Hiring your first employee in Spain

Hiring your first employee in Spain is less about one big form and more about doing a few steps in the right order.

The safest way to think about it is this: first, make sure you can act as an employer before the person starts work. Then choose the right contract, register the worker with Social Security in time, sign and keep the right documentation, and communicate the contract to the public employment services.

This guide is written for freelancers and small businesses that are making their first hire and want a clean, conservative workflow based on official guidance.

Start with employer registration

If you are hiring workers for the first time, Social Security says you should request your own registration as a company before work begins. For a freelancer, this can feel odd: you are still self-employed, but you are also becoming an employer for Social Security purposes.

This is the first administrative gate. Do not leave it until after the worker has started.

For individual employers, Social Security lists three core documents: the official application form, the identity document of the business owner or individual employer, and the document assigning the tax identification number where the company’s economic activity is recorded. Companies have additional documentation requirements, such as incorporation documents and proof of the authority of the person signing the application.

In practice, before you offer a start date, prepare:

Your identification details as employer.
Your tax identification information and economic activity.
The work centre or place where the employee will work.
Access to the relevant Social Security electronic services, if you are filing online.
A folder for the employment contract, Social Security registration evidence, and SEPE communication evidence.

This first step is easy to underestimate because it does not look like “hiring” yet. But it is what lets the rest of the workflow happen without improvising on the employee’s first morning.

Choose the contract before you touch the forms

The contract type should come from the reality of the job: indefinite, temporary, training-related, full-time, part-time, or fixed-discontinuous where appropriate.

The Ministry of Labour states that an employment contract is presumed to be indefinite. Fixed-term contracts are limited to specific cases, such as production circumstances or substituting another worker. That matters for small businesses because “I only want to try this for a while” is not, by itself, a contract type.

SEPE’s contract model page gives practical access to the official models and related annexes. It also describes the main contract families, including indefinite contracts, temporary contracts, training alternation contracts, and contracts for obtaining professional practice.

When writing is required

The Ministry of Labour explains that employment contracts may be verbal or written, but several contracts must be in writing. These include training contracts, part-time contracts, fixed-discontinuous contracts, relief contracts, remote work contracts, and fixed-term contracts lasting more than four weeks.

For a first hire, written is usually the cleaner operational choice even when a verbal contract could technically exist. It gives both sides the same record of the job, working time, pay, start date, and contract type.

A written contract should not be treated as a template exercise. Check the working day, salary, workplace, professional group, applicable collective agreement, trial period if used, and whether any annex is needed.

Once the employer side is ready and the contract type is clear, the next deadline is the worker’s Social Security registration.

For the General Scheme, Social Security states that registration can be filed up to 60 calendar days before the start of the employment relationship. The practical reading is simple: do it before the employee starts working, and keep evidence that it was done.

This is the step that turns a planned hire into a properly registered employment relationship. For a freelancer making the first hire, it is also where payroll and contribution duties stop being theoretical.

Build your internal checklist around the start date:

Confirm the employee’s identification and Social Security details.
Confirm the actual first day of work.
File the Social Security registration within the permitted timing.
Save the registration confirmation.
Check that the contract details match the Social Security registration details.

Small inconsistencies are where hiring admin gets messy: a different start date in one place, a working day that does not match the contract, or a contract type selected before the role was properly defined.

Communicate the contract through the employment services

After the contract is agreed, employers must communicate the content of employment contracts or extensions to the public employment services within the official deadline. The Ministry of Labour states that this must be done within 10 days after the contract is made, whether or not the contract must be formalized in writing.

SEPE’s Contrat@ service is the online route for this communication. SEPE explains that Contrat@ allows employers, companies, and authorized professional representatives to communicate employment contract content to the public employment services from their own office or professional premises.

Through Contrat@, SEPE says you can communicate contract data, basic copies, extensions, fixed-discontinuous calls, and complementary hours agreements. The service can be used through data entry, XML file submission, or web services. It requires authorization from the public employment services; once authorized, access can be made with a digital certificate, electronic DNI, or the company identifier and assigned personal password.

For a first hire, the operational point is this: do not confuse Social Security registration with contract communication. They are connected in the hiring workflow, but they are not the same filing.

Keep a defensible first-hire file

The safest first-hire file is boring. That is the goal.

Keep one folder for the employee with the signed contract, any annexes, proof of Social Security registration, proof of contract communication, and any documentation linked to working time, workplace, or remote work if relevant.

If the relationship lasts more than four weeks, the Ministry of Labour says the employer must inform the worker in writing about the essential elements of the employment contract and the main conditions of the work relationship within two months from the start date, unless that information already appears in the written contract held by the worker.

That is another reason to make the contract complete from day one. It reduces later cleanup.

A practical first-hire file should include:

Employer registration evidence.
Worker Social Security registration evidence.
Signed contract and applicable annexes.
Evidence of SEPE or public employment service communication.
Applicable collective agreement reference.
Salary, working time, workplace, and start date records.
Trial period wording, only if agreed in writing where required.
Any fixed-term justification, if the contract is not indefinite.

This is not about collecting paper for its own sake. It is about being able to reconstruct what happened, when it happened, and why the contract type matched the job.

A conservative first-hire workflow

Use this order when planning the first employee:

Define the job before choosing the contract. Decide the role, working time, workplace, salary, start date, and whether the need is permanent or genuinely temporary.
Register as an employer with Social Security before the employee starts working.
Choose the contract model using official MITES and SEPE guidance.
Prepare the written contract and annexes when required or when it is the cleaner option.
Register the worker with Social Security before the start of the employment relationship, within the permitted filing window.
Sign the contract and give the worker their copy.
Communicate the contract to the public employment services, using Contrat@ or the applicable channel, within the official deadline.
Store the confirmations and review the file before payroll closes for the first month.

The order matters. A freelancer can recover from a missing folder name or an ugly spreadsheet. It is much harder to recover from letting the person start work before the employer and worker registration steps are in place.