the deployment end to end.
For an office role on an indefinite contract in 2026, employer social security is 32.15% of the contribution base: common contingencies at 23.60%, unemployment at 5.50%, the wage guarantee fund at 0.20%, vocational training at 0.60%, the intergenerational equity contribution at 0.75% and accident and occupational-disease cover at 1.50%. The last of those is rated on the activity and is considerably higher for manual, industrial, transport and security work. The base is capped at 5,101.20 euros a month, so the effective rate falls on higher salaries, with only a solidarity contribution of 0.96% to 1.22% charged on the excess. Two costs sit outside that arithmetic and are frequently larger than the difference between providers: the salary table and supplements in the applicable collective agreement, and the two annual extraordinary payments that make a Spanish salary a fourteen-payment figure.
Spanish law does not have a category called Employer of Record and Article 43 of the Estatuto de los Trabajadores reserves the assignment of workers to another company to authorised temporary-work agencies. Assignment outside that channel is unlawful and gives the worker the right to become permanent in either company. The Court of Justice of the European Union held in October 2024 that administrative authorisation is not what makes a company a temporary-work agency and that what matters is who organises and supervises the work, which Spanish practitioners read as significant for arrangements of this kind. What the courts and the labour inspectorate look at is therefore substance rather than labels: whether the company holding the contract has its own stable organisation and means and whether it genuinely performs the functions of an employer rather than simply supplying people. The useful question for a buyer is not whether a provider calls itself an EOR but how the Spanish employing company is structured and who directs the work.
The activity of the employer and the territory decide it, not the employer. Spanish sectoral agreements have general effect: they bind every employer and worker within their scope for as long as they are in force, regardless of whether the employer belongs to the association that signed. So a company hiring its first employee in Spain is covered by an agreement it never joined, usually one negotiated for its sector in that province. The agreement typically sets the salary table by professional group, the annual working hours, overtime treatment, the extraordinary payments and often supplements and a longer holiday than the statutory 30 calendar days. Identifying the right agreement is the first step in a Spanish cost model, because it, rather than the statutory minimum wage, is what usually sets the floor.
Usually yes and this is where Spain differs sharply from several other European markets. The income tax regulation places the withholding obligation on non-resident persons and entities that operate in Spanish territory without a permanent establishment, as well as on those with one, so a foreign employer cannot generally treat withholding as the employee's problem. Social security is separate and stricter: a company with no establishment in Spain must register with the Social Security treasury before activity begins, must give an address in Spain and if it is resident abroad for more than six months a year must appoint a representative domiciled in Spain. On top of that, the employee has to be registered before the first day of work, not after it, and a late registration is an infringement that carries back contributions with a surcharge and is reported to the labour inspectorate.
Faster than most European markets for a qualified hire. Nationals of the EU, the EEA and Switzerland need no authorisation at all. For everyone else the highly qualified professional route is the main one: applications are filed electronically with the Large Companies and Strategic Groups Unit, which must resolve within 20 days, and if it does not the authorisation is deemed granted by positive silence. The initial permit runs for up to three years, or the length of the contract plus three months if that is shorter. Qualification is proved either by a higher education degree or by at least three years of professional experience treated as equivalent, which makes the route usable for experienced specialists without a formal qualification. The route sits under Ley 14/2013, as amended to transpose Directive (EU) 2021/1883; the separate general immigration regulation, Royal Decree 1155/2024, replaced the 2011 framework on 20 May 2025 and governs the standard work-permit routes rather than this one.
Setup cost no longer decides it. A Spanish limited company needs only one euro of share capital since the 2022 reform, although a fifth of profits must go to the legal reserve until reserves and capital reach 3,000 euros and if the company is wound up with assets insufficient to meet its obligations the members are jointly liable for the difference between 3,000 euros and the subscribed capital. What actually decides it is exposure and load: whether having people working in Spain creates a permanent establishment for corporate tax, who carries the ongoing obligations of identifying and applying the right collective agreement, registering employees before they start, running monthly payroll with income tax withheld on the national scale, or the foral tables in the Basque provinces and Navarra and keeping the statutory time record and how each route sits against the statutory rules on assigning workers between companies. An Employer of Record fits a first hire, a small team or a fixed-term deployment; a Spanish company fits a business that needs to trade and contract in Spain in its own name, or whose headcount makes per-employee fees exceed the fixed cost of running a company. Aspirock runs the Employer of Record route into Spain and supports the transfer to a client's own Spanish company when incorporation becomes the right answer.
General guidance on Spain employment rules, reviewed 3 August 2026. Rates and rules change. This is not legal or tax advice for a specific situation.
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