Guide · Prestación contributiva por desempleo (paro)
Unemployment benefit in Spain: who qualifies, for how long, and how much
You need at least 360 days of contributions in the last six years and to have lost your job involuntarily. The benefit lasts from 120 to 720 days, pays 70% of your contribution base for 180 days and 60% after, and must be claimed within 15 days.
Checked at source ·
- Minimum contributions
- 360 days in the last 6 years
- Duration
- 120 to 720 days
- Amount
- 70% for 180 days, then 60%
- Deadline to claim
- 15 days after losing the job
- Monthly maximum, no children
- €1,225 (175% of IPREM + 1/6)
- Monthly minimum, no children
- €560 (80% of IPREM + 1/6)
Source: Boletín Oficial del Estado — Real Decreto Legislativo 8/2015, texto refundido de la Ley General de la Seguridad Social (texto consolidado). Checked .
Source: Boletín Oficial del Estado — Real Decreto Legislativo 8/2015, texto refundido de la Ley General de la Seguridad Social (texto consolidado). Checked .
Source: Boletín Oficial del Estado — Real Decreto Legislativo 8/2015, texto refundido de la Ley General de la Seguridad Social (texto consolidado). Checked .
Source: Boletín Oficial del Estado — Real Decreto Legislativo 8/2015, texto refundido de la Ley General de la Seguridad Social (texto consolidado). Checked .
Source: Boletín Oficial del Estado — Ley 31/2022, de Presupuestos Generales del Estado para 2023 — IPREM (texto consolidado). Checked .
Source: Boletín Oficial del Estado — Ley 31/2022, de Presupuestos Generales del Estado para 2023 — IPREM (texto consolidado). Checked .
Who qualifies
The contributory benefit, prestación por desempleo, colloquially el paro, is paid to employees who lose their job and meet five conditions set in article 266 of the General Social Security Act. You must be affiliated to Social Security and registered, or in an equivalent situation. You must have at least 360 days of contributions for unemployment within the six years before losing your job. You must be in a legal situation of unemployment, and sign an activity agreement committing you to look for work actively and accept suitable offers. You must not have reached ordinary retirement age, unless you lack the contributions for a pension. And you must register as a job seeker with the public employment service.
Nationality is not a condition. A foreign worker who has contributed in Spain qualifies on the same terms.
What counts as losing your job involuntarily
Article 267 lists the situations. They include dismissal of any kind — disciplinary, objective or collective — the end of a fixed-term contract when it was not the worker who ended it, the death, retirement or incapacity of an individual employer, and being let go during a trial period, provided your previous job also ended in one of these ways or three months have passed since it did.
A simple resignation does not count. The exceptions are resigning for the reasons the Workers' Statute treats as justified: a transfer requiring a change of home, a substantial change in working conditions, being a victim of gender violence, and serious breaches by the employer that let the worker ask the court to end the contract.
A dismissal counts as legal unemployment on its own, without you having to challenge it, and challenging it does not delay the benefit.
Claiming, and the fifteen days
You apply to the State Public Employment Service, SEPE, and register as a job seeker at the same time. The right starts from the day after you became unemployed, provided you apply within the fifteen days that follow. Apply later and the benefit starts on the day you applied, and you lose as many days of benefit as you were late.
If you had holidays owed and not taken when the job ended, the unemployment starts after that holiday period, and the fifteen days count from its end. The holiday period must appear on the company certificate your employer sends to the SEPE.
You must stay registered as a job seeker for as long as you receive the benefit. Letting the registration lapse suspends payment.
How long it lasts
The duration depends on how many days you contributed in the six years before, not counting contributions already used for an earlier benefit. The scale in article 269 gives 120 days of benefit for 360 to 539 days contributed, and then another 60 days of benefit for every 180 days of contributions: 180 days for 540–719, 240 for 720–899, 300 for 900–1,079, 360 for 1,080–1,259, 420 for 1,260–1,439, 480 for 1,440–1,619, 540 for 1,620–1,799, 600 for 1,800–1,979, 660 for 1,980–2,159, and the maximum of 720 days — two years — from 2,160 days contributed.
Unused holiday counts as contribution time for this purpose.
How much you receive
The starting point, the base reguladora, is the average of your unemployment contribution bases over the last 180 days, leaving out overtime. You receive 70% of it for the first 180 days and 60% from day 181.
The law caps the result, in multiples of the IPREM — the public income indicator — increased by one sixth. With the monthly IPREM at €600, unchanged since the 2023 budget act, that reference is €700. The maximum is 175% of it, €1,225 a month, with no children; 200%, €1,400, with one child; 225%, €1,575, with two or more. The minimum is 80%, €560, with no children, and 107%, €749, with children. Part-time workers have the limits reduced in proportion to their hours.
While you receive the benefit, the SEPE pays your Social Security contributions, so the time counts towards your pension.
If you hold a residence and work permit
Losing a job affects a work permit in its own way, set out under renewal on each permit's page. Read that before assuming the benefit settles the question: the benefit is a Social Security matter, and the permit is an immigration one.
Common questions
How many days do I need to work to get unemployment benefit in Spain?
At least 360 days of contributions for unemployment within the six years before losing your job, and you must have lost it involuntarily.
Can I get unemployment benefit if I resign?
Not after an ordinary resignation. Only if you resign for one of the reasons the Workers' Statute recognises, such as a transfer that forces you to move, a substantial change in your conditions, serious breaches by the employer, or being a victim of gender violence.
What happens if I apply late?
You still get the benefit, but from the date you applied, and you lose one day of benefit for each day you were late beyond the fifteen days.
How much is the maximum unemployment benefit?
With the IPREM at €600 a month, €1,225 a month with no children, €1,400 with one child and €1,575 with two or more.
The procedures this leads to
- Employed work and residence permit in Spain (cuenta ajena)
The permit for coming to Spain to work for an employer. The employer applies, the first permit is capped at a year and tied to one occupation, and the renewal is four years with no restrictions at all.
- Changing from one Spanish permit to another (modificación de situación)
How to move from a student stay, or from a residence permit that does not allow work, to a work permit — without a visa, without leaving Spain, and without the labour-market test.
- Long-term residence in Spain (residencia de larga duración)
Indefinite residence and work in Spain on the same terms as a Spaniard, after five years of legal continuous residence — with precise limits on how much time abroad breaks the count, and seven routes that skip the five years entirely.
Sources
Every fact on this page comes from one of these. We do not cite other guides, because a copy gives us no way to notice when the original changes.
- Real Decreto Legislativo 8/2015, texto refundido de la Ley General de la Seguridad Social (texto consolidado)Boletín Oficial del Estado
- Ley 31/2022, de Presupuestos Generales del Estado para 2023 — IPREM (texto consolidado)Boletín Oficial del Estado
This is information, not advice
Your own case depends on your nationality, your status and your history with the administration — none of which a web page can see. Confirm anything that matters with the responsible authority or a qualified professional before you act on it.