Spain · Employer of Record · Payroll Services · PEO
You have found the person you want to hire in Spain — now you need a compliant way to employ them. JN Recruitment is the expansion partner that connects international companies with vetted Employer of Record and payroll partners in Spain — plus the employment lawyers, tax advisors, gestorías and accountants a Spanish expansion actually needs — and delivers the boutique recruitment that finds the candidate in the first place.
for an EOR to complete the alta and issue a compliant Spanish employment contract
employer social security on a Spanish gross salary — budgeted before you make the offer
no S.L. required — with an Employer of Record, the partner is the legal employer in Spain
our recommendation is free — the best specialist from our vetted Spanish network, matched to your case
Payroll partner Spain
Spain is the fourth-largest economy in the European Union — and a market where employment is front-loaded with formalities. An indefinite contract (contrato indefinido) as the legal default, registration of the employer with the Tesorería General de la Seguridad Social (TGSS), the employee’s alta filed before the first day of work, the contract registered with SEPE, salaries customarily paid in fourteen instalments: none of it is optional, and all of it lands before your new hire receives a first nómina. Companies that have already found their candidate lose weeks here — or improvise with a freelance contract that the labour inspectorate later reclassifies.
There are two clean routes. If you have (or will build) a Spanish entity, a payroll service provider in Spain — typically a gestoría or asesoría laboral — runs the monthly nóminas, social-security filings and registrations for you. If you have no entity and don’t want one yet, an Employer of Record (EOR) employs your hire legally in Spain while you direct the day-to-day work — what many US companies would call a PEO. The market for both is crowded and opaque; structures, service depth and pricing vary enormously — and Spain’s rules on illegal staff lending (cesión ilegal de trabajadores) make the provider’s setup a compliance question, not a detail. Sooner or later a Spanish expansion also needs an employment lawyer, a tax advisor and an accountant. We vet all of it for you.
JN Recruitment is a boutique recruitment firm headquartered in Mannheim, with offices in Poland and Cyprus — and the expansion partner international companies use for the Spanish market. Years of placing people in Spain have built us a network of the best employment lawyers, tax advisors, gestorías, accountants and vetted EOR providers in the country. We recommend exactly the specialists your case needs — free of charge, at the partner’s standard rates — and stay your single point of contact. What we deliver ourselves is the headhunting: the sales recruitment agency for Spain that international machinery, industrial-technology and recycling companies already use to enter the market.
What we arrange
Whatever stage your Spain plans are at — first hire without an entity, or a full team on an existing S.L. — this is what our vetted Spanish network delivers: EOR providers, gestorías, employment lawyers, tax advisors and accountants, matched and introduced by us:
The partner becomes the legal employer of your hire in Spain — Spanish employment contract under the right convenio colectivo, alta with the TGSS, payroll, social security and withholding — while you manage the work day-to-day. Live within days, no S.L. required. The standard route for a first hire in Spain.
For companies with a Spanish entity: a specialised gestoría or asesoría laboral runs the monthly nóminas, social-security contributions via the SILTRA system, IRPF withholding filings to the tax agency, contract registrations with SEPE and year-end certificates — no in-house Spanish payroll expertise needed.
Searching for a “PEO Spain”? The US-style PEO doesn’t exist 1:1 under Spanish law — labour lending is reserved for licensed temporary agencies (ETTs), and the compliant equivalents are EOR employment or outsourced payroll on your own entity. We translate what you actually need into the right Spanish construct.
Specialised employment lawyers for watertight Spanish contracts, convenio classification and terminations, tax advisors for registrations and filings, accountants for the books — the advisory bench every Spanish expansion eventually needs, already vetted and briefed.
Onboarding paperwork, working-time records (registro horario is mandatory in Spain), absence tracking and statutory registrations — plus audits of Spanish freelance setups: the labour inspectorate actively pursues falsos autónomos, and partners convert contractors into compliant employment before that happens.
