RD 723/2026 in Spain: The Written Terms Every Employer Owes Staff from 5 October

From 5 October 2026, anyone in Spain who takes on an employee for more than four weeks has to hand them a written statement of seventeen specific terms before they start work, unless the signed contract the employee holds already contains them. The list runs from the pay structure and the trial period to the code number of each collective agreement that governs the job, and whether any algorithm helps decide their shifts. Staff already on the payroll that day are covered in two ways. Any change to their terms from 5 October has to be notified in writing by the day it takes effect, without anyone asking. And if one of them asks for the full statement, you have thirty working days from receiving the request.

The rule is Royal Decree 723/2026, published on 15 September. It replaces a 1998 decree that already required written terms and the name of the applicable collective agreement. What changes is the detail, the timing and the length of the list. On our read, the line most likely to stall a small employer is the agreement itself, identified by its code.

Last verified: 18 September 2026.

The decree, and the date it starts

Royal Decree 723/2026, of 9 September, partially transposes EU Directive 2019/1152 on transparent and predictable working conditions; its second final provision calls it a partial incorporation. It was published in the Boletín Oficial del Estado — official state gazette on 15 September 2026 as BOE-A-2026-19200. Its fourth final provision puts it in force twenty days after publication, which makes the date 5 October 2026. The decree does not print that date itself; it is the count from 15 September, and the gazette’s own record lists the same day.

It repeals Royal Decree 1659/1998, the rule that has governed written information on contract terms since 1998. The repeal takes effect with the new decree on 5 October; until then the 1998 decree still applies. From that date the new list replaces the old one.

Some of this is not new. The 1998 decree already required a written statement of the main terms, already required the applicable collective agreement to be identified, and gave the staff employed when it came in a right to ask for the statement. What the new decree adds is the detail: the agreement’s code, publication date, validity and extended-validity status, an item on algorithms, and a longer list overall. The timing tightens too. The old rule generally allowed two months from the start of the job; the new one wants the information before the first day.

As at 18 September no correction notice has been published against it in the gazette.

Who it covers

Every employer and employee inside the Estatuto de los Trabajadores — Workers’ Statute, with no exemption for small firms. An SL with one waiter is under the same duty as a hotel group, although some items only apply where the situation exists. An autónomo — self-employed worker who employs someone is an employer for this purpose.

The written-statement duty, in Chapter II of the decree, applies only to employment lasting more than four weeks (article 2.2). A two-week summer cover contract is outside it; a three-month season is inside it. The shorter contract still has to be in writing wherever the Workers’ Statute requires that (article 8.2), and fishing and seafaring contracts have their own chapters that apply whatever their length.

A solo autónomo with nobody on the payroll owes nothing. The decree governs employment relationships, and you cannot employ yourself.

What a new hire must be given

Article 3.2 lists seventeen items, lettered (a) to (q). Several apply only where the situation exists: a temporary contract, agency work, a trial period, irregular hours. Grouped for reading, they are:

• The basics: who the parties are; the start date, and for a temporary contract the end date or expected duration; the company’s registered address and the usual workplace; for remote work, the centre the employee is attached to; and a note if the job moves between sites or the employee is free to choose where to work.
• The job: what the work is, and the professional category or group with a description precise enough to show what the job involves. For a temporary contract, the precise legal reason for it, the concrete circumstances that justify it, and how they connect to the contract’s length.
• Pay: base salary and each supplement listed separately, how often and how it is paid; for variable pay, how it is calculated and the criteria that decide whether it is earned.
• Time: daily, weekly and annual hours and how they are distributed, including night or shift work; when and how hours or shifts can be changed; overtime arrangements and pay; holiday length and how the dates are fixed. Where hours are spread irregularly over the year: how the pattern is set, the reference hours and days when work can be required, and the minimum notice before a task starts and before it is cancelled. For a fijo-discontinuo — fixed-discontinuous contract, the periods of activity and inactivity, or an estimate of them.
• Trial period, if there is one: its length and conditions, and what each side has to do to carry it out.
• Training: the employee’s right to training provided by the company.
• Agency workers: the user company and the reason for each placement.
• Automated decision-making: whether any algorithmic or automated decision system is used and, where one is used to set or change working conditions such as hours, task allocation, pay, promotion, workplace or dismissal, its rules and criteria.
• Equality: the equality plan if the company has one; any work-life balance policy that adapts or develops the legal minimum; the protocol on sexual and sex-based harassment; and any planned LGBTI equality measures.
• Ending the contract: the procedure, formal requirements and notice periods on both sides, or how notice will be worked out if the periods cannot be given yet.
• Collective agreements: each one that applies, identified by its code and its date of publication in the relevant official bulletin, how long it runs, and whether it is operating past its expiry.
• Social Security: which managing body or mutual insurer the company uses for each type of risk or benefit, and any direct collaboration by the company itself; any voluntary improvements to cover; and any pension plans and funds promoted for staff, with the contributions made.
• Changes: the circumstances in which duties, category, pay or hours could change, and the procedure for changing them.

