TL;DR

  • Under Spain’s Ley 10/2021, an employer cannot unilaterally reduce the agreed percentage of days you work remotely. Article 8.1 requires any change – expressly including the percentage of on-site working – to be agreed with the worker and put in writing before it is applied.
  • Article 5.1 blocks the usual route: remote working cannot be imposed through Article 41 of the Estatuto de los Trabajadores, the “substantial modification” procedure employers normally rely on.
  • In STS 608/2026, the Supreme Court confirmed this, holding that neither business grounds nor a collective agreement lets an employer cut an individually agreed percentage.
  • The protection attaches to a written agreement. If you never signed one, you are in a much weaker position – and Remote Work Europe would say that is the single most important thing to fix.
  • 🚫 None of it applies to the self-employed.

Disclaimer: This article provides general information only and does not constitute legal advice. Individual circumstances vary, and remote-working rights in Spain turn on your own agreement and your collective agreement. Consult a qualified laboralista before acting.

Two Spanish workforces are on strike this week over the same question, and not many outlets writing in English have explained what the law actually says about it.

At Airbus, the dispute started on 1 July when the company moved to cut telework from two days a week to one. At Ubisoft’s Barcelona mobile studio, staff have been told they will be in the office five days a week from January, ending a three-day hybrid pattern, and the games union CGT has called an open-ended strike of six days a month.

If you work remotely for a Spanish employer, the question those disputes raise is a personal one. Can they simply take it back?

Remote Work Europe went to the statute rather than the commentary, and the answer is clearer than the arguments around it suggest.

What does Ley 10/2021 say about changing your remote working days?

Article 8.1 of Ley 10/2021 says that any change to the conditions of a remote-working agreement – expressly including the percentage of on-site working – must be agreed between the company and the worker, and put in writing before it takes effect.

The Spanish is unambiguous on the point that matters:

“La modificación de las condiciones establecidas en el acuerdo de trabajo a distancia, incluido el porcentaje de presencialidad, deberá ser objeto de acuerdo entre la empresa y la persona trabajadora, formalizándose por escrito con carácter previo a su aplicación.”

Those four words – incluido el porcentaje de presencialidad – are doing the work. The legislator anticipated exactly the argument an employer would make, which is that changing the ratio of office to home is a scheduling matter rather than a change to the agreement. The statute closes it off.

Ley 10/2021, de 9 de julio, de trabajo a distancia has been in force since 11 July 2021. It has not been repealed or annulled, and the articles quoted here carry their original 2021 wording, unamended.

Can an employer use Article 41 to force you back to the office?

No. Article 5.1 rules it out expressly. Remote working is voluntary for both the worker and the employer, requires a signed remote-working agreement, and “sin que pueda ser impuesto en aplicación del artículo 41 del Estatuto de los Trabajadores” – it cannot be imposed through Article 41.

This matters more than it may sound. Article 41 ET is the standard mechanism for substantial modification of working conditions: an employer with proven economic, technical, organisational or production grounds – what Spanish practice calls causas ETOP – can change working conditions unilaterally, subject to procedure and notice. It is the route employers reach for.

Ley 10/2021 takes remote working out of that system and puts it in its own. As a lex specialis, it governs, and it requires agreement.

Article 5.2 adds a second layer: refusing to work remotely, or exercising the right to return to the office, cannot be grounds for dismissal or for a substantial modification of your conditions.

What did the Supreme Court decide in 2026?

In STS 608/2026 of 1 July 2026, the Supreme Court held that a company could not reduce an individually agreed telework percentage without each affected worker’s consent – and that neither business grounds nor a collective agreement changes that.

The case concerned Grupo RACC, which moved to cut the telework percentage for workers with disabilities from 100% to 75%. The Social Chamber, with Rafael Antonio López Parada as rapporteur, held that the change was governed by Ley 10/2021 as the special rule, that Article 41 ET did not apply even where ETOP causes were present, and that a collective agreement with worker representatives did not authorise the reduction either.

The last part deserves emphasis, because it runs against intuition. Spanish employment law generally allows collective bargaining to set terms that bind individuals. Here it does not: collective negotiation cannot impose remote working, and it cannot modify individual remote-working agreements.

Two further 2026 rulings complete the picture, and only one of them helps you:

RulingWhat it decided
STS 608/2026 (1 July, López Parada)An agreed telework percentage cannot be cut unilaterally – not under Article 41, not via a collective agreement
STS 444/2026 (23 April, Martínez Moya)A worker who suffered a fatal heart attack while teleworking at home was covered by the Article 156.3 LGSS presumption, so the death was classified as a workplace accident
STS 142/2026 (Moralo Gallego)Treating staff covered by a collective agreement differently from those outside it is not discrimination or a breach of equality

STS 444/2026 is worth knowing about on its own account. If you are working at home during your working hours and something happens to you, the presumption that it is a workplace accident is not lost because the workplace is your kitchen. That presumption can be rebutted, but it starts in your favour.

