Spain's Time Tracking Law: Royal Decree-Law 8/2019

Spain legislated ahead of the ECJ CCOO ruling rather than in response to it. The Spanish government had already approved Royal Decree-Law 8/2019 (Real Decreto-Ley 8/2019, de 8 de marzo, de medidas urgentes de protección social y de lucha contra la precariedad laboral en la jornada de trabajo) on 8 March 2019. Its recording duty took effect on 12 May 2019, two days before the CCOO judgment of 14 May 2019.

Spanish law has required daily time tracking for every employee ever since. This post explains the new Article 34.9 of the Estatuto de los Trabajadores, what records the Inspección de Trabajo y Seguridad Social expects, and where the 2025 reform attempts stand.

#Quick Reference

#The Headline: Article 34.9

Royal Decree-Law 8/2019 added a new paragraph 9 to Article 34 of the Estatuto de los Trabajadores (the Workers' Statute). The text:

"The undertaking shall guarantee the daily recording of the working day, which must include the specific start and end times of the working day of each worker, without prejudice to the time flexibility established in this article."

Three requirements pack into that sentence:

1. Daily: every single working day must have a record. Weekly summaries do not satisfy.
2. Start and end: the actual time of day, not just the duration. A "worked 8 hours" entry is insufficient; the record needs the start and end clock times.
3. Every worker: no exclusion by job category. Full-time, part-time, executives, fixed-term, and seasonal workers all need records.

The decree also amended Article 7.5 of the Ley sobre Infracciones y Sanciones en el Orden Social (LISOS) to classify failure to maintain records as a serious infringement.

#Who Must Track

Every Spanish employer. The duty applies regardless of company size; the law does not exempt small employers or microbusinesses.

The duty extends to all workers under an employment relationship (contrato de trabajo). Genuine self-employed (autónomos) fall outside; false self-employment (where the autónomo status is a fiction for a de-facto employment relationship) can be reclassified as employment, which brings the recording duty with it.

For part-time workers (contrato a tiempo parcial), Article 12.4.c adds its own rules: hours are recorded day by day and totaled monthly, and the worker receives a summary of all hours worked that month, ordinary and complementary (horas complementarias), together with the pay slip. Part-timers may not work overtime except in the emergencies covered by Article 35.3. If these records are not kept, the contract is presumed to be full-time unless the employer proves otherwise.

#What "Recording" Has to Cover

Three things must be in the system:

• Start time of the worker's day
• End time of the worker's day
• Optionally, but in practice essential: breaks (start and end of each)

The decree does not mandate technology. A handwritten ledger, a punch clock, or an app all qualify (biometric readers raise data protection issues, see the FAQ below). The criteria from the ECJ CCOO ruling apply: objective, reliable, accessible.

In practice, the Ministry of Labour's guide says any paper or electronic system is valid if it gives reliable information that neither the employer nor the worker can alter after the fact. "Accessible" requires the records to be available to the worker, the worker's legal representatives, and labor inspectors, at the workplace or immediately from it.

#Records Are Available to Three Parties

Article 34.9 explicitly requires records to be available to:

1. The worker. Each worker must be able to see their own records.
2. Workers' legal representatives. The works council (comité de empresa) or staff delegates (delegados de personal).
3. Labor inspectors. On request, immediately.

Workers and their representatives can request records at any time. The inspectorate can request them during regular inspections or in response to a complaint.

#Retention: Four Years

Records must be kept for four years from the date of the work day in question. This is longer than the two years Germany requires for its working time records.

Practical implication: if your time tracking system rolls over data after, say, two years, you fall foul of this rule. Cloud-based systems with indefinite retention do not have this problem.

#Penalties: How Much It Costs

Failure to maintain records is classified as a infracción grave (serious infringement) under LISOS Article 7.5. The penalty amounts (Art. 40) were raised by Ley 10/2021 (in force 1 October 2021). A serious infringement is sanctioned across three degrees:

The current wording of LISOS Article 7.5 does not count the infringement per affected worker, so a single fine for a missing record is capped at EUR 7,500. The 2025 bill described below would have counted one infringement per affected worker where the record is missing or falsified, and raised the range to EUR 1,000 to EUR 10,000. Congress rejected that bill, so neither change is in force.

#Daily, Weekly, and Rest Rules

Beyond the recording duty, the underlying Spanish working time rules:

• 40 hours per week (average over the annual reference period; can be higher in any single week if balanced out)
• 9 hours per day maximum (unless a collective agreement or an agreement with worker representatives sets a different daily distribution; under 18 capped at 8)
• 12 hours of daily rest between workdays (one hour more than the 11 hours the EU directive requires)
• 1.5 days of weekly rest (typically Saturday afternoon and Sunday)
• 30 calendar days of annual leave (about 22 working days)

For overtime (horas extraordinarias): max 80 hours per year (Art. 35.2), not counting hours compensated with time off within four months; pay or time off as set by the collective agreement or employment contract, and time off within four months if nothing is agreed. Article 35.5 also requires hours to be recorded day by day and totaled each pay period, with a copy of the summary given to the worker with the pay slip.