Four rules govern how you hand it over:

• Before the job starts (article 7.1). Handing it over with the first payslip is already late.
• A good written contract counts. If the signed contract the employee holds already contains everything, the duty is met. If it covers only part, you supply the rest in writing (article 3.1).
• Some items can be a reference. Base pay and supplements, hours and how they can change, overtime, holiday, trial period, training, termination and Social Security cover can be given by pointing precisely to the law or the collective agreement that sets them (article 3.3). Variable pay, irregular-hours arrangements, the algorithm item and the agreement’s own identification cannot. The reference has to identify the provision clearly; “as per the applicable agreement” does not.
• Paper or electronic, provided the employee can access, store and print it and you keep proof that it was sent or received (article 6.2).

Any later change to these terms must be notified in writing as soon as possible and at the latest on the day it takes effect (articles 5 and 7.3). The one exception is an item you validly gave by reference to a law or collective agreement, where the change comes from that law or agreement changing (article 5.2).

Existing staff: changes automatically, the full statement on request

The single transitional provision covers everyone already employed on 5 October, within the same four-week scope. It works in two parts.

The automatic part: any change to an existing employee’s terms made from 5 October has to be notified in writing as soon as possible and at the latest on the day it takes effect, whether or not anyone asks. The same exception for changes to a referenced law or agreement applies.

The part on request: you do not have to reissue a full statement to everyone on 5 October. If an employee asks, you must supply the article 3 information within thirty días hábiles — working days from receiving the request, leaving out anything they already hold. Separately, either side can already require the contract itself to be put in writing at any time (Workers’ Statute, article 8.2).

Thirty working days runs longer than a month. The decree does not say how to count them for private employers; with weekends and public holidays left out, a request that lands on 5 October runs to roughly six calendar weeks, but treat that as an estimate, not a due date. The decree does not require the request to be in writing either. Note the date any request arrives, however it arrives, because receipt starts the count.

The line to start on now

Item (o) is the one to start on now. It requires each convenio colectivo — collective agreement that governs the job, identified by its code and the date it was published in the relevant official bulletin, with its period of validity and whether it is in ultraactividad — extended validity after expiry.

Most employees in Spain who are covered by a collective agreement are covered by a sector agreement, often a provincial one, whether or not anyone has told them. The agreement sets the minimum pay for each category, the holiday, and much of what the rest of the list refers to.

Two Málaga examples, as recorded in the Ministry’s register on 18 September. The provincial hospitality agreement has code 29000945011981 and runs to 31 December 2027. The provincial agreement for cleaning of buildings and premises has code 29000285011982; its negotiated term ended on 31 December 2025, and the register records it as not denounced and extended to 31 December 2026. An automatic yearly extension of that kind is not the same as extended validity after expiry. Neither code settles whether the agreement covers a particular job: that turns on the employer’s activity and the type of employment, not on the tasks alone.

Three places to look, in order:

• The signed contracts. SEPE’s model temporary contract, for one, has a line for the applicable agreement.
• Whoever runs your payroll. Your gestoría — administrative agency calculates minimum pay from any agreement that covers your staff, so it should be able to name it and give you the code. If it says none applies, ask which rules it is using instead.
• The Ministry of Labour’s public register of collective agreements, REGCON, searchable by activity and by the labour authority that registered it, which gives each agreement’s code. A national or Andalucía-wide agreement will not appear under a Málaga filter. Provincial agreements for Málaga are published in the province’s official bulletin.

If none of the three produces an answer, fix that before your next hire rather than after an employee’s request arrives.

The SEPE model document

The first additional provision requires the Ministry, through the Servicio Público de Empleo Estatal — state employment service (SEPE), to publish a model information document covering the article 3 list, and the foreign-work and change items where relevant, within twenty days of the decree’s publication, so by 5 October, on its website at least.

We could not find it on the SEPE pages we checked on 18 September. When it appears it is a sensible starting point. Using it does not by itself make your statement complete: the document you hand over still has to contain every item that applies to the job, filled in correctly, and the same provision says the model does not condition the duty. The duty does not wait for the model either. Until it is published, employers must provide the information in writing as article 6 requires, by any means that leaves a record the employee can access.

The algorithm line

Item (k) asks whether any algorithmic or automated decision system is used and, where one is used to set or change working conditions such as hours, tasks, pay, promotion, workplace or dismissal, what its rules and criteria are. Those conditions are examples, not a closed list. If a rota app or a delivery platform assigns shifts or tasks automatically, the rules it runs on belong in the document. An app that only records shifts a manager has already decided is not making that decision.

Works councils have had a right to be told the parameters and rules behind such systems since 12 August 2021 (Workers’ Statute, article 64.4(d)), and data-protection law already gave individuals rights over some fully automated decisions. What is new is the item in each employee’s own written statement.

