Spain Sick Pay Rules 2026: What Employers Must Pay

When an employee falls ill, a doctor issues a medical leave certificate, the baja médica, which starts the period of temporary incapacity. The employee stays on the books, keeps accruing rights, and receives a benefit instead of normal pay. The key variable is the cause: ordinary illness and non-work injury are treated differently from work accidents and occupational illness.

For ordinary illness, the payment is structured in steps, and the employer carries a specific and often overlooked slice of it. That is the part worth getting exactly right on payroll.

For ordinary illness, the timeline runs like this. The first three days are usually unpaid, unless a collective agreement provides cover. From day 4 to day 15, the employer pays 60% of the regulatory base directly, out of its own pocket. From day 16 to day 20 the rate stays at 60%, but the cost is now borne by social security. From day 21 onwards the benefit rises to 75%, also funded by social security.

• Days 1 to 3: usually nothing, subject to the collective agreement.
• Days 4 to 15: 60% of the regulatory base, paid by the employer.
• Days 16 to 20: 60%, funded by social security.
• Day 21 onwards: 75%, funded by social security.

In practice the employer usually keeps paying the benefit through normal payroll even after day 15 and is reimbursed by social security, so the payslip stays consistent for the employee. Our guide to Spanish payroll shows how these amounts flow through the nómina.

An important detail: the 60% and 75% are not applied to full gross salary. They are applied to the regulatory base (base reguladora), which is derived from the employee’s social security contribution base from the previous period. For most employees that is close to their salary, but for higher earners whose salary exceeds the contribution ceiling, the base is capped, so the benefit is lower than the headline percentage of their actual pay might suggest.

If the leave is caused by a work accident or an occupational illness, the rules are more generous. The benefit is 75% of the relevant base from the day after the leave begins, with no three-day waiting period, and it is funded through social security or the employer’s mutua, the body that manages occupational contingencies.

The distinction matters for classification and cost, which is one reason the occupational accident premium is a separate line in employer social security. Getting the cause recorded correctly on the baja is part of running payroll properly.

The statutory figures are a floor. Many collective agreements (convenios colectivos) require the employer to supplement sick pay, sometimes topping it up to 100% of normal salary for a defined period. So the real obligation for a given employee depends on both the statutory rules and the convenio that applies to their sector and region.

This is exactly the kind of detail that is easy to miss when hiring into Spain for the first time. Identifying the right convenio and applying any top-up is part of what an EOR service in Spain handles, alongside the employment contract that sets it all out.