Spain's new pre-contract disclosure rules are in force, and lawyers say the official SEPE template does not cover them
Royal Decree 723/2026 took effect on 5 October 2026. Spanish employers must now give every worker written information on seventeen categories of employment detail before work starts, and two of those categories apply specifically to anyone working remotely: the centro de adscripción, meaning the work centre the employee is formally assigned to, and the rules and criteria behind any algorithmic or automated system used in decisions on shifts, task allocation, pay, promotion, place of work or dismissal.
The decree told the Ministry of Labour, through the state employment service SEPE, to publish a model information document within twenty days of the decree appearing in the BOE. That template reached the SEPE’s contract-types pages only in the first days of October, days before commencement. Employment law specialists, including the academic Daniel Toscani quoted in the Spanish trade press, say the SEPE model does not cover everything the decree requires – the article 3 right to employer-provided training is one of the gaps – so companies relying on the template alone will still be short.
Why this matters
If you work remotely for a Spanish employer, you are now entitled to have your assigned work centre written down. That single line decides which collective agreement applies to you, which labour inspectorate covers you, and in many cases which regional rules on expenses and working time you fall under. Until now it was often left vague, and vagueness favoured the employer. You are also entitled to be told, in writing, if an automated system has a say in your hours, your pay or your continued employment.
If you are already employed, the information is not sent to you automatically. You have to ask for it, and your employer then has 30 working days to provide it. If you are being hired now, it must arrive before you start.
Context
The decree transposes Directive (EU) 2019/1152 on transparent and predictable working conditions and repeals Royal Decree 1659/1998. Spain is late: the directive’s transposition deadline was August 2022. The algorithmic-disclosure element goes beyond the directive’s baseline and sits alongside Spain’s existing rider law and the information rights that works councils already hold over algorithms.
What to watch
Whether the Inspección de Trabajo publishes an enforcement criterion, and whether the SEPE revises the template. Until it does, a template-only compliance approach leaves gaps, and the annexes employers bolt on are where the remote-work detail will actually live.