Every morning you clock in, or you do not, or you note the time on a sheet hanging on the wall. What many workers do not know is that this record is not a whim of the company: it has been a legal obligation since March 2019, and it has two practical consequences for you. It protects you when you claim overtime and it is one of the first things the Labour Inspectorate looks at.
What the law says today
Article 34.9 of Spain’s Estatuto de los Trabajadores (Workers Statute), added by Real Decreto-ley 8/2019 (Royal Decree-Law 8/2019), obliges the employer to guarantee the daily record of working time (the registro de jornada). The record must include the specific start and finish time of each worker’s working day. Four ideas sum it up:
- Every day, not once a month or approximately.
- Every person, not a total per department.
- Start time and finish time, not just hours worked.
- Four years of retention, available to the staff, their representatives and the Inspección de Trabajo y Seguridad Social (Inspectorate of Labour and Social Security).
How to organise it is decided by collective bargaining, by company agreement or, failing that, by the employer’s decision after consulting the workers’ legal representatives. That is why the system varies so much from one place to another.
What the law does not say (yet)
There is a very widespread confusion: many people believe that since 2026 a digital clocking-in system with an approved app is mandatory. At the date of this review, it is not.
The Government has processed a royal decree to develop the record and make it digital. Its drafts include more detailed logging, traceability of changes, remote and immediate access for the Inspectorate and retention for four years. But an industry source consulted on 1 August 2026 indicated that it was neither approved nor published in the BOE, and that the process would resume in September. We have not found its publication, so we treat it as not in force. If that changes, we will update it here and note it in the legal review.
In the meantime, the obligation in force is that of article 34.9: any reliable system will do, including paper or a spreadsheet. What does not do is a record that does not reflect reality.
What your record should include
Although the law only asks for the start and finish time, a useful record also reflects what affects your rights:
| Data | What it is for |
|---|---|
| Start and finish time each day | It is the legal minimum content |
| Breaks that do not count as work | It lets you know how much you really work |
| Overtime hours | The Statute requires them to be recorded day by day and a monthly summary to be handed over |
| Changes and corrections | It stops a record being modified without your knowing |
There is a rule of its own for overtime: article 35.5 orders that working time be recorded day by day and totalled over the period set for the payment of wages, with a copy of the summary handed to the worker on the corresponding payslip. If you are paid with a monthly payslip, they must give you that summary every month.
An example with numbers
Your contract is for 40 hours a week, Monday to Friday, from 9:00 to 17:00 with an hour for lunch. Over a month, the record shows that you leave at 18:15 on Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays.
- Overtime per week: 3 days × 1 h 15 min = 3 h 45 min.
- Over four weeks: 15 hours of overtime.
With that record, your claim no longer depends on your memory or your boss’s: it is 15 hours with day and time, and the company must compensate or pay them under the agreement or the contract. If there is no record, you will have to prove them with other evidence, which is weaker.
If your employer has no record
An employer not keeping a record is a breach. You have several options, from least to most confrontational:
- Ask in writing. Ask how your working time is recorded and who keeps it. Often it exists but had not been explained.
- Keep your own. Write down your hours in a notebook or on your phone, with date and time. It does not replace the official record, but it is useful evidence if you have to claim.
- Go to the workers’ representatives. They can demand the record and take part in designing it.
- Report to the Inspectorate of Labour and Social Security. Not keeping the record is a serious infringement under the infringements and sanctions act. The amount depends on the applicable band, so check the law or consult a union.
There is a consequence in your favour: when the company does not record working time, it is harder for it to deny that you worked certain hours, because the obligation to keep the record is its own. It is not an automatic presumption, but judges tend to take a dim view of the company being the one that lacks the evidence it should have had.
When the record is wrong
There may be a record that does not reflect what happens: you are made to clock out and keep working, or your entries are corrected without telling you. That is also a problem.
- If you are asked to clock out and stay working, do not do it without putting in writing that you are doing it at the company’s request.
- If you see a correction you do not recognise, ask about it in writing and keep a copy.
- Take screenshots or photos of your record every week. If it disappears one day, you have proof of what it said.
Geolocation and other privacy questions
It is common for clocking-in apps to ask for location or biometric data. Data protection rules require the system to be proportionate to its purpose. Fingerprint clocking-in when a card is enough is usually hard to justify, and tracking outside working hours has no basis. If your app collects more data than necessary, ask the company in writing to explain what for, and if you are not convinced, you can raise the matter with the Agencia Española de Protección de Datos (Spanish Data Protection Agency).
Common cases
I am an economically dependent self-employed worker or a false freelancer (falso autónomo). Article 34.9 applies to employees. If in reality you work to a schedule, orders and tools from the company, that is a sign of an employment relationship, and the record is useful to you to prove it. Consult a union before claiming.
I work from home. Remote working does not exempt the company from the record: it must guarantee the recording of working time remotely too. Clocking-in apps or an email at the start and end of the day are common systems. The remote-working agreement usually specifies how it is done.
I have flexible hours or a time bank. Flexibility does not remove the record: it makes it more necessary. If you start between 8:00 and 10:00 and leave between 16:00 and 18:00, the real time of each day must be noted to know whether you have completed your working day, whether you have done extra hours or whether you must compensate.
I am asked to clock in at one place, but I work at another. If you start working when you leave home to go to the client, or you finish the task after clocking out, there is working time that is not recorded. It depends on whether travel is working time under your agreement and your post. The important thing is to put in writing when you really start and finish.
Model letter to request the record
Subject: Request for access to my working time record
Good morning. In accordance with article 34.9 of the Estatuto de los Trabajadores, please provide me with a copy of my working time record for the months of [month] to [month], with the start and finish time of each day. If the record does not exist, I would appreciate it if you could tell me how my working time is being recorded and who is responsible. Kind regards.
Keep the date you sent it. If they do not reply, that omission also counts.
What changes if the royal decree is approved
The known drafts provide for the record to be digital, with more detail, traceability of changes and remote access for the Inspectorate. They also provide that changes require authorisation from both parties and are notified to the representatives, and that it be kept for four years. If it is published, the company will have a period to adapt. Until then, your protection is that of article 34.9. When there is news, we will add it to this article.
Common mistakes
- Clocking out and carrying on working. Record what happens, not what is convenient.
- Not asking for a copy. A record of which you have never seen a single entry is a record you do not control.
- Writing off hours that do not appear. If there is no record, you can prove the hours by other means: emails, messages, tasks delivered, witnesses.
- Waiting until the end of the contract. The record is asked for during the relationship, not when it is already too late.
What I would do
First, I would check whether there is a record at my company and whether I can see my clock-ins. Second, I would keep a monthly copy of that data: it is free and it protects you. Third, if the record does not exist or is false, I would write a short, clear email to the company, copying the representatives if there are any, asking for the record system in force. In most cases that is enough to get it regularised. If not, the Labour Inspectorate is the route. And I would not wait until the contract ends to claim: hours are claimed within a limitation period of one year.
Where to go next
The record connects with other rights. Overtime, its limit and how it is paid explains what to do with the excess hours the record shows, and the mandatory rest between working days tells you when a schedule goes too far.
If the discrepancy leaves wages unpaid, retain your evidence and check what to do when an employer is not paying wages in Spain.