#The 2025 Reform Attempts

In May 2025, the government sent Congress a bill to cut the maximum ordinary workweek from 40 to 37.5 hours (Proyecto de Ley para la reducción de la duración máxima de la jornada ordinaria de trabajo y la garantía del registro de jornada y el derecho a la desconexión). On 10 September 2025, Congress voted to return the bill to the government, which ended it. As of October 2026, Article 34.1 still sets the 40-hour week.

The bill would also have tightened recording:

• The record would have had to be kept by digital means, with workers making their own entries at the start and end of each day and of each interruption
• The Inspección and worker representatives would have gained remote access to the record
• Retention would have stayed at four years

After the vote, the Ministry of Labour moved the recording rules into a draft Royal Decree developing the Estatuto de los Trabajadores, and the Council of Ministers authorised urgent processing on 30 September 2025. In March 2026, the Consejo de Estado issued an unfavourable opinion, finding that changes of this kind need a law rather than a decree. As of October 2026, the decree has not been approved by the Council of Ministers or published in the BOE. The draft says it would enter into force 20 days after publication, so it is worth following its status.

#Inspection in Practice

The Inspección de Trabajo y Seguridad Social (ITSS) set out how inspectors apply Article 34.9 in its technical criterion 101/2019 (Criterio Técnico 101/2019). Points worth knowing:

• The general company timetable, the work calendar, or shift rosters are not accepted as a record, because they show planned hours, not hours actually worked
• Records must be kept at the workplace or be immediately accessible from it, so they cannot be created or altered after an inspection starts
• If the record does not give a full picture of working time, all time between the recorded start and end may be presumed working time, and the employer has to prove otherwise

Where an inspector is certain that the working time rules are respected, the criterion allows a formal requirement to set up the record instead of opening sanction proceedings.

#Practical Compliance Checklist

1. Pick a system that captures clock times, not just durations. "9:03 to 18:17" is what the rule requires.
2. Record breaks. Article 34.9 doesn't expressly require it, but without break data all time between start and end may be presumed working time.
3. Give workers visibility. Workers must be able to view their own records. A self-service portal is the cleanest implementation.
4. Retain for 4 years. Don't let your retention policy delete records before time.
5. Bring all workers in scope. Including executives, part-timers, and fixed-term staff.
6. Document the system. Article 34.9 requires the record to be organized and documented by collective agreement, company agreement, or, failing that, an employer decision after consulting worker representatives, and the ITSS checks that this step took place.

#Common Questions

Are there exempt workers? No exemption by job category. The Ministry of Labour's guide excludes only senior executives (alta dirección, regulated by RD 1382/1985). Middle managers and staff with fully flexible hours must still be recorded, and part-timers and some transport and maritime workers follow their own specific recording rules.

What if my company uses biometric clock-ins? Risky. The AEPD (Spanish data protection authority) treats fingerprint or face clock-ins as high-risk processing of special category data under GDPR. Its November 2023 guide says time recording at work needs a provision with the rank of law that specifically authorizes biometrics for that purpose, and employee consent cannot serve as the legal basis. Non-biometric methods (PIN, card, mobile app) avoid these rules.

Does the rule apply to remote workers? Yes. The 2021 Ley de Trabajo a Distancia (Remote Work Law) reinforced that the duty applies fully to telework, so daily time tracking for remote workers is part of the same Article 34.9 record.

What about Saturdays and Sundays? If a worker works on a Saturday or Sunday, the day is recorded just like any other working day. Weekly rest provisions still apply.

What if my system goes down? Records can be maintained manually during downtime, then entered when the system recovers. The daily recording duty applies throughout.

#Summary

• Royal Decree-Law 8/2019 added Article 34.9 to the Estatuto de los Trabajadores, requiring every Spanish employer to record daily start and end times for every worker
• Records must be kept for 4 years and made accessible to workers, their representatives, and labor inspectors
• Failure to keep records is a serious infringement, fined up to EUR 7,500 under current law (the 2025 bill that would have counted one infringement per affected worker was rejected)
• Congress rejected the 2025 bill for a 37.5-hour week and digital recording; a draft royal decree on the record had not been approved as of October 2026
• Compliance focus: clock times (not rounded), break recording, worker visibility, and full coverage

#Sources

• Real Decreto-Ley 8/2019 on boe.es
• Estatuto de los Trabajadores, consolidated text
• LISOS (Ley sobre Infracciones y Sanciones en el Orden Social)
• ITSS Criterio Técnico 101/2019 on the recording duty
• Ministerio de Trabajo y Economía Social, guide to the recording duty
• 2025 bill for a 37.5-hour week and recording (BOCG) and its return to the government (BOCG)

#Where to Go Next

• The ECJ CCOO ruling: why time tracking is mandatory for the EU ruling handed down two days after the Spanish duty took effect
• The EU Working Time Directive explained for the directive Spain implements
• HR warnings: get notified about working time violations for the practical layer in Timesheet
• Working hours in Brazil: the CLT and the electronic time clock for the jurisdiction that went further and specified what a compliant recorder must do
• Mexico's 40-hour week and the new time record for a fresh electronic record mandate arriving in 2027