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How to hire remote employees in
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.
If you want to successfully hire in
Spain
, you have two options:
Laws about hiring contractors are significantly more simple in
Spain
. Onboarding talent takes days, not weeks or months. Both you, the company, and your talent have more flexibility. And in many cases, since you’re remote, the talent you’re hiring is better classified as a contractor, anyway. Of course, it’s not possible in every case, but it’s what we built Thera for.
This is the long route. You can either establish a physical presence with an entity and register as an employer, or you can use an Employer-of-Record (EOR) solution. Odds are, you’ll find using an EOR to be the easier route. Still, using an EOR in
Spain
is expensive—it can often be $500 per month per employee—and sometimes prone to lengthy onboarding times.
Hiring contractors is normally the easier, faster, more flexible choice—but don’t just take it from us. Below are the specific benefits and drawbacks to hiring contractors in
Spain
.
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 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.
Hiring contractors in
Spain
means you’re generally not on the hook for things like health insurance and paid time off. This makes hiring flexible for you, and it gives your talent more options.
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.
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.
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.
If you’re hiring contractors in
Spain
, you can pay them with Thera in a single click. You won’t need to worry about complicated wire transfers, fees, or currency conversions. We’ll take care of it all. Just make a click and your contractor will get paid in their currency of choice. This is a valuable bonus for talent in countries where the local currency is particularly weak—most people appreciate the ability to receive their payment in stronger currencies.
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.
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.
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 leave is as follows:
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.
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.
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.
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: 15 calendar days
Bereavement: 2 days (4 days if travel is required) for the death of a family member.
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.
Employers should provide 15 days of notice, and if notice isn’t given, payment in lieu shall be given.
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.
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.
Full -time employment is considered 40 hours weekly, and 8 hours daily.
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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