Spain Statutory social-insurance contributions
Mandatory payroll contributions for an ordinary private-sector employee in Spain (ES): employee and employer shares of each statutory branch, with the ceilings and the instrument fixing each rate.
What this value means
SCOPE: ordinary private-sector employee in the Régimen General, mainland Spain, 2026. Special systems (agrarios, empleados de hogar, artistas, profesionales taurinos, minería del carbón, Régimen Especial del Mar), self-employed (RETA), and formative internships each have different bases and rates and are NOT covered by the figures above except where a note flags the difference. WHAT MAKES 2026 UNUSUAL. There is no Ley de Presupuestos Generales del Estado for 2026. The contribution RATES therefore still derive from art. 122 de la Ley 31/2022 (PGE 2023), which continues by prórroga; the BASES and the newer charges are fixed instead by art. 3 del Real Decreto-ley 3/2026, de 3 de febrero. Worse, the first attempt at that decree — Real Decreto-ley 16/2025, de 23 de diciembre — was REPEALED by the Congreso de los Diputados (Resolución de 27 de enero de 2026, BOE-A-2026-2024) and re-enacted in identical terms as RDL 3/2026 on 3 February 2026. Any citation to RDL 16/2025 points at a void instrument. Art. 3.1 RDL 3/2026 applies only "hasta la aprobación de la correspondiente Ley de Presupuestos Generales del Estado", so if an LPGE 2026 is passed later in the year the bases can be re-fixed mid-year. TRAP 1 — MEI on the authority's own page. The Seguridad Social 'Bases y tipos de cotización' page still shows the 2025 MEI (0,67 / 0,13 / 0,8) in its Régimen General table, under a banner saying the content is being updated. Operative 2026 value is 0,90 % (0,75 employer / 0,15 employee) per DT 43ª LGSS and art. 3.2 RDL 3/2026. TRAP 2 — the solidarity surcharge in the consolidated statute. Art. 19 bis LGSS states 5,5 % / 6 % / 7 %. Those are the 2045 end-state rates. The operative 2026 rates are 1,15 % / 1,25 % / 1,46 %, from DT 42ª LGSS and art. 3.3 RDL 3/2026. Reading art. 19 bis literally overcharges by about five times. The band edges (5.611,32 € and 7.651,80 €) are the ceiling +10 % and +50 %, so they move with the ceiling. TRAP 3 — two different bases. The common-contingency base EXCLUDES overtime; the professional-contingency (AT/EP) base INCLUDES it, and desempleo, FOGASA and formación profesional are all computed on the AT/EP base, not the common one (art. 19.4 LGSS, Orden art. 33.1). Overtime separately bears a 14 % or 28,30 % uncapped surcharge. Engines that use a single "gross" base for everything get both the employee deduction and the employer cost wrong whenever there is overtime. TRAP 4 — the ceiling is monthly, and the floor is not one number. 5.101,20 €/month applies to all eleven cotización groups, but the FLOOR varies by group: 1.989,30 € (group 1), 1.649,70 € (group 2), 1.435,20 € (group 3), 1.424,40 € (groups 4-7). Groups 8-11 are contributed on daily bases (47,48 € min / 170,04 € max). Bonuses must be pro-rated monthly before the cap is applied, and the cap is applied monthly — never as an annual cumulative cap. Part-time work has its own hourly minimum bases. TRAP 5 — this is a ceiling, not a threshold, and above it liability does not stop. Unlike schemes where pay above the cap is free of contribution, Spanish pay above 5.101,20 €/month is caught by the cotización adicional de solidaridad. There is no opt-out and no registration threshold: liability starts at the first euro of employment, and there is no small-employer or low-earner exemption. TRAP 6 — the AT/EP tariff moved instrument on 1 January 2026. It is now disposición adicional