Dismissal in Spain in 2026: types, compensation, the prior hearing and the twenty days

A receptionist at a hotel in Costa Adeje, hired on 1 March 2019 at 1,800 € gross a month with the two extra payments prorated, is called into the office on a Friday afternoon in October 2026 and handed a letter: she is dismissed for poor performance, with effect from 31 October. She is told to sign, empty her locker and collect her things. Her employer, a family company with forty rooms, believes the letter settles the matter. Both are about to learn the same four things: that Spanish law knows several kinds of dismissal and the letter has to say which one it is; that since November 2024 a disciplinary dismissal needs a hearing before the letter, not after it; that the money is an arithmetic the statute fixes and the courts have refused to enlarge; and that the clock for challenging the letter runs twenty working days from the dismissal, through a conciliation service and then a social court. This article sets out the rules as they stand on 21 October 2026, from the Estatuto de los Trabajadores, the Ley reguladora de la jurisdicción social, the Supreme Court's rulings of 2024 and 2025 and the one decree of 2026 that touches dismissal, for employers and employees alike.

Four ways a contract ends, and three of them are called dismissal

Article 49 of the Estatuto lists the ways a contract of employment ends: by mutual agreement, by expiry of a fixed term, by the worker's resignation, by death or retirement on either side, by force majeure, and by the three decisions of the employer that the law calls dismissal. The expiry of a fixed-term contract is not a dismissal, but it carries its own compensation: except in training contracts and substitution contracts, the worker receives doce días de salario por cada año de servicio, twelve days per year, and a fixed-term contract of more than a year needs fifteen days' notice from whoever ends it. Resignation needs the notice the collective agreement sets. And the worker can end the contract on the employer's breach under article 50: a substantial change of conditions imposed outside the statutory procedure and harming the worker's dignity, La falta de pago o retrasos continuados en el abono del salario pactado, which the article measures as tres mensualidades completas de salario, aún no consecutivas, o cuando concurra retraso en el pago del salario durante seis meses, aún no consecutivos, or any other serious breach. In those cases el trabajador tendrá derecho a las indemnizaciones señaladas para el despido improcedente, the compensation of an unfair dismissal, but the worker has to ask a court for it; walking out first is a resignation.

The three dismissals are the disciplinary one, the objective one and the collective one. Disciplinary dismissal, article 54, rests on incumplimiento grave y culpable del trabajador, a serious and culpable breach, and the article lists what counts: Las faltas repetidas e injustificadas de asistencia o puntualidad al trabajo, indiscipline or disobedience, verbal or physical offences, La transgresión de la buena fe contractual, así como el abuso de confianza en el desempeño del trabajo, La disminución continuada y voluntaria en el rendimiento de trabajo normal o pactado, habitual drunkenness or drug use affecting the work, and harassment. The receptionist's letter says poor performance; to be a disciplinary dismissal that performance has to be a continued and voluntary drop, not a bad season. Objective dismissal, article 52, is the employer's decision for reasons that are not the worker's fault: ineptitud del trabajador conocida o sobrevenida con posterioridad a su colocación efectiva en la empresa, failure to adapt to reasonable technical changes after a training course and two months, and the economic, technical, organisational or production causes of article 51.1 Cuando concurra alguna de las causas previstas en el artículo 51.1 y la extinción afecte a un número inferior al establecido en el mismo, that is, below the collective thresholds. Collective dismissal is the same causes above those thresholds, with a consultation period and the representatives' involvement that article 51 regulates; it is a procedure of its own and this article only names it. The old letter d), absence for illness, was repealed in 2020 and cannot be used.

The letter: what it must say and what it must carry

A disciplinary dismissal has one formal rule in the Estatuto and it is strict. Article 55.1: El despido deberá ser notificado por escrito al trabajador, haciendo figurar los hechos que lo motivan y la fecha en que tendrá efectos. The facts, not the label: a letter that says «bajo rendimiento» and nothing else does not describe facts, and article 105.2 of the Ley reguladora de la jurisdicción social makes the omission permanent, because at the hearing the employer no se le admitirán en el juicio otros motivos de oposición a la demanda que los contenidos en la comunicación escrita de dicho despido. The letter is the whole case. Collective agreements may add formal requirements, a workers' representative or union delegate needs a contradictory file, and if the worker belongs to a union and the employer knows it, the employer deberá dar audiencia previa a los delegados sindicales de la sección sindical correspondiente a dicho sindicato. An employer who gets the form wrong has one chance to repeat it: a new dismissal that cures the defect, which solo cabrá efectuarlo en el plazo de veinte días, a contar desde el siguiente al del primer despido, paying the wages in between and keeping the worker registered with Social Security.