The part we deliver ourselves: executive search for technical sales and leadership roles in Spain. If you don’t have the candidate yet, we find them — then plug employment and payroll in behind the signed offer.
Market knowledge
Spanish employment is formal at the front and flexible at the back — short notice periods, long checklists. The essentials we brief every company on before a Spanish hire:
Spanish gross salaries are customarily paid in fourteen instalments — twelve monthly payments plus two pagas extraordinarias in summer and at Christmas, often prorated into twelve on request. The statutory minimum wage (SMI) follows the same logic at roughly €1,184 per month across fourteen payments. Budgets and EOR quotes should always work from annual gross.
Qualified professionals can be hired with up to six months’ probation on an indefinite contract, and the statutory resignation notice is just 15 days — senior contracts rarely agree more than one to three months. Spain is one of the fastest major EU markets to get a signed hire actually started.
Hiring out workers in Spain is reserved for licensed temporary employment agencies (empresas de trabajo temporal). Anything else risks being treated as cesión ilegal de trabajadores — illegal staff lending — with joint liability for both companies. A serious EOR is structured as the genuine, direct employer; how a provider is set up is the first thing we check before an introduction.
The employer needs a contribution account (código de cuenta de cotización) with the TGSS, the employee’s alta must be filed before work starts, the contract goes to SEPE within ten days, and mandatory working-time records apply from day one. A first-time employer in Spain clears this checklist before payroll can even run — it is the single biggest time sink an EOR or payroll partner removes.
Employer cost benchmarks
Payroll quotes in Spain are built on the social-security contributions both sides pay on gross salary. The 2026 picture — the source of the “roughly 31% on top” rule every employer budget should use:
| Contribution | Employer pays | Employee pays |
|---|---|---|
| Common contingencies (contingencias comunes) | 23.6% | 4.7% |
| Unemployment (desempleo, indefinite contract) | 5.5% | 1.55% |
| Wage guarantee fund (FOGASA) | 0.2% | — |
| Vocational training (formación profesional) | 0.6% | 0.1% |
| Intergenerational equity mechanism (MEI) | ≈0.7% | ≈0.15% |
| Workplace accident insurance (AT/EP, by sector) | ≈1–3% | — |
Orientation figures for 2026, rounded: accident rates vary by sector, the MEI rate is scheduled to step up year by year, and a monthly contribution ceiling (base máxima, roughly €4,900) caps most items for high earners — with an additional solidarity contribution above it. Rule of thumb: a €50,000 gross salary costs the employer roughly €65,000 all-in. Your payroll or EOR partner’s quote is the binding number.
Yes. An Employer of Record (EOR) employs your candidate in Spain on your behalf: the EOR holds the Spanish employment contract, files the alta with the TGSS, runs payroll and social security, and you direct the day-to-day work. No S.L., no Spanish bank account, no registrations on your side. It is the standard route for a first hire in Spain — with one Spanish particularity: labour lending is reserved for licensed ETTs, so the EOR must be structured as the genuine direct employer, which is exactly what our partner vetting checks.
The EOR is the legal employer under Spanish law. It issues a compliant contract under the applicable convenio colectivo, registers the employee with social security before day one, registers the contract with SEPE, runs the monthly nómina, withholds IRPF income tax, pays employer contributions, keeps the mandatory working-time records, and administers holidays, sick leave and the pagas extraordinarias. You remain in charge of the work itself — targets, tasks, tools, day-to-day management — and reimburse the EOR for gross salary, employer contributions and a service fee.
Typical Spanish EOR pricing is a flat €300–600 per employee per month, or a percentage of gross salary — on top of the salary itself and roughly 31% employer social security. Compare that with the alternative: forming and running an S.L. means notary and registry costs, share capital, accounting, quarterly and annual filings and a local payroll setup — rarely worth it below three to five employees. We match you with a partner whose pricing fits your head-count and flag the all-in monthly number before you commit.
