Time control, regulated by Royal Decree-Law 8/2019, establishes the mandatory recording of working hours in all companies.
What is time control and why is it mandatory?
Time and attendance records and counts the hours worked by each employee throughout the workday. Entry and exit times and any break or absence during the working day of each employee, including ordinary and extraordinary hours, as well as vacations, leaves, specific requests. The purpose of this time record is to avoid abuses, promote work-family reconciliation and ensure compliance with the regulations on employee working hours.
Now, what does the Law establish about the control of working hours?
1. Mandatory recording of working hours: Regardless of the sector or size of the company, it is mandatory to record workers' working hours. This applies to both full and part-time work, face-to-face work or teleworking.
2. 4-year record keeping: The company must keep records of hours worked for at least four years, and be available for any labor inspection.
3. Access for employees and unions: All workers have the right to review working hours and overtime performed to verify compliance and ensure that their rights are not infringed.
4. Transparency of working hours: The company must clearly inform about working hours, breaks, and the distribution of the working day, ensuring that workers know their rights.
5. Reporting of overtime: Companies must report monthly to the unions the overtime hours worked, ensuring proper monitoring of working time.
New Timekeeping Law Regulations (Update 2025)
The regulations have advanced to adapt to new modalities such as teleworking, flexible work or the reduction of working hours to 37.5 hours per week in Spain. Although Royal Decree 8/2019 establishes the basis for time control, certain obligations have been reinforced:
- Companies must record the start and end of each worker's daily workday, even in remote work contexts.
- Flextime does not exempt from the compliance with the time registration.
- Frequent inspections, which can result in significant financial penalties for non-compliance.
Who are exempted from the time control law?
The professionals exempted from the law are divided into three main groups: 1. Special labor relations (senior management, domestic employees, artists, sportsmen, etc.), 2. 3. Self-employed and cooperative members.
How to implement time control in your company?
If you have not yet implemented an employee time recording system, you have two options:
Manual templates (such as Excel)
A basic, but limited option. Time-consuming and may inadvertently generate errors or defaults.
Time and attendance software
An effective option is to use tools such as Factorial, which allow you to digitize time and attendance control in a simple way, complying with the law and generating valid reports for inspections. Not only limited to the recording of workers' hours, they also allow you to record entry and exit times automatically, control overtime and absences, manage clockings from the mobile or PC, generate reports with legal validity in seconds.
