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Spain Overtime Rules: The 40-Hour Week, the 80-Hour Cap, and the Daily Record That Proves Both (2026)

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Spain Overtime Rules: The 40-Hour Week, the 80-Hour Cap, and the Daily Record That Proves Both (2026)

The short answer: Spain's Workers' Statute sets the ordinary week at 40 hours of actual work, measured as an average over the year, and the ordinary day at 9 hours unless a collective agreement spreads it differently. Anything past the maximum ordinary day is overtime. Overtime is voluntary, capped at 80 hours a year, and paid at no less than the ordinary hour or compensated with paid rest within four months. The statute sets no overtime premium of its own; the rate comes from the collective agreement or the contract. Every worker's day has to be recorded, start and end, and kept for four years, and every overtime hour has to be written down day by day with a monthly summary on the pay slip. Missing the record is a serious infringement with a fine of up to €7,500. Punch builds that record one punch at a time.

Readers of our guides to France's 35-hour week, Germany's 8-hour day and Ireland's contract-based overtime will find Spain closest to Ireland on pay, closest to France on the annual quota, and the strictest of the four on the daily record. Here is how it works for a small crew.

The 40-Hour Week, the 9-Hour Day, and the 12-Hour Rest

Article 34 of the Estatuto de los Trabajadores sets the maximum ordinary working week at 40 hours of actual work, as an average over the year. The average is the point. A landscaping crew can run 44-hour weeks through a spring rush and 36-hour weeks in August, and the ordinary hours are untouched as long as the annual figure lands at 40 and the daily and rest limits below are kept.

Three further rules sit under the weekly average:

  • Nine hours a day. Ordinary hours may not exceed 9 in a day unless a collective agreement, or an agreement between the employer and the workers' representatives, spreads them differently. The 12-hour rest below still applies.
  • Twelve hours between days. At least 12 hours must pass between the end of one working day and the start of the next. A crew member who punched out at 10 p.m. cannot be required back before 10 a.m.
  • A 15-minute break after 6 hours. When the continuous working day runs past 6 hours, a break of at least 15 minutes is mandatory. Whether it counts as working time depends on the collective agreement or the contract.

Absent an agreement, the employer may distribute 10% of the annual working time irregularly across the year, with at least five days' notice to the worker. That is the statutory flex for a seasonal trade. Anything beyond it is overtime.

A bill to cut the week to 37.5 hours was rejected by the Congress of Deputies on 10 September 2025 and has not returned. The 40-hour week is the law in 2026. Many collective agreements already set a shorter annual total; where yours does, that figure is the one your overtime starts from.

What Counts as Overtime, and What It Has to Pay

Article 35 defines an overtime hour as any hour worked beyond the maximum ordinary working day. Four rules follow, and each one is checked against a daily record.

No statutory premium, but never below the ordinary hour. The collective agreement, or failing that the employment contract, chooses between paying overtime and compensating it with equivalent paid rest. If it is paid, the amount can never be lower than the value of an ordinary hour. If nothing is agreed, the hour must be compensated with rest within the four months following the work. The 25% and 50% supplements most Spanish employers pay come from their sector agreement, not from the statute. An employer with no applicable agreement and no clause in the contract owes rest, not money.

Eighty hours a year, per person. Overtime may not exceed 80 hours in a year. A worker on a shorter annual schedule has a proportionally lower cap. Hours compensated with rest inside the four-month window do not count toward the 80. The Government can lower or suspend the cap temporarily to promote employment; it has not done so for 2026.

Emergency hours sit outside the cap. Hours worked to prevent or repair accidents and other extraordinary and urgent damage do not count toward the ordinary-day limit or the 80-hour cap, but they are still paid as overtime. A roofing crew called out after a storm is the textbook case. Classifying routine hours as emergency hours to escape the cap, or to pay the lower contribution rate below, is a serious infringement the Labour Inspectorate reclassifies on sight.

Overtime is voluntary. Unless the collective agreement or the individual contract makes it compulsory, within the 80-hour limit, a worker can decline it. Night workers, defined below, may not work overtime at all.

What an Overtime Hour Costs the Employer

Beyond the wage, overtime carries its own social security contribution, separate from the ordinary contribution base. For 2026, under Order PJC/297/2026:

  • Emergency (fuerza mayor) hours: 14% of the overtime pay, split 12% employer and 2% worker.
  • All other overtime: 28.30% of the overtime pay, split 23.60% employer and 4.70% worker.

So a €15 overtime hour paid under a 25% agreement supplement costs the employer €18.75 in wages plus €4.43 in contributions, about €23.18 an hour. The lower emergency rate is the reason the Inspectorate looks hard at any employer whose "emergency" hours arrive every Friday.

Every hour, ordinary or extra, has to clear the minimum wage. Royal Decree 126/2026, published in the BOE on 19 February 2026 with effect from 1 January, set the salario mínimo interprofesional at €1,221 a month in 14 payments, €17,094 a year, a 3.1% rise. A worker on a flat monthly salary whose real weeks run well past the contracted hours can fall under that line without anyone noticing, which is the second reason the daily record exists.

The Daily Record: Every Employer, Every Worker, Four Years

Since 12 May 2019, under Royal Decree-law 8/2019, article 34.9 has required every employer to guarantee a daily record of each worker's working time, including the specific start and end time of each day. There is no exception for small businesses, family businesses, or workers on flexible hours. The records must be kept for four years and remain available to the workers, their representatives and the Labour and Social Security Inspectorate.

