Spanish sick leave (baja) calculator 2026

Royal Decree-law 31/2026 of 20 October, published in BOE no. 261 on 21 October 2026, rewrites articles 169, 171, 172 and 173 of the General Social Security Act. Its fourth final provision delays those changes to the first day of the second month after publication, 1 December 2026. What you will notice most is the base month: it stops being the month before the leave and becomes the month before that. For leave starting on 10 December, the base will be October's, not November's. If you earned overtime or a pay rise in November, it will not count.

The decree also groups the special situations into five cases: disabling menstruation and pregnancy loss or termination, pregnancy from week 39, organ donation, menopausal disorder and injuries from gender violence. All are paid from the day after the leave starts, with no employer days, and almost all with no prior contributions. For the self-employed, the new article 318.h) applies from 21 October 2026, because it is not among the delayed effects. As of 29 October 2026 we have not found Parliament's validation in the BOE; Congress has thirty working days to vote on it, and if it were repealed we would say so here.

While you are still employed, sick pay comes through payroll. Days 4 to 15 of an ordinary illness are paid by the employer out of its own pocket. From day 16 the benefit belongs to the INSS or to the mutua your employer uses for temporary incapacity, but the employer keeps advancing it and then deducts it from the contributions it pays in: this is delegated payment under the Order of 13 October 1967. Direct payment, where the body pays you itself, comes when the contract ends during the leave, or when the employer fails to pay. After 365 days, the employer keeps advancing the benefit until discharge or day 545, under article 170.2 of the Act.

That split matters if your employer is small or if you change jobs: it helps to know which band each party owes in order to claim it. The who pays sick leave page goes through it day by day, and the leave calendar puts a date on each change of payer.

Article 169 of the General Social Security Act sets a maximum of 365 days, extendable by another 180 when recovery is expected within that time. At 365 days, control passes to the INSS, which may discharge you, extend the leave or open a permanent incapacity case. At 545 days the benefit ends and the INSS has 90 days to assess your condition, a period it can stretch to 730 days in total if recovery is still under way.

Relapses count: if you are off again with the same or a similar condition within 180 days of discharge, the days are added towards those limits. Leave for disabling menstruation is the exception and always counts as a new process.

You no longer hand sick notes to your employer: the doctor gives you a copy and the health service sends the data to the INSS, which forwards it to the employer, as article 7 of Royal Decree 625/2014 says. The same decree sets how often you are reviewed according to the expected length: for leave of 5 to 30 days, after 7 days and then every 14; for leave over 60 days, after 14 days and then every 35.

The mutua may call you to a medical check with four working days' notice and propose your discharge, but only your doctor or the medical inspection signs it. If you miss a check without justifying it within ten working days, you lose the benefit. After 365 days, you have 4 calendar days to contest an INSS discharge. The exact dates for your case are on the leave deadlines page.

To be paid you must be registered with Social Security or in an equivalent situation, such as receiving unemployment benefit, and have a sick note. For ordinary illness you also need 180 days of contributions in the previous 5 years. Accidents, at work or not, and occupational disease require no prior contributions, nor do most special situations. Without those days the sick note is valid, but no benefit is paid. The qualifying period tool tells you whether you meet it.

During the leave you keep contributing and you may not work, either employed or self-employed: doing so lets the paying body suspend or cancel the benefit, under article 175 of the Act. Nor may you refuse the prescribed treatment without good reason.

The usual sum, base times 60% or 75%, goes wrong in four places that the calculator handles: it takes the base month that matches your leave date, before or after the reform; it splits every day between nobody, the employer and the paying body, with dates; it adds the top-up of the national agreements whose article we have read in the BOE; and it applies the specific rules for the self-employed, work accidents and special situations. The full method, article by article, is on the methodology page.