An objective dismissal carries more. Article 53.1 asks for a written notice stating the cause, and, handed over at the same moment, la indemnización de veinte días por año de servicio, prorrateándose por meses los periodos de tiempo inferiores a un año y con un máximo de doce mensualidades; an employer dismissing on economic grounds who cannot pay may say so in the letter and owe it when the dismissal takes effect. It also asks for Concesión de un plazo de preaviso de quince días, fifteen days' notice, during which the worker has una licencia de seis horas semanales con el fin de buscar nuevo empleo. Two mistakes are forgiven: la no concesión del preaviso o el error excusable en el cálculo de la indemnización no determinará la improcedencia del despido, the employer simply pays the missing days or the missing euros. A wrong cause is not forgiven. Whatever the kind, article 49.2 adds the settlement: with the notice the employer deberá acompañar una propuesta del documento de liquidación de las cantidades adeudadas, the finiquito, which the worker may sign with a representative present and may sign as received without agreeing to it. The written statement of conditions every employee must hold since 5 October 2026 under Royal Decree 723/2026, explained in our article on transparent working conditions, is the document the letter will be read against: the duties, the hours and the pay it states are the ones the dismissal has to match.

The prior hearing: what changed in November 2024

Until 2024 the Estatuto was read as the whole of the form, and a worker who was not a representative or a union member had no right to be heard before being dismissed. On 18 November 2024 the Supreme Court's plenary ruling 1250/2024 changed that. Spain ratified Convention 158 of the International Labour Organization in 1985, and its article 7 says, in the Court's transcription, No deberá darse por terminada la relación de trabajo de un trabajador por motivos relacionados con su conducta o su rendimiento antes de que se le haya ofrecido la posibilidad de defenderse de los cargos formulados contra él, unless the employer cannot reasonably be asked to give that chance. The Court held that the provision needs no implementing law, procede su aplicación directa al ser una disposición que debe calificarse de completa o aplicable en forma automática, that for a disciplinary dismissal es exigible la audiencia previa del trabajador, and that nothing elaborate is required: baste con que se le dé oportunidad al trabajador de ser oído. It then applied the Convention's own exception to the past, because the employer could not have known: the reading is sin duda válida para los despidos acaecidos antes de que se publique la presente sentencia. Two rulings of 2025 fixed the edges. Ruling 512/2025 of 28 May 2025 confirmed that omissions before the change no pueden ser calificados de improcedentes, ni mucho menos de nulos, como consecuencia o efecto de la omisión de la audiencia previa. Ruling 540/2025 of 4 June 2025 held that where the collective agreement itself requires the hearing, the date does not help the employer: Cuando es el propio convenio colectivo que rige la relación laboral el que impone la audiencia previa, no hay causa que justifique su incumplimiento por parte de la empresa.

What this means on the ground in 2026 is simple to state and often skipped. Before a disciplinary letter, the employer writes down the facts it holds against the worker, hands them over, and gives a short, reasonable time to answer, in writing or at a meeting, with the worker free to bring a representative; then it decides, and the letter records that the worker was heard and what was answered. The Convention asks for the chance to defend oneself, not for a procedure, so three working days and a written answer satisfy it in an ordinary case; a collective agreement may fix its own form and days, and then that form governs. The hearing applies to dismissals for conduct or performance, which is what the Estatuto calls disciplinary; an objective dismissal for economic causes is not about the worker's conduct and the ruling does not reach it. The statute has not been amended to write the hearing in, so an employer reading article 55 alone will miss it, and a letter without it after 18 November 2024 is a letter the worker can attack on form. The receptionist was handed her letter without a word beforehand; her employer's first problem is not the performance, it is the missing afternoon in which she could have answered.

Fair, unfair or void: the three verdicts

Every dismissal that reaches a judge ends in one of three words. Procedente, fair: article 55.4 reserves it for the case where the breach alleged in the letter is proved, and a fair disciplinary dismissal ends the contract sin derecho a indemnización ni a salarios de tramitación; a fair objective dismissal leaves the worker with the twenty days already received. Improcedente, unfair: the same article says the dismissal Será improcedente en caso contrario o cuando en su forma no se ajustara a lo establecido en el apartado 1, the breach not proved or the form not kept, and an objective dismissal whose cause is not proved is unfair in the same way. Nulo, void: Será nulo el despido que tenga por móvil alguna de las causas de discriminación prohibidas en la Constitución Española o en la ley, o bien se produzca con violación de derechos fundamentales y libertades públicas de la persona trabajadora, and also, unless the employer proves a fair cause unrelated to them, the dismissal of a pregnant worker, of a worker on or returning from birth, adoption or parental leave within twelve months, of a worker who asked for the reduced hours or adaptations of articles 34.8 and 37, and of a victim of gender or sexual violence exercising her rights. A void dismissal has one consequence, la readmisión inmediata del trabajador, con abono de los salarios dejados de percibir, and article 113 of the procedural law makes that readmission provisionally enforceable even if the employer appeals.

