Spain
In recent years, Spain has become a hotspot for international remote talent—and that’s in addition to the great local talent that lives there, too. If you’ve found someone in Spain you’d like to hire, you’re in the right place. In the next few minutes, we’ll teach you how you can hire in Spain (without getting tied up in legal red tape and thousands in fees).
Country snapshot
CURRENCY
Euro (EUR)
EMPLOYER TAXES
29.90%
PAYROLL FREQUENCY
Monthly
OFFICIAL LANGUAGE
Spanish
It’s the fastest way to hire globally
Hiring employees takes months, at the minimum. When you hire with Thera's locally-generated contracts, it’s a matter of days or weeks. This means you can hire the best talent, fast, without losing them to a hellish procession of paperwork.
It’s a lot cheaper
It costs just $0 to sign up for Thera, then $25 per month to hire your contractors with Thera. If you hired employees manually (or did contracting on your own), you’d likely be on the hook for thousands of dollars each month. Setting up an entity alone can cost tens of thousands of dollars.
It’s more flexible for you & your team
Can be less risky than hiring employees
Hiring employees is a bigger commitment, and can open you up to increased liabilities and regulations. When you hire contractors overseas, your biggest risk is misclassification—but laws surrounding contractor classification are often significantly more straightforward.
Some people want to be employees
The contractor life isn’t for everyone—some people want the security that being an employee often appears to provide. Though it’s rare, this does happen, and it’s one disadvantage of manage an all-contractor team.
You might not have as much control over your talent
Most countries’ contractor-employer relationship laws stipulate that the employer can’t set fixed working hours, among other things. These laws give contractors more freedom over how and when they do their work than an employee would have. In reality, however, most contractors are willing & able to work on the company’s schedule—it’s a matter of setting expectations beforehand.
So you want to hire in Spain. That’s great. But you should know that hiring in Spain is different from hiring in your home country. There’s a whole laundry list of labor laws to catch up on, lawyers to contract, compliance issues to navigate… And it can get complex. So we’ll break it down in simple terms.
Hire talent as contractors
Hire talent as employees
If you’ve read up until this point, you’ll know that it’s easier, cheaper, and more flexible to hire contractors in Spain than employees. Still, there are valid reasons why you might want to hire employees instead. The content below is for you—we’ll cover employer taxes and obligations in Spain.
Employer tax
Social Security
Unemployment
Salary Guarantee Fund
Professional Training
Individual tax
0-12,450 - 19.00%
60,000 and above - 45.00%
Paid Time Off (PTO)
Paid time off is at least 30 calendar days.
Employees are entitled to an uninterrupted rest period of at least one and a half days per week.
As a general rule, this must include Sunday.
Public Holidays
Each province in Spain has a different number of public holidays, but do not exceed 14 in total.
Out of these 14, there are 9 national holidays.
Sick Days
Sick leave is as follows:
- The first 3 days of sick leave are unpaid.
- From the 4th to the 15th day, the employee is entitled to 60% of the contribution base of the previous month and is paid by the employer.
- From the 16th to the 20th day, the employee is entitled to 60% of the contribution base of the previous month and is paid by the employer, who can then deduct the amount from the social security mandatory payment.
- From the 21st day onwards, the employee is entitled to 75% of the contribution base of the previous month and is paid by the employer, who can then deduct the amount from the social security mandatory payment.
- Employees can take sick leave for up to one year and under unique circumstances could extend it to 180 days.
- When the employee is injured at work- The employee will be entitled to 75% of the contribution base of the previous month’s salary. It is paid by the employer, who can then deduct the amount from the social security mandatory payment.
Maternity Leave
Mothers are entitled to 16 weeks’ maternity leave. The leave can begin up to 4 weeks before the expected due date and at least 6 weeks must be taken immediately after the birth of the child.
During maternity leave, the employee is not paid their salary, but rather, a maternity benefit. The maternity benefit is calculated based on the previous month’s contribution (including monthly salary and the proportional part of the extra pay) and is paid by social security.
The maternity benefit is capped at 4,070 EUR per month. If the employee’s salary is generally higher than this amount, the employer can decide to pay the difference, however, this is not mandatory.
Paternity Leave
Fathers are entitled to 16 weeks of paid paternity leave.
The first 6 weeks must be taken immediately after the birth of the child. leave can be extended by two weeks in the case of multiple births.
All 16 weeks are 100% paid by the state.
Parental Leave
Employees have the right of leave up to three years to attend to the care of each child, whether natural, adopted or being fostered permanently or as pre-adoptive measures.
Females workers have the right to one hour of absence from work each day to breastfeed an infant of less than nine months. This can be divided into two half-hour periods.
January 1, 2020, leave will be extended to 16 weeks, the first 6 without interruption.
Neither of the parents may will be able to transfer this right to the other.
Other Leave
Adoption Leave: 6 weeks compulsory and uninterrupted leave for both partners. 16 unpaid weeks in total can be shared between both parents. A maximum of 10 weeks can be taken by one with the remaining 6 weeks being taken by the partner.
Serious illness or injury of family member: 2 days (4 days if travel is required).
Moving: 1 day for moving to a new house.
Marriage Leave
Marriage: 15 calendar days
Bereavement Leave
Bereavement: 2 days (4 days if travel is required) for the death of a family member.
Termination Process
The end of a temporary contract – the worker is given notice as established in the collective agreement/employment contract. The employee is entitled to the proportional part of extra pay and holidays as well as the compensation of 12 days’ salary per year worked.
Voluntary termination by the employee – the employee must give notice to the company with the notice established in the collective agreement. On their last day the company will pay the amounts corresponding to the payroll and termination.
Dismissal:
a) Disciplinary–there is no notice and the final payroll is paid on the day of dismissal, without compensation, delivering the letter with the reasons for which the dismissal is made.
b) For objective reasons–the amount corresponding to 20 days of salary for each year worked is paid to the worker 15 days before the end date including a letter with the reasons for the dismissal.
Notice Period
Employers should provide 15 days of notice, and if notice isn’t given, payment in lieu shall be given.
Severance Pay
Employers should pay 20 days of salary pay per year of service up to 12 months.
If the dismissal is declared unfair (a dismissal without cause) by a judge, the employer may reinstate the employee or pay a statutory severance payment.
Employees affected by a redundancy will be entitled to receive a legal severance payment and an advance notice in writing of the termination of the contract.
A worker who is dismissed for disciplinary reasons is not entitled to severance pay.
Probation Period
It varies depending on the Collective Agreement in place at the company.
The common practice is two months, graduate technicians are usually for a 6 month period.
Working Hours
Full -time employment is considered 40 hours weekly, and 8 hours daily.
Overtime
Overtime policy is usually covered by Collective Agreements. The guidelines set out by law are that overtime hours should not exceed 80 hours per year.
Overtime can be compensated by paying a higher amount than the employee salary or by replacing the hours with an equivalent paid rest period.
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