sexagésima primera LGSS on CNAE-2025 codes (Real Decreto 10/2025), inserted by disposición final 1.3 RDL 3/2026, replacing disposición adicional cuarta de la Ley 42/2006 on CNAE-2009. Rates run 1,50 % to 7,15 % by activity, and the occupational table (office staff 1,50 %, construction trades and HGV drivers 6,70 %, cleaning and security 3,60 %, commercial reps 2,00 %) OVERRIDES the activity rate for those roles. There is no default rate to fall back on. DEDUCTIBILITY. All employee social security contributions — including the MEI and the solidarity surcharge, both of which are cotizaciones a la Seguridad Social — are deductible from gross employment income before IRPF is computed, as gastos deducibles under art. 19.2.a) de la Ley 35/2006 del IRPF. Employer contributions are a corporate-tax deductible expense and are not employee income. NATIONALITY / RESIDENCE. Liability does NOT depend on nationality or residence. Any person working as an employee in Spain is compulsorily affiliated, including non-EU nationals. What varies is coordination: EU/EEA/Swiss workers posted to Spain, and workers from the ~20 countries with which Spain has a bilateral social security convention, may remain in their home scheme under an A1 or equivalent certificate and be exempt in Spain. That is a coordination question, not a rate question. AGE / CATEGORY DEPENDENCE. Under art. 152 LGSS, employees who have reached the applicable retirement age and their employers are EXONERATED from contingencias comunes (except temporary incapacity), desempleo, FOGASA and formación profesional; what remains is the 1,55 % IT rate (1,30 employer / 0,25 employee, Orden art. 32.1.a) plus AT/EP. Separately, employers get a 75 % reduction of the employer common-contingency quota during temporary incapacity of employees aged 62 or over (Orden art. 6.1). Workers with 33 % or greater recognised disability always attract the 7,05 % unemployment rate. Under-18s sit in cotización group 11. NO SEPARATE HEALTH INSURANCE. Spain has no distinct payroll health-insurance branch; healthcare is funded from general taxation and the common-contingency contribution. Do not expect a "health" line. SUB-NATIONAL VARIATION: None. Social security legislation and the financial regime are exclusive State competence under art. 149.1.17 of the Constitution, and the rates, bases and ceilings above apply identically in all 17 autonomous communities and in Ceuta and Melilla. Note two things that look like exceptions and are not: (1) the Basque Country (País Vasco) and Navarra operate foral regimes for INCOME TAX (IRPF) only — social security contributions there are the ordinary State ones, so a gross-to-net engine must swap the tax tables for those territories but must not swap the contribution rates; (2) Ceuta and Melilla, and various sector and hiring incentives nationwide, carry quota bonificaciones and reducciones that lower the amount payable without changing the statutory rate — these were not verified in this pass and are not reflected in the figures. Real variation in Spain runs along employer ACTIVITY (the AT/EP tariff) and CONTRACT TYPE (7,05 % vs 8,30 % unemployment), not along geography. WHAT WE DO NOT PUT A NUMBER ON: 1. A single national AT/EP rate. There is none. The premium is set per CNAE-2025 activity code in Cuadro I of DA 61ª LGSS (1,50 % to 7,15 %) and overridden per occupation in Cuadro II. Returning a scalar would be a fabrication; rate_employer and rate_total are null and the range plus the occupational overrides are given instead. 