An unfair dismissal gives the employer a choice. Within five days of the judgment, en el plazo de cinco días desde la notificación de la sentencia, it opts between taking the worker back or paying the compensation; if it says nothing, se entiende que procede la primera, readmission. Back wages, the salarios de tramitación, exist only with readmission: they run desde la fecha de despido hasta la notificación de la sentencia que declarase la improcedencia, less what the worker earned elsewhere, and if the judgment takes more than ninety working days from the claim the State refunds the excess. If the dismissed worker is a representative or union delegate the choice is the worker's, and back wages follow either way. The option can be anticipated at the hearing, and where readmission is impossible the judge may declare the contract ended in the judgment itself with the compensation computed to its date. An employer whose dismissal was unfair only for a defect of form and who opts for readmission may dismiss again within seven days, podrá efectuarse un nuevo despido dentro del plazo de siete días desde la notificación de la sentencia, a new dismissal with its own date and its own letter, and its own hearing.

The arithmetic: thirty-three days, twenty days, forty-five days

The compensation for an unfair dismissal is treinta y tres días de salario por año de servicio, prorrateándose por meses los periodos de tiempo inferiores a un año, hasta un máximo de veinticuatro mensualidades: thirty-three days per year of service, months counted pro rata, capped at twenty-four months' pay. For contracts signed before 12 February 2012 the eleventh transitional provision keeps the old rate for the old years, cuarenta y cinco días de salario por año de servicio por el tiempo de prestación de servicios anterior a dicha fecha, forty-five days for the service before that date and thirty-three after it, with an overall ceiling of setecientos veinte días de salario, seven hundred and twenty days, unless the pre-2012 service alone exceeds it, and never more than forty-two months. The compensation for an objective dismissal is twenty days per year with a cap of twelve months, paid with the letter; the compensation for the end of a fixed-term contract is twelve days per year. The salary that multiplies is the daily salary at dismissal, with the extra payments prorated and the benefits in kind valued, which is why the figure on the payslip and the figure in the letter rarely coincide.

The receptionist's numbers: 1,800 € a month is 21,600 € a year, which is 59.18 € a day. From 1 March 2019 to 31 October 2026 she has seven years and eight months of service. If the dismissal is unfair, thirty-three days for seven years is 231 days and eight months add 22, so 253 days, which is 14,972 € at her daily rate. If her employer had chosen an objective dismissal and proved its cause, twenty days per year would have given 153 days, 9,074 €, handed over with the letter. If the dismissal is fair, nothing. The twenty-four-month cap is 43,200 € and is far away; it bites after about twenty-six years of service at the same rate.

Can a judge add to those figures? Since 2024 the question has been asked under the Convention and under article 24 of the revised European Social Charter, and the Supreme Court has answered it three times. The plenary ruling 1350/2024 of 19 December 2024 restored a statutory compensation of 941.78 € that a regional court had raised, reading article 10 of the Convention as leaving the design to the State: son las legislaciones internas la que pueden determinar la indemnización adecuada. The plenary ruling 736/2025 of 16 July 2025 did the same with article 24 of the Charter, in the case of a worker with a seven-month contract and 1,506.78 € of statutory compensation who had been awarded 5,410.36 € more as lost earnings: the Charter es un mandato al legislador, ordinario o convencional, no al juzgador, the European Committee of Social Rights' decision 207/2022 and the Committee of Ministers' recommendation of 27 November 2024 to Spain, which asks that compensation sea disuasoria y desincentivadora para el empleador, are addressed to the State, and las decisiones del CEDS no son directamente aplicables ya que carecen de eficacia ejecutiva. The Court noted the second decision, 218/2022 on the trade union CCOO's complaint, published on 27 June 2025, and held its answer unchanged. Ruling 1131/2025 of 26 November 2025 applied the doctrine and set aside an additional 46,728.24 €. The statutory figures therefore stand, and on 21 October 2026 the Estatuto has not been amended on this point; a worker promised «much more than the thirty-three days» by a general reading of the Charter should ask who will pay it. The exceptions are the ones the statute always had: a void dismissal for breach of a fundamental right carries damages, and a collective agreement may improve the figures.

