Sick Leave in Spain (Baja Laboral): Who Pays, How Much, and Your Job Protection (2026)

Baja laboral, formally incapacidad temporal (IT), is what Spanish law calls being medically unfit for work while still employed. It pauses the employment relationship rather than ending it, and it triggers a subsidio, not your salary continuing unchanged. This page covers what IT is, who pays during it and how much, the 2023 paperwork reform, and what happens to your job while you are off.

Information last verified on 23 July 2026. This page provides general legal information about Spanish employment and Social Security law and does not constitute legal advice in an individual case.

What incapacidad temporal is

Art. 169 LGSS defines IT as the situation where a worker, because of an illness or accident, whether work-related or not, receives Social Security medical care and is unfit for work, for a maximum of 365 días, extendable by a further 180 días de prórroga when a medical discharge is still expected within that extra window. The same article recognizes a few special situations as IT in their own right, including menstruación incapacitante secundaria and, for pregnant workers, the period from the 39th week of gestation onward.

Up to the 365-day mark, the INSS's medical inspection shares alta-médica powers with the regional health service; once those 365 days are exhausted, only the INSS can issue the alta (art. 170 LGSS).

Qualifying for the subsidio in an enfermedad común case requires 180 días cotizados within the 5 years before the IT begins (art. 172 LGSS). No prior contribution period is required for an accidente, work-related or not, or for an enfermedad profesional.

Who pays, and from which day

The payer changes partway through the process, which is the part most people get wrong. For enfermedad común or accidente no laboral, art. 173.1 LGSS is explicit: the subsidio is paid «a partir del cuarto día de baja», and «desde el día cuarto al decimoquinto de baja, ambos inclusive, el subsidio estará a cargo del empresario». In practice:

• Days 1 to 3: no statutory Social Security subsidio. Some convenios colectivos cover this gap; the LGSS itself does not require it.
• Days 4 to 15: the employer pays the subsidio directly, from its own funds.
• Day 16 onward: payment passes to the INSS or the mutua. It is usually still channeled through the employer's payroll as pago delegado, but it is funded by the Social Security system rather than the employer.

Accidente de trabajo and enfermedad profesional follow a faster sequence: the employer covers the full salary for the day of the baja itself, and the subsidio, paid by the INSS or mutua from the outset with no employer-funded window like days 4 to 15 above, runs from the following day.

How much: the 60/75 percent split

The LGSS itself does not state a percentage. Art. 171 defers the figure to «sus normas de desarrollo», the implementing rules. Those rules set it at 60 percent of the base reguladora from day 4 through day 20, inclusive, under Real Decreto 53/1980, rising to 75 percent from day 21 onward, under the earlier Decreto 3158/1966 and the Orden de 13 de octubre de 1967 that implements it.

Both percentages apply to enfermedad común and accidente no laboral. Accidente de trabajo and enfermedad profesional use a different base calculation, which is outside the scope of this page.

One narrow exception: donación de órganos o tejidos is entitled to 100 percent of the base reguladora, not the general rule for an ordinary illness or accident.

The parte de baja: what changed in 2023

Real Decreto 1060/2022, in force since 1 April 2023, removed the old requirement that the worker personally deliver or mail the paper parte de baja to the employer. The doctor who issues the parte gives the worker a copy for their own records, and the health service, or the mutua for contingencias profesionales, transmits the data electronically to the INSS «de manera inmediata» and no later than the next business day, and the INSS notifies the employer within one business day of receiving it.

The reform also tiered how often a parte de confirmación is needed, by estimated duration:

• Under 5 days: the baja and the alta are issued in the same medical act.
• 5 to 30 days: the first revisión falls within 7 days of the baja; further confirmaciones no more than 14 days apart.
• 31 to 60 days: the first revisión falls within 7 days; confirmaciones no more than 28 days apart.
• 61 days or more: the first revisión falls within 14 days; confirmaciones no more than 35 days apart.

The reform applies to any process that was still running on 1 April 2023, not only to ones that started afterward.

Your job while you are off

Art. 45.1.c) of the Estatuto de los Trabajadores lists incapacidad temporal among the causes that suspend, not end, an employment contract, alongside things like maternity leave. The salary obligation stops, replaced by the subsidio, but the job is reserved, and under art. 48.1 ET you have the right to return to it once the suspension ends.

One special extension exists. If an IT process ends with a declaration of incapacidad permanente, in its total, absoluta or gran invalidez grades, and a return to work is still foreseeable, art. 48.2 ET keeps the job reserved for a further two years from that declaration. An ordinary IT process ending in recovery within the 365-plus-180-day window is already covered by the general art. 48.1 rule.

For the wider map of Spanish employment protections and endings, see the employment law section.

This page is general legal information about Spanish employment and Social Security law and does not constitute legal advice in an individual case. The controlling texts are always the current versions of the LGSS and the Estatuto de los Trabajadores in the BOE.