First things first: you take a step too

Hiring your first employee isn’t just “drawing up a contract”. As a self-employed worker, up to now you’ve only registered and filed for yourself. The moment you hire someone, you also become an employer for social security purposes, with obligations separate from your own as a self-employed worker. This doesn’t change your personal status under RETA (the self-employed regime): the two run in parallel.

Step 1: register as an employer (get a CCC)

Before the person starts working, you need to apply for a Contribution Account Code (Código Cuenta de Cotización, CCC) with the Social Security Treasury. This is the number under which you’ll pay contributions for your employees, separate from your own self-employed registration number. You apply for it through the RED System or the Social Security’s online office, and you need it assigned before the employee is registered.

Step 2: register the employee with social security

Registration with social security (under the General Regime) has to be done before the person starts working, not after. If the Labour Inspectorate catches someone working without prior registration, the fine is real and doesn’t depend on whether “you were going to sort it out that same afternoon”. If the person has never worked before, they first need to be affiliated (assigned a social security number) and then registered.

Step 3: the employment contract

The type of contract (permanent, temporary, training, part-time…) depends on the actual needs of the role — the 2021 labour reform made the permanent contract the general rule and strictly limited temporary contracts to specific causes (covering for someone, production needs with a maximum duration). Whatever the type, the contract has to be reported to the SEPE (the employment service) via Contrat@ within a set number of working days of its start — this isn’t optional, or something you can leave “for when you have time”.

Step 4: payroll

Each month you have to issue a payslip with the agreed gross salary (never below the minimum wage or the collective agreement that applies to your industry, if there is one — this matters just as much as the minimum wage and is often overlooked), the contributions withheld from the employee, the personal income tax withholding based on their circumstances, and the net amount payable. On top of the 12 regular payments, you need to plan for the extra bonus payments (these can be spread across the year or paid separately, depending on the agreement).

Step 5: employer social security contributions (what you pay, not the employee)

Each month you settle the contributions payable by the company (common contingencies, unemployment, the Wage Guarantee Fund, vocational training…) through the RED System (RLC/RNT filings). This is money that comes out of your account on top of the gross salary — it’s the subject of the next article in this series, because it tends to catch first-time employers by surprise.

A note on bonuses and reductions

There are reductions on employer contributions for certain groups or situations (a first permanent contract in some cases, hiring people at risk of exclusion, under-30s, etc.), but they change fairly often depending on the State Budget and specific SEPE programmes — don’t rely on any specific figure without checking the rules in force at the time you hire.

Hiring for the first time? Do it with a safety net

This is the point where it’s most worth having someone review the CCC, the right type of contract for your case, and the registration timeline with you before anyone sets foot in your business. Write to us at contacto@asesoriamadal.es and we’ll go through it together before you sign anything.

If the person helping you is a relative who lives with you, you may not need a contract: see registering as a collaborating family member.