Household staff

An empleada de hogar — household employee who cleans, cooks, gardens, drives or cares for someone in your home works under a special employment relationship, Royal Decree 1620/2011, not the general regime. Our read is that RD 723/2026 reaches them. Article 2.5 applies the decree to special relationships wherever their own rules call on common employment law as a fallback, and article 3(b) of RD 1620/2011 does exactly that, where the common rules are compatible with the special relationship.

The household decree also carries its own information duty in article 5.4. It still points at the 1998 decree, which is repealed from 5 October, and adds three items: pay in kind, where agreed; the duration and distribution of any agreed presence time, and how it is paid or compensated with time off; and the arrangements for overnight stays in the home, where they apply. Until that cross-reference is updated, the safe course on our read is the full article 3 list plus those three. Our separate guide covers the rest of household employment: hiring and keeping household staff on the Costa del Sol.

A cleaner you employ directly for a holiday-let business is a different case. That work is for the business, not for your household, so on our read it falls under the general regime and everything above applies.

Staff you call autónomos

One arrangement worth checking is the cleaner, gardener or maintenance hand who invoices as an autónomo but works set hours, on your properties, on your instructions. The decree does not change anyone’s employment status. The starting point is article 8.1 of the Workers’ Statute: an employment contract is presumed to exist between anyone who provides a service within another person’s organisation and direction, and the person who receives it and pays for it. Whether that fits depends on the facts of the relationship, not on the invoices.

If it does fit, the person is likely an employee whatever the invoices say, with the written-terms rights that already exist and the fuller statement from 5 October. The bigger exposure is the failure to register the worker with Social Security, which counts as one infringement per worker affected, plus the contributions that were never paid.

To put one arrangement through the Labour Inspectorate’s questions from the side of the person paying, use our Who works for you? check. It ends in a next step, not a verdict.

The fine

Failing to inform an employee in writing of the essential terms, within the time the regulations set, is a minor infringement under article 6.4 of the Law on Infringements and Penalties in the Social Order. Article 40.1(a) sets minor fines at €70 to €750. Related failures are separate and rated higher: not putting a contract in writing where that is required, or where the employee has asked for it, is a serious infringement under article 7.1, with fines of €751 to €7,500 under article 40.1(b).

What to do before 5 October

• Write down which collective agreement applies to each of your staff, with its code. If you cannot, ask your gestoría this week.
• Take out one current contract and check it against the full list above. The gaps are what a new hire will need in writing from 5 October.
• Decide who will notify changes to existing staff’s terms from 5 October, who will answer their requests, and how you will record the date a request arrives.
• Check SEPE’s site in the first days of October for the model document, and use it as a template, checking every item that applies to the job.
• If anyone invoicing you works as an employee in practice, take that to a qualified adviser now. The status question does not start on 5 October.

The registro de jornada — working-day record is the other employer duty that catches small businesses here. It has applied since 2019 and is covered in our employer guide to the working-day record.

The five-minute version

• Royal Decree 723/2026 was published on 15 September 2026 and applies from 5 October 2026. It repeals the 1998 rule from that date.
• Every new hire for more than four weeks must receive seventeen written items before starting, unless the signed contract they hold already contains them. Some items apply only where the situation exists.
• The item to start on now is each applicable collective agreement, identified by its code.
• Existing staff: any change to their terms from 5 October must be notified in writing by the day it takes effect, without a request. The full statement is owed on request, within thirty working days of receiving it, roughly six calendar weeks.
• SEPE must publish a model document by 5 October. The duty applies whether or not it has appeared, and using it does not by itself make your statement complete.
• Failing the duty is a minor infringement, €70 to €750. Treating an employee as an autónomo is the larger exposure.

Related guides

• Registro de Jornada in Spain: What the Law Requires of You as an Employer (2026)
• Hiring and Keeping Household Staff on the Costa del Sol
• Working in Spain: Permits, Contracts, Tax + Expat Employment Guide (2026)
• Autónomo vs SL in Spain (2026): Which Business Structure Is Better?
• Becoming Autónomo in Spain: The Freelancer and Self-Employment Guide (2026)

General information, not legal advice, current as of 18 September 2026. Primary sources: Royal Decree 723/2026, of 9 September (BOE-A-2026-19200), articles 2, 3, 5, 6 and 7, first additional provision, single transitional provision, single repealing provision, and second and fourth final provisions; Royal Decree 1659/1998 articles 2 and 6 and its transitional provision; the consolidated Estatuto de los Trabajadores (Royal Legislative Decree 2/2015) articles 8 and 64.4(d); Royal Decree 1620/2011 articles 1, 3 and 5; the consolidated Law on Infringements and Penalties in the Social Order (Royal Legislative Decree 5/2000) articles 6.4, 7.1, 22.2 and 40.1; and the Ministry of Labour’s REGCON records for agreements 29000945011981 and 29000285011982, consulted 18 September 2026.