Budget roughly 30–33% employer social security: common contingencies (23.6%), unemployment insurance (5.5% on indefinite contracts), FOGASA, vocational training, the MEI pension surcharge and sector-dependent accident insurance. The monthly contribution ceiling (base máxima, roughly €4,900) caps most items for high earners, so the effective percentage drops on large salaries. As a rule of thumb, a €50,000 gross salary costs the employer roughly €65,000 all-in per year, before any bonus, car or EOR fee.
In the US, a PEO co-employs your staff while you keep your own entity; an EOR employs them fully so you don’t need one. Spanish law has no 1:1 equivalent of the US PEO model — co-employment outside a licensed temporary agency (ETT) risks being treated as illegal staff lending. The compliant Spanish constructs are EOR employment, where the provider is the genuine direct employer, or outsourced payroll and HR administration on your own S.L. Providers use both labels loosely, which is precisely why we check what a partner actually delivers before we introduce them.
Yes — if the provider is the genuine employer. Spain reserves hiring-out of workers for licensed ETTs; an EOR therefore has to employ your hire directly, exercise real employer duties and run a real Spanish payroll. A setup that merely interposes an invoice between you and the worker risks classification as cesión ilegal de trabajadores, with joint and several liability and the employee entitled to claim a permanent position. Provider structure is the first thing we verify in our partner vetting — and a question you should ask any EOR you talk to.
Yes. If your S.L. or branch already exists, a Spanish payroll partner — typically a gestoría or asesoría laboral — takes over the monthly cycle: nóminas, social-security contributions via SILTRA, IRPF withholding filings, contract registrations with SEPE, working-time record keeping and year-end certificates. Typical pricing runs per payslip per month. The same partners handle the employer registrations if your entity has never employed anyone in Spain before.
Via EOR: the alta and a compliant Spanish employment contract are typically ready within three to five working days once the candidate’s documents are complete — the fastest compliant route into the Spanish market. Building your own entity first takes weeks to months including registrations. And Spain has a structural advantage on the candidate side: statutory resignation notice is just 15 days, and even senior contracts rarely exceed one to three months — so a Spanish hire often starts months earlier than an equivalent hire in Germany or France.
Only if they are genuinely self-employed. Spain pursues falsos autónomos aggressively — the labour inspectorate runs targeted campaigns, and reclassification means back-dated social security contributions, surcharges and fines, plus a deemed indefinite employment contract. One client, fixed working hours and integration into your team are classic red flags. If the working reality is employment, EOR employment costs little more and removes the risk; our partners also audit and convert existing contractor setups.
No — and that is deliberate. JN Recruitment is a boutique recruitment firm and your expansion partner for Spain: over years of placing candidates here we have built a vetted network of the best employment lawyers, tax advisors, gestorías, accountants and EOR providers — and we recommend exactly the specialists your case needs. You contract directly with the partner at their standard rates; the recommendation costs you nothing, and we stay your single point of contact. What we deliver ourselves is the search: if the candidate doesn’t exist yet, our Spanish headhunting finds them.
Across Europe
The same specialised technical sales search opens every market on the continent — pick the country you are expanding into.
Hiring in several markets at once?
Hiring at leadership level? Our executive search practice:
Candidate found — and now need a compliant way to employ them?
Talk to us — no strings attached. We get back to you within 24 hours.
Our mission is simple: placements that open new markets.
30-minute intro call
Two quick steps — tell us what you need and how to reach you. Within one business day you get an intro call and, where it fits, a direct introduction to the right specialists from our vetted network.
Your contact person Jonas Strambach Director & Senior Recruiter, JN Recruitment +49 1525 2077583 [email protected] Thank you — we’ll get back to you within one business day to schedule your intro call.
An honest read on your vacancy & market — in your first call.
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Before you go
Every month a key sales seat stays empty pushes your expansion plans back — and leaves serious revenue on the table. We fill technical sales positions within weeks, so you hit your expansion targets on schedule.
Jonas Strambach Director & Senior Recruiter, JN Recruitment Free vacancy check · reply within 24 hours
