Paid leave in Spain 2026: the full table of days by situation

Statutory paid leave in Spain is a justified absence the company pays for, which is not deducted from holiday and is not sick leave. It sounds simple, yet it is one of the biggest sources of disputes: how many days apply, whether they are counted as calendar or working days, and when the clock starts.

Here is the complete 2026 table, situation by situation, with the legal basis for each. One warning before you read on: there is an agreed reform extending bereavement leave to 10 days that is not yet in force. We cover that in its own section.

In short. Statutory paid leave sits in article 37.3 of the Spanish Workers' Statute. The main entitlements in 2026: 15 calendar days for marriage or registering a civil partnership, 5 days for a relative's serious accident or illness, hospitalisation or surgery, 2 days for bereavement (4 with travel), 1 day to move house, 4 days a year for family force majeure, and the time needed for public duties and antenatal appointments. A collective agreement can improve these, never reduce them.

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The complete 2026 paid leave table

Situation	Days	Type of day	Legal basis
Marriage or registered civil partnership	15	Calendar	Art. 37.3.a ET
Serious accident or illness, hospitalisation, or surgery without hospitalisation requiring home rest	5	Working	Art. 37.3 ET (RDL 5/2023)
Bereavement: spouse, civil partner or relatives to the 2nd degree	2 (4 with travel)	Working	Art. 37.3 ET
Moving house	1	Working	Art. 37.3.c ET
Family force majeure (urgent illness or accident requiring immediate presence)	4 per year	Equivalent in hours	Art. 37.9 ET (RDL 5/2023)
Unavoidable public and personal duty (voting, court, polling station, ID renewal)	Time needed	—	Art. 37.3.d ET
Antenatal appointments and birth preparation, and adoption or fostering sessions	Time needed	—	Art. 37.3.f ET
Nursing leave until the child turns 9 months	1 hour per day	Divisible in two	Art. 37.4 ET
Union or employee representation duties	Monthly hour credit	By headcount	Art. 37.3.e and 68 ET
Academic examinations for a qualification	Time needed	—	Art. 23 ET
Job search during notice of objective dismissal	6 hours per week	—	Art. 53.2 ET

Two rules apply across the whole table:

• A collective agreement can improve any of these, and many do: two days to move house instead of one, more bereavement days, or a wider definition of family. It can never make them worse. Check your agreement before applying the table.
• The days must actually be taken. They cannot be swapped for a payment or banked for later, unless the leave expressly allows it.

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Calendar or working days: the question that causes most disputes

This reaches HR every week, and the answer is not the same for every type of leave.

Calendar days count every day on the calendar, weekends and public holidays included. Working days count only the days the person would have worked.

Marriage leave is 15 calendar days, and on that there is consensus. For bereavement and hospitalisation leave, however, Supreme Court case law has leaned towards counting working days. The reasoning holds up: leave exists to release you from an obligation to work, and on a day you were not going to work there is nothing to be released from.

The practical difference is significant. A bereavement on a Friday counted in calendar days gives you Friday and Saturday; counted in working days, Friday and Monday.

When does the clock start?

From the triggering event: the day of the death, the hospital admission or the operation. With one relevant qualification, also from the courts: if the event happens after the working day has ended, the leave starts on the next working day. Consuming a day that is already over would make no sense.

For hospitalisation, the leave can be taken while the triggering situation lasts, not necessarily in the days immediately after admission. If the relative is in hospital for two weeks, the five days can be spread within that period.

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The five hospitalisation days: exactly who they cover

This leave went from 2 to 5 days with Royal Decree-Law 5/2023, and at the same time the circle of people covered was widened, which is the part usually overlooked. It applies to serious accident or illness, hospitalisation, or surgery without hospitalisation requiring home rest, of:

• The spouse or civil partner.
• Relatives up to the second degree by blood or marriage, including the civil partner's blood relatives.
• Any other person living with the employee in the same household who requires their effective care.

That last point is the genuinely new one: it recognises living arrangements that kinship does not capture. And the second degree includes grandparents, grandchildren and siblings, not only parents and children.

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Family force majeure: four days almost nobody uses properly

Article 37.9 grants the right to be absent for urgent family reasons involving relatives or people you live with, in cases of illness or accident requiring immediate presence. The hours are paid up to the equivalent of four days a year.

The key is that it is taken in hours, not whole days. This is the leave designed for the mid-morning call from school or the emergency resolved in three hours. Many companies mishandle it by treating it as full days and burning the allowance in four incidents when it could have covered ten.