2. A single rate for the cotización adicional de solidaridad. It is genuinely a three-tranche progressive charge with a different employer/employee split in each tranche. rate_total, rate_employee and rate_employer are null at scheme level; the three tranche rates and splits are stated verbatim in the notes. 3. Any figure for a Ley de Presupuestos Generales del Estado para 2026. None had been enacted as at the date of research; the bases rest on RDL 3/2026 and are expressly provisional pending an LPGE. 4. The numeric uprating factor in disposición transitoria trigésima octava LGSS. I did not read DT 38ª verbatim. I report only what the Orden PJC/297/2026 preamble and art. 3.1 RDL 3/2026 state on their face: the maximum base is set by applying the pension revalorisation percentage plus the additional amount established in DT 38ª LGSS. The RESULT (5.101,20 €) is read directly from art. 2.1 of the Orden and art. 3.1 of RDL 3/2026, so the operative number is primary-sourced even though the formula is not. 5. Section numbers for Ceuta/Melilla and other territorial contribution bonifications. I did not reach those instruments in this pass. They reduce quotas rather than alter rates, so they do not affect the rate table, but I decline to cite them. 6. Rates for special systems (agrarios, empleados de hogar, mar, minería, artistas, profesionales taurinos, RETA/self-employed) beyond the incidental differences noted. They were visible in the Orden but were not the scope of this request and are not stated as a complete set. ALREADY LEGISLATED, NOT YET IN FORCE: LEGISLATED AND CERTAIN — Mecanismo de Equidad Intergeneracional, disposición transitoria cuadragésima tercera LGSS (full statutory schedule read verbatim): 2027 = 1,00 pp (0,83 employer / 0,17 employee); 2028 = 1,10 pp (0,92 / 0,18); 2029 = 1,20 pp (1,00 / 0,20); 2030 through 2050 held at 1,20 pp with the same split. Set a re-verify for 1 January 2027. LEGISLATED AND CERTAIN — cotización adicional de solidaridad, disposición transitoria cuadragésima segunda LGSS (full table read verbatim, tranche 1 / tranche 2 / tranche 3): 2027 = 1,38 / 1,50 / 1,75; 2028 = 1,60 / 1,75 / 2,04; 2029 = 1,83 / 2,00 / 2,33; 2030 = 2,06 / 2,25 / 2,63; 2031 = 2,29 / 2,50 / 2,92; 2032 = 2,52 / 2,75 / 3,21; 2033 = 2,75 / 3,00 / 3,50; 2034 = 2,98 / 3,25 / 3,79; 2035 = 3,21 / 3,50 / 4,08; 2036 = 3,44 / 3,75 / 4,38; 2037 = 3,67 / 4,00 / 4,67; 2038 = 3,90 / 4,25 / 4,96; 2039 = 4,13 / 4,50 / 5,25; 2040 = 4,35 / 4,75 / 5,54; 2041 = 4,58 / 5,00 / 5,83; 2042 = 4,81 / 5,25 / 6,13; 2043 = 5,04 / 5,50 / 6,42; 2044 = 5,27 / 5,75 / 6,71; 2045 = 5,50 / 6,00 / 7,00, at which point the schedule reaches the end-state rates already written into art. 19 bis LGSS. The employer/employee split each year follows the same proportion as the general common-contingency split (23,60 : 4,70). STRUCTURAL, ANNUAL — the maximum contribution base rises every year to 2050 by the pension revalorisation percentage PLUS a fixed additional increment under art. 19.3 and DT 38ª LGSS, so the ceiling and the two solidarity band edges (ceiling +10 % and +50 %) must be re-read every January. Minimum bases move automatically with the SMI increased by one sixth. IN-YEAR RISK — art. 3.1 RDL 3/2026 governs only "hasta la aprobación de la correspondiente Ley de Presupuestos Generales del Estado". If an LPGE 2026 is enacted, bases and possibly rates can be restated mid-year. Re-verify on any LPGE 2026 publication, and in any case by 31 January 2027. SOURCING CAVEATS: VERIFIED BY FETCHING (primary): - https://www.boe.es/buscar/act.php?id=BOE-A-2026-7296 — Orden PJC/297/2026, de 30 de marzo, consolidated text. Read arts. 2 (topes), 3 (group bases table), 4 (tipos), 5 (overtime), 6 (IT), 16 (MEI), 17 (solidarity tranches), 28 (33,62 € short-contract