Spain's digital time-tracking law: now promised for October

Spain’s digital time-tracking decree has a date again — at least according to the government: Joaquín Pérez Rey, Spain’s Secretary of State for Labour, said this week that the ministry expects to “finally clear the path” to Cabinet during October 2026. At Evicron, an AI and custom software studio based in Barcelona that builds and maintains QWorker, we’ve been tracking this file for months because it’s the regulation our SME clients ask about most, and only a week ago we were reporting that the decree had stalled again. This piece covers what’s actually changed, why the announcement deserves some caution, and what your company should do while the timeline stays unofficial.

What the government said this week

At a press briefing in early October, Pérez Rey said Labour expects to bring the decree to Cabinet “as soon as possible” and explicitly denied any ongoing disagreement with the Ministry of Economic Affairs — the other party that had been blocking the text for months over its cost to SMEs. The announcement came alongside news that Labour will convene minimum-wage experts this month and resume social dialogue on pay transparency, suggesting the ministry wants to close several regulatory fronts before year-end.

This is, in substance, the same promise we reported in September — when Deputy PM Yolanda Díaz herself called approval “imminent” and the text still never reached Cabinet — but with one detail worth flagging: this time Labour explicitly denies any open disagreement with Economic Affairs, which was exactly the roadblock that, as we covered in our analysis of the slip to 2027, had sunk the timeline in both July and September.

Why the date isn’t a sure thing

This file has followed the same pattern for a year: an “imminent” announcement, a new delay, and back to square one. The Council of State’s March opinion, which put the cost of the reform to SMEs at €867-900 million a year — a figure we covered in detail when it first came out — remains the backdrop to every delay: the longer the text takes to finalise, the more time Labour and Economic Affairs have to keep negotiating transition periods and exemptions by company size. Pérez Rey denying a disagreement today doesn’t mean the decree will land on Cabinet’s table next week; it means that, for now, there’s no declared blockage like the one in September.

Put differently: there’s some reason to think this announcement carries a bit more substance than the previous ones — publicly stating that the dispute with Economic Affairs is resolved is a step the government hadn’t taken before — but the recent track record calls for caution before planning anything around an October date.

What stays the same while the decree is still pending

Until the new text is published in the official gazette, Royal Decree-Law 8/2019 remains the law in force, and it already requires every Spanish company to log the start and end time of each employee’s working day daily and keep that record for 4 years, available to the employee, their legal representatives and the Labour Inspectorate. We cover this in detail, fines included (from €751 to €7,500 per workplace), in our guide to Royal Decree-Law 8/2019. The new decree, once it arrives, will add the requirement that the log be fully digital and remotely accessible to the Labour Inspectorate — goodbye to paper sheets or spreadsheets — but it won’t replace or lower the obligation that already exists.

What your company can do in the meantime

1. Don’t tie your digitisation plans to a date that has already slipped twice. If your company still logs hours on paper or in a spreadsheet, the fine risk under Royal Decree-Law 8/2019 is real today, new decree or not.
2. Pick a tool that already meets what the new decree is expected to require, not just today’s minimum: remote access for the Labour Inspectorate, periodic digital signing and a tamper-proof history, so you don’t have to migrate systems again once the text is published.
3. Watch the announcement, but don’t reorganise your operations around it. If it does pass in October, there will likely be an additional adaptation period — there’s no upside in waiting for that date to start complying.
4. If you manage several collective agreements, sites or complex shift patterns, use this window of uncertainty to properly evaluate a custom solution instead of improvising once the decree becomes official.

We build and maintain QWorker, our time-tracking software, with multi-device clock-in (mobile, browser or a shared NFC tablet), weekly digital signing and automatic 4-year record-keeping as the law requires. From €2.50/employee/month, with no lock-in and a free trial requiring no card. If your operation has needs a standard SaaS tool doesn’t cover, our software consultancy service starts by understanding what you actually need before recommending anything.

In short

The government is once again saying the digital time-tracking decree will be approved “soon” — this time in October — and for the first time it’s explicitly denying any underlying disagreement with Economic Affairs. That’s a somewhat more concrete signal than previous ones, but the last twelve months — with two confirmed delays already — suggest you shouldn’t plan around that date until it’s actually published in the official gazette. In the meantime, Royal Decree-Law 8/2019 already requires logging and keeping working-time records today, with fines already in force for companies that don’t comply.

Want to check whether your company’s time tracking would survive an inspection today, new decree or not? Get in touch: the first consultation is free and we reply within 24 hours.