Spain's digital time-tracking decree misses September and now waits on the Council of State

Legal note: This article is for information only and does not constitute legal advice. The Royal Decree on digital time tracking is still being processed and has not been published in the BOE (Spain’s official gazette).

Second missed deadline in three months

The Government will not approve the tougher time-tracking rules before the end of September. Government sources confirmed as much to El País on 25 September, and elEconomista.es added that the text was not even discussed at the preparatory meetings for the Cabinet meeting on Tuesday the 29th, the last one of the month.

That is the second deadline missed in three months. In late July, the Labour and Economy ministries agreed to push approval back to September to get around the ultimatum from the CCOO and UGT unions, which had demanded the decree by 31 July. On 9 September Yolanda Díaz spoke of approving it “immediately”, and by the 21st UGT was admitting it had no idea where the text stood (UGT threatens to freeze its deals).

The Cabinet declared the processing of this decree urgent on 30 September 2025. A year later there is still no date, and the Government’s agenda is now taken up by measures against rising prices driven by the conflict in Iran and by the housing decree.

Economy is no longer the obstacle

For months the deadlock was put down to the clash between Díaz and Economy Minister Carlos Cuerpo. This time, according to sources close to the Prime Minister’s office quoted by La Voz de Galicia and El Correo, there is no conflict inside the Government. The two deputy prime ministers are working together, with the State Attorney’s Office, on changes to the text agreed with the unions.

The aim is to win the approval of the Council of State, which in March issued an unfavourable opinion which concluded: “The proposed royal decree should not be approved.” “The key to time tracking is in Carmen Calvo’s hands,” sources familiar with the negotiation sum up, referring to the body’s president.

The opinion raised two substantive objections:

• The legal rank of the rule. In the Council of State’s view, the decree “does not merely supplement or implement what the law provides” but “imposes new obligations and burdens on employers and workers, thereby exceeding the proper scope of regulatory power”. The CEOE employers’ association has announced it will challenge the decree on exactly these grounds.
• Data protection. The advisory body considers that the text does not adequately protect employees’ data, a point the employers have also raised.

It also put a figure on the cost: €55.40 per worker per year and an initial impact of €867 million a year across all businesses.

Why the Government now wants a favourable opinion

The law requires the Government to request the Council of State’s opinion but not to follow it, and the Cabinet could approve the decree with the opinion against it. Even so, the Government is now seeking an endorsement of the revised text because of what could happen in court.

According to the sources quoted by La Voz de Galicia, the Government fears that a regulation approved against the express view of the country’s highest advisory body would be easier to strike down at the Supreme Court. If the CEOE challenges it, the central question will be whether the Government could impose digital time tracking by regulation or needed a law to do so, and the Council of State has already put in writing that it needed a law. A favourable opinion on the new version would leave the challengers without their strongest argument, although it would not guarantee the outcome of the case. To get it, the text has to go back to the Council of State before it reaches the Cabinet, and no date has been set.

Even once approved, the technical order is still missing

In early September, Labour’s Secretary of State, Joaquín Pérez Rey, explained that the new obligations will only apply once a ministerial order sets out the technical requirements for the recording system. “That is where we will set the entry into force,” he said.

That order went to public consultation in March and still has no draft. The latest version of the decree published by the Labour Ministry set entry into force 20 days after publication in the BOE, while Economy is pushing for a long transition period for SMEs (the working-week reduction bill that Congress voted down gave six months, and Economy wanted a year). Between another round at the Council of State, the Cabinet and an order that has not yet been written, it seems unlikely that digital time tracking will be enforceable before 2027.

The full timeline is in our guide to the status of the time-tracking Royal Decree.

What it means for your business

The delay does not touch the obligation already in force. Recording working hours has been mandatory since 2019 under article 34.9 of the Workers’ Statute, the Labour Inspectorate fines companies today for not doing it, and the courts have been siding with the worker’s version when the company’s record is kept by hand or is easy to alter.

For an SME still clocking in on paper, the delay means a few more months to switch over without rushing, train its staff and build up a history before the decree makes it compulsory. That history is what an inspector or an overtime claim in court will ask for, and it cannot be created after the fact.

Whatever system you choose should already meet what the draft requires: digital clock-ins, records that cannot be edited without leaving a trace, remote access for the Labour Inspectorate and four years of retention. The details are in the requirements time-tracking software must meet.

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Sources: El País, elEconomista.es, La Voz de Galicia, El Correo.

Photo: Palacio de los Consejos, seat of the Council of State, Madrid. Carlos Delgado, CC BY-SA 3.0. Cropped image.