Overtime has its own record on top. Article 35.5 requires overtime to be recorded day by day and totalled at the moment set for paying wages, with a copy of the summary handed to the worker on the corresponding pay slip. A worker who receives a payslip with no overtime line, in a month where the daily record shows 10-hour days, has the evidence in hand.

The law does not yet say the record must be digital. Paper, a spreadsheet or an app all satisfy it, provided the record is reliable and cannot be altered after the fact. A draft Royal Decree would make the record digital, tamper-proof and remotely accessible to the Inspectorate; the Council of State issued a negative opinion on it on 23 March 2026, and as of late October 2026 it has not been approved or published. The 2019 duty is the one in force. What changes when the decree lands is the format, not the obligation.

The Fine: €751 to €7,500 Per Infringement

Article 7.5 of the Law on Infringements and Sanctions in the Social Order (LISOS) classifies as a serious infringement the breach of the legal or agreed rules on working time, night work, overtime, rest, holidays, leave and the working-time record. Under article 40.1(b), a serious infringement is fined in three grades: €751 to €1,500, €1,501 to €3,750, or €3,751 to €7,500, graded by factors that include the number of workers affected.

The Inspectorate has kept working time among its priority campaigns since the 2019 duty took effect, and it closed 2025 with more than €858 million in proposed sanctions across every social-order matter, up 58.6% on 2024. In a dispute, the record also decides the burden: an employer who holds a day-by-day record for every worker answers a claim with hours; an employer who holds nothing answers with memory, against a worker who kept a notebook.

Night Work: 10 p.m. to 6 a.m.

Article 36 defines night work as work between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. A night worker's day may not exceed 8 hours on average over a 15-day reference period, night workers may not work overtime, and night work carries a specific pay rate set by collective bargaining, unless the salary already reflects its night character or the parties agreed to compensate it with rest. A cleaning or security crew that regularly works past 10 p.m. needs the exact start and finish time of every shift to show which hours fell in the window and to prove the 15-day average.

How Punch Handles Spanish Working Time

Punch is built for the record every rule above depends on.

A Spain preset, in euros. Choose Spain at signup and Punch applies its Spain working-time preset, with euros throughout: every hour at the regular rate, because the statute sets no premium, and a 40-hour standard week with the 80-hour annual cap written into the rule's own footer. If your collective agreement pays a supplement, switch to Custom in Org Settings and enter its thresholds and rates, for example every hour past 40 in a week at 1.25x, or past 9 in a day. Punch applies it to every pay period from then on.

Start, break, and finish on every day. Your team punches in, punches out for the break, punches back in, and punches out from their phone. The specific start and end of each day, the 15-minute break, the 12-hour rest and the 9-hour day are on the record for every person, every day. That is the article 34.9 record, kept by the people doing the work, and every later change a manager makes is kept beside the original punch.

The overtime hours, day by day. Reports roll up per person by day, week and pay period, so the hours past the ordinary day, the running total against 80, and the minimum-wage floor are a glance, not a reconstruction, and the summary article 35.5 wants on the pay slip comes from the same figures.

A job-site geofence, not a camera. Punch-in can be limited to a geofence around the site. There is no photo at punch and no facial recognition.

Approvals before payroll. Managers approve hours one by one or bulk approve a whole pay period, then export to QuickBooks Online, Square, or a QuickBooks or Excel CSV for your gestoría or payroll provider.

Four years and more, kept. Approved pay periods stay in Punch, per person, with every punch behind them. When the Inspección de Trabajo asks for the record, it is a report.

No signal, no gap. Punches made in a basement, on a rural site or inside a warehouse sync when the phone reconnects. A shared iPad in kiosk mode, with a PIN for each worker, covers a workshop door or a yard gate.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is there a legal overtime rate in Spain?

No. Article 35 says only that a paid overtime hour can never be worth less than an ordinary hour, and that without an agreement the hour is compensated with paid rest within four months. The 25% or 50% supplement comes from the collective agreement or the contract.

How many overtime hours can an employee work in Spain?

80 in a year, per person, prorated for shorter schedules. Hours compensated with rest within four months do not count. Hours worked to prevent or repair accidents and other urgent, extraordinary damage sit outside the cap but are still paid as overtime.

Does an employer in Spain have to record working hours?

Yes. Since 12 May 2019, article 34.9 requires a daily record of every worker's start and end time, kept for four years and available to the worker and the Inspectorate. There is no small-business exception. Overtime must also be recorded day by day with a summary on the pay slip. The format is open until the pending digital-record decree is approved.

What is the fine for not keeping the working-time record?

It is a serious infringement under article 7.5 of the LISOS, fined between €751 and €7,500 depending on the grade, and graded upward with the number of workers affected.

What is the minimum wage in Spain in 2026?

€1,221 a month in 14 payments, €17,094 a year, under Royal Decree 126/2026, with effect from 1 January 2026.

Is the 37.5-hour week in force?

No. The Congress of Deputies rejected the bill on 10 September 2025. The statutory week remains 40 hours as an annual average. Check your collective agreement, which may set a shorter annual total.

Keep a Spanish Record That Holds Up

Spanish working time is a set of lines drawn across the hours your crew actually works: 40 a week on the annual average, 9 a day, 12 hours of rest, 15 minutes of break, 80 overtime hours a year, four months to give the rest back, €1,221 a month for every full-time worker, and a daily record kept four years that proves every one of them.

Punch records every punch in, punch out and break, applies the Spain preset or your agreement's rates, rolls up the day and the week, and exports approved hours straight to payroll. Pricing is flat per workspace, with no per-user line item, and every plan includes every feature. The 14-day free trial starts on signup, no credit card required.

Start tracking Spanish hours correctly with Punch →

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