Spanish leave of absence
Whether you qualify and how long it can last, until what date your own job is held for you, and how many months count as contributed.
| One year of service with the employer | Not applicable |
| Four years since the last voluntary leave | Not applicable |
| Statutory range | Up to 36 months |
| Can the collective agreement extend it? | No |
| You are short by | Not applicable |
- The three years run from the date of birth or, where relevant, from the court or administrative decision, not from the day you ask for the leave. It may be taken in instalments.
- If another child is born, or another relative gives rise to a new leave, starting that new one ENDS the leave being taken. They do not stack.
- There is no unemployment benefit during this leave. Article 267 of the Social Security Act lists the legal situations of unemployment and this leave is in none of them: the contract is alive, merely suspended.
Change the type of leave
The five types in article 46 are not variants of one thing: they change the right, the reserve and the contribution all at once.
Educational estimate based on the consolidated texts of the Spanish Workers' Statute and the Social Security Act. It does not constitute employment advice.
Your collective agreement may improve any of these periods, and article 46.6 allows further types of leave to be agreed. The public-servant regime is a different statute and is out of scope.
The five types in article 46, which are not variants of one thing
Article 46 of the Spanish Workers’ Statute regulates five different situations under one name, and moving from one to another changes the right, the job reserve and the contribution all at once. The compulsory leave in paragraph 1 is granted on appointment or election to a public office that prevents attendance at work; it holds the job in full and counts towards seniority. The voluntary leave in paragraph 2 requires one year of service, runs from four months to five years, and cannot be taken again until four years have passed since the end of the previous one. The two in paragraph 3 are the care leaves: up to three years for each child and up to two for the care of a relative, both with a job reserve and seniority. Paragraph 4 covers union office at provincial level or above. And paragraph 6 lets a collective agreement add further cases, on whatever terms it provides.
What each of the three modes checks
The first mode answers whether you qualify and between what limits. Only the voluntary leave has conditions of access, and there are two: one year of service with the employer, and four years since the END of the previous voluntary leave, counted from its end rather than from its start or from the day you went back to work. The second mode turns a start date and a length into real dates: until what day your own job is held, when the leave ends and what you keep on that day. The third splits the length between the months article 237 treats as effective contribution and the months it does not, and shows which benefits they reach and which they do not.
The job reserve steps down on a specific date
On the care leaves, article 46.3 gives the right to a reserve of your own job during the first year. «Once that period has passed, the reserve shall be of a job in the same professional group or an equivalent grade», which is not the same thing but is also not nothing: it is your job or an equivalent one, never none at all. That step moves if the worker belongs to a legally recognised large family: fifteen months in the general category and eighteen in the special one. The article adds one more sentence inside that same paragraph, for the case where the person takes the right for the same length and on the same terms as the other parent, and the reserve then reaches eighteen months too. This tool applies that sentence only inside the large-family paragraph, because that is where it is written; read as a free-standing sentence it would give eighteen months to any family, and its position in the text does not support that reading.
Why voluntary leave is a different object rather than one more leave
Four things the other leaves give, the voluntary one does not, and each comes from a different clause of the same article. It does not contribute, because article 237 of the Social Security Act refers to article 46.3 and to nothing else: the word «voluntary» does not appear in it once. It does not hold your job, because article 46.5 says you keep «only a preferential right to reinstatement in vacancies of the same or a similar grade existing or arising in the company», and with no vacancy there is nothing to return to. It does not build seniority, because paragraph 1 grants that expressly to the compulsory leave and paragraph 3 says its period «shall count towards seniority», while paragraph 2 says neither, and the «only» in paragraph 5 is what makes the reading defensible. And it has no statutory deadline for reinstatement: the article sets one for the compulsory leave alone, «within the month following the end of the public office», so on voluntary leave the collective agreement sets it.
The asymmetry between two statutes that nobody states
Article 46.3 of the Statute guarantees leave of up to two years to care for a relative, «unless a longer period is established by collective bargaining». Article 237.2 of the Social Security Act credits the first three years of that same leave. Twelve credited months are left over that the Statute does not oblige anyone to grant, so the third year exists only if your collective agreement extends the leave. The asymmetry is recent and ran the other way until lately: until 18 March 2023 article 237.2 said «the first year», so the Statute gave two and Social Security credited one. Royal decree-law 2/2023 tripled it in one step, and any guide written before that date still prints the old figure.
There is no unemployment benefit during the leave, and none after it either
Article 267 of the Social Security Act lists the legal situations of unemployment, and none of them is a leave of absence: the contract has neither ended nor been suspended for one of the causes on that list, it is alive and merely suspended, so there is nothing to claim. And the months that do contribute do not fatten a future unemployment entitlement either, because article 237.1 treats them as contributed «for the purposes of the corresponding Social Security benefits for retirement, permanent incapacity, death and survivors, maternity and paternity», and unemployment does not appear in that list. Three years that count in full towards your pension and zero days towards your unemployment benefit.
Worked example
A worked example with real dates. A worker asks for twenty-four months of leave to care for her child, starting on 15 March 2026, in a family that is not a legally recognised large family. She needs no service at all: article 46.3 grants the right without any condition about time with the employer. Her own job is held until 15 March 2027, and from that day the reserve becomes a job in her same professional group. The leave ends on 15 March 2028, and all twenty-four months count as contributed, because they fit inside the three-year cap in article 237. Those twenty-four months count towards her retirement pension, a permanent incapacity, death and survivors, and maternity and paternity, and they add not one day to her unemployment entitlement. Had she taken voluntary leave of the same length instead, she would have contributed nothing, had no job held for a single day, and accumulated no seniority.
Frequently asked questions
How long can a Spanish leave of absence last?
Does voluntary leave count towards Social Security contributions?
Is my job held during voluntary leave?
Can I claim unemployment benefit while on leave?
How long must I wait before taking voluntary leave again?
How long do I have to ask for reinstatement?
What happens if another child is born while I am on leave?
Can my employer refuse care leave because my partner already has it?
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Sources
- Spanish Workers’ Statute (RDL 2/2015), article 46: compulsory leave and the one month to ask for reinstatement (46.1), the one year of service and the four-month-to-five-year range (46.2), the care leaves and the job reserve (46.3), union office (46.4) and the voluntary worker’s «only a preferential right» (46.5) · Spanish Official State Gazette
- Spanish Social Security Act (RDL 8/2015), article 237: the three years of effective contribution for care of a child (237.1) and of a relative (237.2, as amended by RDL 2/2023), and the gross-up of a preceding reduction in hours (237.4) · Spanish Official State Gazette
- Spanish Social Security Act, article 267: the closed list of legal situations of unemployment, in which this leave does not appear · Spanish Official State Gazette
- Royal decree-law 2/2023, sole article.25: the amendment that raised the contribution credit for care of a relative from one year to three, in force from 18 March 2023 · Spanish Official State Gazette
- Royal decree-law 5/2023, article 127.5: the amendment to article 46.3 that named the spouse and the registered partner and obliged employers to give written reasons and an alternative plan, in force from 30 June 2023 · Spanish Official State Gazette
- Spanish Civil Code, article 5.1: periods fixed in months run from date to date, and expire on the last day of the month where there is no equivalent day · Spanish Official State Gazette
Author: Thorben Rasmus Idel · Reviewed by: Nahar Geva · Last reviewed: