The 37.5-hour week goes to parliament

On 6 May 2025 the Council of Ministers approved the bill to cut the maximum length of the ordinary working week, regulate time recording and the right to disconnect, and sent it to parliament. The text came out of the agreement signed in December 2024 between the Labour Ministry and the CCOO and UGT unions, without the support of employers’ organisations, and had already been through the Council of Ministers as a draft in February.

What it proposes

The maximum ordinary working week would fall from 40 to 37.5 hours of actual work, on an annual average, without any reduction in pay. Collective agreements with longer hours would have to adapt. Most agreements are already below 40 hours, but in sectors such as retail, hospitality and farming the cut would have more impact.

The second piece is time recording. Employers would have to keep records digitally, reliably and in an interoperable format, so that the Labour Inspectorate could check each worker’s hours remotely. Paper and spreadsheets would no longer do. Penalties for failing to keep records would be tougher and could be calculated per worker affected, up to €10,000.

The bill also strengthens the right to digital disconnection: workers would not be obliged to answer calls, messages or emails outside their working hours, except in exceptional circumstances.

The parliamentary hurdle

The government did not have a guaranteed majority. The PP and Vox were against it, and Junts, whose seven votes were decisive, wanted compensation for small businesses and the self-employed and objected that it was being passed without agreement from employers. In the end, Congress rejected the text in September 2025, with the motions to reject it tabled by those three groups.

What to review

Although the shorter week did not go ahead, time recording has been compulsory since 2019 and the Labour Inspectorate monitors it more and more. Companies should have a system that objectively records start and finish times, breaks and overtime, and keep the records for four years.

It is also worth knowing what the applicable collective agreement says about hours and rest, because that is where reductions in working time are negotiated today. Ask your employment adviser how it affects your workforce.

Working hours are negotiated in law and in collective agreements; time records, by contrast, no longer allow shortcuts.