Mandatory time recording in Spain

What RDL 8/2019 establishes

Royal Decree-Law 8/2019 of 8 March, on urgent measures for social protection and the fight against precarious employment in the working day, introduced the express obligation for all companies with employees in Spain to record each employee's daily working time. This obligation, which already existed implicitly in the Workers' Statute, was regulated explicitly with the reform of Article 34.9 of that statute.

The rule came into force on 12 May 2019 and applies immediately to all companies, regardless of their size, sector of activity or legal form.

What the rule requires exactly

Daily recording of the workday

The company has to guarantee the recording of the start time and the finish time of each worker's working day, every day on which they provide services. Recording only the total hours worked is not enough: the rule requires the start and finish timestamps.

The record has to be made day by day. Weekly or monthly groupings are not accepted as a form of compliance.

Worker access to their own records

The worker has the right to consult their own working-time records at any time. The company is obliged to facilitate that access. This access can be direct (through the recording tool) or through the worker's union representative.

Retention for four years

Working-time records have to be retained for a minimum of four years and be available at all times to:

• The Labour and Social Security Inspectorate (ITSS).
• Workers' representatives (staff delegates or works council).
• The workers themselves.

Collective bargaining and internal organisation

The rule allows the specific way of organising the record to be agreed through a collective agreement, a company agreement or, failing that, by the employer's decision after consulting the workers' representatives. However, the minimum requirements (daily record with start and finish times, four-year retention, worker access) are not negotiable: they apply in every case.

Who it applies to

The working-time recording obligation applies to all companies with employees in Spain, regardless of:

• The company's size: from self-employed people with a single employee to large corporations.
• The sector of activity: retail, hospitality, industry, services, the public sector, etc.
• The type of contract: full time, part time, permanent, temporary or for a specific project.
• The working mode: on site, teleworking or hybrid.

Special situations

• Teleworkers: they are fully subject to the recording obligation. The Remote Working Act (Act 10/2021) does not modify this obligation; it extends it.
• Part-time work: the record is especially important because part-time contracts have required recording since 2013. With RDL 8/2019, this obligation extends to everyone.
• Employees with flexible hours: recording remains mandatory even if the employee has autonomy to set their own hours within a band. There has to be evidence of when the real working day started and finished.

Penalties for non-compliance

Failure to comply with the working-time recording obligation is classified as a serious infringement in Article 7.5 of the Act on Infringements and Penalties in the Social Order (LISOS). The penalties are:

What does not comply with the rule

The Labour Inspectorate has issued interpretative criteria clarifying which systems do not comply sufficiently with RDL 8/2019:

• Paper records with no organised filing do not guarantee retention or access in the terms required.
• Editable spreadsheets offer no guarantee of immutability: any subsequent modification is undetectable.
• The honour system or self-declaration with no supporting evidence (the employee says they worked from 9 to 17 with no technical record) does not meet the requirement of an effective record.
• Recording only the total hours without start and finish times does not comply with the rule.