What if you never signed a remote-working agreement?

This is where most people actually are, and it is the weak point. The protection in Ley 10/2021 attaches to the acuerdo de trabajo a distancia – the written remote-working agreement. No agreement, no percentage in writing, and there is much less to point at.

Article 7 sets out what that agreement must contain as a minimum, and it is more specific than most people expect:

  1. An inventory of the equipment and tools the work requires, including consumables and furniture, and their expected working life
  2. The expenses the worker may incur, how the compensation the company must pay is calculated, and when and how it is paid
  3. Working hours, and any rules on availability within them
  4. The percentage and distribution between on-site and remote work
  5. The company workplace the worker is attached to
  6. The remote working location chosen by the worker
  7. Notice periods for exercising reversibility
  8. The company’s methods of monitoring the work
  9. The procedure where technical difficulties prevent normal working
  10. Instructions issued by the company, with the participation of worker representatives, on data protection and information security

Point 4 is the one that becomes load-bearing in a dispute, and point 7 is the one people sign without reading.

If your arrangement grew informally out of the pandemic and was never written down, that is worth fixing while relations are good rather than when they are not. Ask for the acuerdo in writing, with the percentage stated.

So can they take it away or not?

Not unilaterally. But “not unilaterally” is not the same as “never”, and the difference sits in your own paperwork.

Article 5.3 provides that the decision to move from on-site to remote work is reversible – for the company as well as the worker. That reversibility is exercised on the terms set out in the collective agreement, or failing that, in the terms of your own remote-working agreement.

So the honest answer runs in three steps:

  • Your employer cannot simply announce a change to your agreed percentage. Article 8.1 requires agreement, in writing, in advance
  • They cannot route around that using Article 41, and STS 608/2026 confirms a collective agreement will not do it either
  • But if your acuerdo or your convenio contains a reversibility clause with a notice period, that clause is the mechanism – and it is what you should be reading

That is why the Airbus and Ubisoft disputes are being fought through strikes and negotiation rather than settled by pointing at the statute. The law establishes that this has to be agreed. It does not decide what the agreement should say.

Xolo Spain

If you are self-employed in Spain rather than employed, none of the protections above apply to you – but your invoicing, quarterly filings and autónomo obligations still do. Xolo handles the administrative layer in English.

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Do these protections apply to autónomos and freelancers?

No, and this is the most commonly missed point about remote working rights in Spain. Ley 10/2021 is employment law. It protects people who hold an employment contract and a remote-working agreement, and it does nothing for the self-employed.

Remote Work Europe’s founder, Maya Middlemiss, has lived in Spain since 2008 and been self-employed here since 2012. Not one of the protections described in this article applies to her.

If you invoice your clients as an autónoma, your right to work from home is whatever your contract with each client says – and usually it says nothing at all, because nobody thought to write it down. In Maya’s own network of freelancers in Valencia, those who lost remote flexibility during 2024 and 2025 lost it the way freelancers lose things: a client changed its mind about on-site days, and the choice was to comply or to lose the client.

If you are moving to Spain to work remotely, the employed-versus-self-employed distinction decides which of these two worlds you are in. It is worth choosing deliberately rather than discovering afterwards. Our guide to remote employment in Spain covers the practical differences.

Frequently asked questions

Can my Spanish employer make me come back to the office full time? Not by simply announcing it. Article 8.1 of Ley 10/2021 requires any change to the agreed percentage of on-site working to be agreed with you and put in writing before it applies. If your agreement or collective agreement contains a reversibility clause, that clause governs how it can be done.

Does a collective agreement override my individual remote-working agreement? No. In STS 608/2026 the Supreme Court held that collective negotiation cannot impose telework or modify individual remote-working agreements.

Can my employer use “business reasons” to cut my remote days? Article 5.1 excludes Article 41 of the Estatuto de los Trabajadores, which is the mechanism for changing conditions on economic, technical, organisational or production grounds. STS 608/2026 confirmed that ETOP causes do not permit a unilateral reduction.

If I have an accident while working from home, is it a workplace accident? STS 444/2026 applied the presumption in Article 156.3 of the LGSS to a worker who died of a heart attack while teleworking, and classified the death as a workplace accident. The presumption can be rebutted, but it applies.

Do these protections cover freelancers and autónomos? No. Ley 10/2021 is employment law and applies to employees. If you are self-employed, your remote-working arrangements are governed by your contract with each client.

What should I do if I do not have a written remote-working agreement? Ask for one, with the percentage of on-site working stated, and read what it says about reversibility notice periods. It is far easier to agree while the arrangement is working than to argue about it afterwards.

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