surcharge), 32 (art. 152 IT rate), 33 (desempleo/FOGASA/FP), 34, 39 (part-time hourly bases), plus the preamble explaining the RDL 16/2025 repeal and the prórroga of art. 122 Ley 31/2022. - https://www.boe.es/diario_boe/txt.php?id=BOE-A-2026-2548 — Real Decreto-ley 3/2026, de 3 de febrero. Read art. 3 in full: ceiling 5.101,20 €, MEI 0,90 %, the three solidarity tranches with their splits. - https://www.boe.es/buscar/act.php?id=BOE-A-2015-11724 — LGSS consolidated text. Read arts. 19, 19 bis, DA 61ª (both tariff tables and the application rules), DT 42ª (full 2025-2045 solidarity table), DT 43ª (full 2023-2050 MEI schedule), and the amendment footers recording the RDL 16/2025 repeal by Resolución de 27 de enero de 2026 (BOE-A-2026-2024) and re-enactment by RDL 3/2026 (BOE-A-2026-2548). - https://www.boe.es/buscar/act.php?id=BOE-A-2026-3815 — Real Decreto 126/2026, de 18 de febrero, art. 1: SMI 2026 = 40,70 €/day or 1.221 €/month. - https://www.boe.es/buscar/act.php?id=BOE-A-2006-20764 — Ley 35/2006 del IRPF, art. 19.2.a): social security contributions are deductible expenses of employment income. - https://www.seg-social.es/wps/portal/wss/internet/Trabajadores/CotizacionRecaudacionTrabajadores/36537 — the administering authority's own current rate page (served in Catalan). Corroborates the base tables, the 28,30 / 7,05 / 8,30 / 0,20 / 0,70 rates, the SMI and IPREM figures, and the 33,62 € surcharge — but shows a STALE MEI of 0,8 % and carries a banner stating the content is being updated. This page is why the MEI trap is flagged. CORROBORATION ONLY, not relied on for any figure: professional/vendor commentary (Cuatrecasas, Sage, Asepeyo, Wolters Kluwer, Grupo 2000) surfaced in search, used solely to locate the Orden PJC/297/2026 reference before the BOE text was retrieved. WHAT I COULD NOT READ: disposición transitoria trigésima octava LGSS verbatim (the ceiling-uprating increment formula) — the resulting 5.101,20 € figure is nevertheless primary, taken from art. 2.1 of the Orden and art. 3.1 of RDL 3/2026. I also did not enumerate all 172 activity rows of the AT/EP Cuadro I; I computed the range (1,50 % to 7,15 %) from the parsed table and quoted representative rows and the full Cuadro II verbatim. INFERRED, NOT READ: the annual ceiling of 61.214,40 € is 12 × 5.101,20 € — Spanish law states a MONTHLY cap only and does not publish an annual figure; the annual value is a convenience and must not be applied as a cumulative annual cap. The characterisation of MEI and the solidarity surcharge as IRPF-deductible follows from their statutory nature as cotizaciones a la Seguridad Social read against art. 19.2.a) LIRPF; no instrument expressly names them as deductible and none excludes them. Researched against primary instruments and independently challenged by a second verification pass before being served (2026-08-08). Employee and employer shares are stated separately: the employee figure is what leaves the payslip, the employer figure is cost of employment and is not a deduction.
Get it programmatically
curl https://euroref.dev/v1/es/social-contributions
# $0.005 per call — x402 on Base (USDC). No key, no signup.
# History: curl https://euroref.dev/v1/es/social-contributions/history?from=2020-01-01
# Provenance: curl https://euroref.dev/provenance/es/social-contributionsOther Spain series: Policy interest rate · Value added tax (IVA) · Minimum wage (Salario Mínimo Interprofesional, SMI) · Public holidays · Consumer price index (IPC) · Corporate income tax (Impuesto sobre Sociedades) · Personal income tax (IRPF) · ECB main refinancing operations rate (fixed rate) · Late-payment interest (EU Late Payment Directive)