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What is NOT statutory paid leave

This is where most administrative errors cluster, because these are the entitlements people confuse daily:

• Birth and childcare leave. Not a permiso: it is a suspension of the contract with a social security benefit. The company does not pay it.
• Parental leave of eight weeks until the child turns 8. It is a right, but it is unpaid.
• Reduced hours for legal guardianship. Reduces the working day and, proportionally, the salary. Not paid leave.
• Temporary incapacity. Sick leave with its own benefit regime, not a permiso.
• Holiday. A minimum of 30 calendar days a year under article 38 of the Statute, with its own rules. Paid leave is never deducted from holiday.

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The pending reform: 10 days of bereavement leave

In December 2025, Spain's Ministry of Labour reached an agreement with the CCOO and UGT unions to reform bereavement and care leave. What was agreed:

• Extend bereavement leave from 2 days to 10 working days, taken consecutively or split within the following four weeks.
• Create leave of up to 15 days to accompany relatives in palliative care.
• Create 1 day of leave to accompany a person in the case of euthanasia.

None of this is in force. The agreement is to be enacted by royal decree-law, and until it is published in the BOE the current entitlements apply: 2 working days for bereavement, 4 with travel.

If you manage people, the advice is twofold: apply what is in force, and have a system where you can change the leave configuration the day it is published. This is exactly the kind of change that catches out anyone tracking absences in a spreadsheet.

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Evidencing and recording leave

The company may require documentary evidence of the event giving rise to the leave: a death certificate, proof of hospital admission, a court summons, a family book. What it may not do is demand disproportionate detail, particularly where third-party health data is involved, which the GDPR protects more strictly.

On the recording side, three things are worth having for every leave request:

1. Who requested it and when, with the triggering event and its date.
2. Who approved it and when, because that is what backs you up if somebody disputes it months later.
3. How it affects the working day, so the time record and the hours count reconcile without manual adjustment.

That third point is what breaks when absences and clock-ins live in different tools: someone has approved leave in one place and an unclocked working day in another, and the mismatch surfaces at month end.

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Frequently asked questions

How many days of bereavement leave apply in Spain in 2026?

Two working days for the death of a spouse, civil partner or relative up to the second degree by blood or marriage, extended to four if travel is required. The extension to 10 days agreed in December 2025 is not in force until it is published in the BOE. A collective agreement may grant more days.

Is paid leave counted in calendar or working days?

It depends on the leave. Marriage leave is 15 calendar days. For bereavement and hospitalisation leave, Supreme Court case law has leaned towards working days, on the basis that leave releases you from an obligation to work and on a non-working day there is no obligation to release.

Can paid leave be deducted from holiday?

No. They are distinct rights with distinct rules. Paid leave is a justified, paid absence for a specific cause; holiday is a minimum of 30 calendar days a year under article 38 of the Workers' Statute. Deducting leave from holiday is irregular.

Can the company ask for proof of paid leave?

Yes, it may require documentary evidence of the event giving rise to the leave. What it may not do is request disproportionate information, in particular third-party health data beyond what is necessary to establish the cause, which the GDPR protects more strictly.

Is family force majeure leave taken in whole days?

Not necessarily. Article 37.9 pays the hours of absence up to the equivalent of four days a year, and it is specifically designed to be taken in hours for one-off family emergencies. Treating it as full days exhausts the allowance far sooner than necessary.

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Managing leave without spreadsheets

A table like the one above answers the one-off question. What it does not solve is the day to day: who requested what, who approved it, how many days they have left, and whether that leave lines up with the shift and the working-time record.

In Quantum Mycos, leave is requested from a phone, the manager approves in one click, and who authorised what and when stays on record. Balances recalculate themselves, national, regional and local public holidays come preloaded, and every approved absence shows up immediately in the team calendar, in the shift rota and in the hours count. When the rules change, you change the leave configuration in one place and it applies to everyone.

Do you know how many leave days your team has taken this year? If the answer is "we would have to look", start for free and have it in view this week.

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Keep reading

• Spain's working-time record: what applies today, the other daily obligation.
• The hidden cost of absenteeism in Spain, what happens when absence goes unmeasured.
• 10 key features in HR software in Spain, to choose a tool with a clear head.

Sources

• Workers' Statute, consolidated text (BOE), articles 23, 37, 38, 48 and 53.
• Royal Decree-Law 5/2023 (BOE), which extends hospitalisation leave to five days and creates family force majeure leave.
• Agreement between Spain's Ministry of Labour and the CCOO and UGT unions on bereavement and palliative care leave, December 2025 (pending publication).

This article is informational and does not constitute legal advice. Your collective agreement may improve these entitlements and the rules are changing: always check the current consolidated text in the BOE and consult your employment adviser. Last reviewed: September 2026.