Pérez Rey: Digital Time Tracking Decree to Pass Before Summer

Spain’s Secretary of State for Labor, Joaquín Pérez Rey, reaffirmed on June 2 that the Royal Decree on digital time tracking will be approved before summer. He did so during the monthly press briefing on unemployment and Social Security affiliation figures, defending the reform as “a common-sense rule” (“una norma de sentido común”) against a recording system that, in his own words, still operates with methods “from the Pleistocene” (“del pleistoceno”).

The statement comes after the Council of State issued an unfavorable opinion on the draft Royal Decree. The Ministry of Labor is sticking to the timeline. Pérez Rey indicated that the department is completing the procedures needed to provide legal certainty to the text before submitting it to the Council of Ministers, where it will be approved “as soon as possible” (“a la mayor brevedad posible”).

Update (June 2026): the unions are pushing for the time-tracking decree to land now.

What Pérez Rey said

The Secretary of State framed the reform as a response to a concrete statistical reality of the Spanish labor market: more than 2.8 million unpaid overtime hours per week, according to the Ministry’s own figures. That, he said, is the “scourge” (“lacra”) the new Royal Decree aims to combat.

His remarks focused on three points:

• The current system based on paper and records that can be edited after the fact is incompatible with the 21st century.
• The reform seeks to tackle the hidden segment of the labor market — unrecorded hours, unpaid hours and excessive workdays that undermine work-life balance.
• The unfavorable opinion of the Council of State does not stop the procedure; it requires the Ministry to complete formal steps before final approval.

This is the latest in a string of public statements from the Ministry of Labor setting a date for the Royal Decree. Pérez Rey is speaking just three weeks before June 21 — the astronomical start of summer and the reference the Government itself has been using in its recent appearances — which places the process in its final stretch before the Council of Ministers and publication in the BOE.

How this fits with the rest of the procedure

The Royal Decree has been in public circulation since late 2025. The public chronology is dense and has moved in several directions:

• March 23, 2026 — The Council of State issues an unfavorable opinion on the draft.
• March 25, 2026 — Yolanda Díaz responds that the time-tracking decree will move forward despite the Council of State.
• March 31, 2026 — The Ministry of Economy requests a one-year grace period for SMEs to adapt.
• May 6, 2026 — The Government expects approval before June 21.
• May 7, 2026 — The Government secures digital time tracking in its annual Regulatory Plan.
• May 12, 2026 — Díaz: the time-tracking decree is in its final administrative steps.
• June 2, 2026 — Pérez Rey reaffirms approval “as soon as possible” and before summer.

Until now, June 21 had been treated as the Government’s stated target. Pérez Rey now speaks of procedures already in motion, rather than planning. Barring procedural surprises — and given that a non-binding opinion has already been absorbed — the next step is the Council of Ministers and publication.

What the digital time-tracking Royal Decree still requires

The content of the Royal Decree, analyzed in detail in the full hub on the 2026 time-tracking Royal Decree, revolves around four key technical requirements. Pérez Rey repeated them again today:

• Digital recording. Paper logs and editable Excel spreadsheets cease to be valid as a primary system. The record must be digitally native.
• Reliable and tamper-proof. The system must prevent unilateral alterations of the record; any modification will require written consent from the worker and traceability of every change.
• Immediate worker access. Each employee must be able to consult their own record directly, in real time and from any device.
• Access for legal representatives and the Labor Inspectorate. Worker representatives will have a direct consultation channel and the Inspectorate will have real-time access to the recording system, according to the known draft of the Royal Decree.

The draft covers more than format and traceability. It also includes a reinforced penalty framework linked to Article 7.5 of Royal Legislative Decree 5/2000 on infractions and sanctions in the social order, which already classifies irregularities in time tracking as a serious infraction. For details on amounts and grading, we cover the topic in the full guide to time-tracking penalties.

The 2.8 million figure the Ministry keeps citing

The figure of 2.8 million unpaid overtime hours per week that Pérez Rey used in his remarks is not new: it comes from statistical crosschecks the Ministry itself performs between the Labor Force Survey and Social Security affiliation data, and it has been published in previous reports on working time. The Ministry uses it as political and economic justification for the Royal Decree: the problem of unpaid hours and the lack of effective control over working time has been measured and quantified.

For a company that still records hours on paper or in Excel, the Royal Decree’s timeline matters less than the concrete direction of change the Ministry keeps spelling out: the record must be reviewable in real time, contain actual check-ins and check-outs per worker and leave traceability for any modification. Any system that does not cover those three points will require technical adjustments once the decree enters into force.

What companies need to map out three weeks ahead of June 21

Four practical points for companies that have not yet digitized their time tracking, or have digitized it but do not meet the draft’s requirements.

The first is the current system: if the record relies on paper, manual Excel or any editable medium without traceability, it will not fit the planned requirements. The second is worker access to their own record — if employees cannot currently consult it directly from any device, there is a missing technical layer and an internal communications layer that cannot be improvised in a week. The third is more operational: granting remote access to the Labor Inspectorate and legal representatives without opening the door to more than intended. This is a critical point in companies with multiple sites or with in-house software that lacks this functionality. And the fourth, less obvious one, is reviewing collective agreements on working-time flexibility, compensatory rest or reductions of the rest period between shifts: the new traceability requirement also affects those agreements, and what until now was documented after the fact will need to be recorded in the system.

Cleverfy has been designed from day one to meet the four central requirements of the new Royal Decree: digital, tamper-proof recording, real-time access for the worker, and consultation by legal representatives and the Labor Inspectorate. If your company still records hours on paper or in Excel, you can book a demo or check plans before the Royal Decree is published in the BOE.

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This article provides general information on public statements from the Spanish Ministry of Labor and does not constitute legal advice. For specific situations, consult with a labor lawyer.

Sources:

• El Debate — Labor Ministry expects time-tracking reform to be approved before summer
• Galicia Press — Labor Ministry expects time-tracking reform approved before summer
• Diario de Avisos — New time-tracking reform before summer