The twenty days: the conciliation service and the social court

Article 59.3 of the Estatuto sets the term: the action against a dismissal caducará a los veinte días siguientes de aquel en que se hubiera producido. Los días serán hábiles y el plazo de caducidad a todos los efectos. Twenty working days, and article 103.1 of the procedural law says which days count: no se computarán los sábados, domingos y los festivos en la sede del órgano jurisdiccional. It is a term of caducidad, which a court applies of its own motion; a claim on the twenty-first working day is lost whatever its merits, and a worker who negotiates by e-mail for a month has negotiated the claim away. The clock is stopped by one act: the request for conciliation before the public mediation, arbitration and conciliation service, the SMAC in the Canary Islands, which article 63 of the procedural law makes a prerequisite of the claim and article 65 turns into a pause: the term resumes reiniciándose o reanudándose respectivamente el cómputo de los plazos al día siguiente de intentada la conciliación o mediación o transcurridos quince días hábiles desde su presentación sin que se haya celebrado, and after thirty working days without a hearing the step counts as done. The labour route is its own: the civil requirement of an attempt at amicable settlement explained in our article on suing in Spain excludes labour matters outright, and the papeleta before the SMAC is the labour equivalent.

Attendance is compulsory, La asistencia al acto de conciliación o de mediación es obligatoria para los litigantes: a claimant who does not appear is treated as not having filed, and a respondent who does not appear without cause pays the other side's costs up to 600 € if the judgment later matches the papeleta. Most dismissals end at that table, with the employer recognising the dismissal as unfair and paying the thirty-three days, which is why the numbers have to be right before the hearing and not after it. If there is no agreement, the claim goes to the social court within what remains of the twenty days, with the contents article 104 requires: the service periods, the category, the salary and how it is paid, the date and form of the dismissal, the facts the employer alleged and the letter itself, and whether the worker is a representative or a union member. At the trial the employer speaks first and carries the burden of proving the letter's facts; in the Canary Islands the social courts for the two islands sit in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Arona and Puerto del Rosario. The judgment qualifies the dismissal and, if unfair, the five-day option follows.

The 2026 rule: who may not dismiss until December

One decree of 2026 touches dismissal and its title promises more than its text. Royal Decree-Law 25/2026 of 29 September, in force since 1 October 2026, extends the Government's measures for the crisis in the Middle East, and its article 36, headed «Prohibición del despido», says that the companies receiving the decree's direct aid no podrán despedir por causa de fuerza mayor y por causas económicas, técnicas, organizativas y de producción derivadas de la situación a la que se pretende hacer frente, hasta el 31 de diciembre de 2026; a breach brings el reintegro de la ayuda recibida y la calificación del despido como nulo. The direct aid in question is the one the decree itself creates or extends: the diesel aid to farmers and to road hauliers, the aid to fishing vessel owners, to railway companies and to regular maritime transport. The preamble states the purpose, evitando el despido de personas trabajadoras de las empresas que hagan uso de las ayudas directas previstas en la norma. Three limits follow from the text. It binds only a company that takes the aid; it covers only force majeure and economic, technical, organisational or production causes that derive from the crisis the decree addresses, so a disciplinary dismissal, an objective dismissal for ineptitude or an economic dismissal with another origin stays outside it; and it runs to 31 December 2026 unless extended again. For a hauliers' company in Fuerteventura that claimed the professional diesel aid, an economic dismissal before the year's end is void and costs the aid; for the hotel in Costa Adeje, which claimed nothing, the decree changes nothing. The decree also protects the activity periods of fijos-discontinuos and the jobs in cooperatives on the same causes and to the same date.

Ten things to settle before the letter, or after receiving it

• The kind. Decide, and say in the letter, whether this is a disciplinary dismissal for a culpable breach or an objective dismissal for a cause that is not the worker's fault; the form, the compensation and the hearing differ, and a letter that mixes them is attacked on both fronts.
• The hearing. For a disciplinary dismissal, hand over the facts and give a reasonable time to answer before deciding; keep the written charge, the answer and the dates in the file. An employee who was never heard should say so in the papeleta.
• The facts. Write the facts, with dates, not the label: the days absent, the orders refused, the figures of the fall in performance. Article 105 locks the employer into the letter; the trial will not hear a reason the letter did not state.
• The numbers. Compute the daily salary with the extra payments prorated and the benefits in kind, the service in years and months, and the three figures: twenty days, thirty-three days and, for contracts before 12 February 2012, the forty-five-day tranche. Both sides should run them before the SMAC.
• The objective letter. Hand over the twenty days with the letter, give fifteen days' notice or pay them, and state the cause; a missing notice is cured with money, a missing cause is not.
• The signature. The employee signs to acknowledge receipt, writing «no conforme» beside the signature, and keeps a copy of the letter and of the finiquito proposal; signing the finiquito as a settlement and in agreement may close the claim.
• The date. Count twenty working days from the dismissal's effective date, excluding Saturdays, Sundays and the holidays at the court's seat, and file the papeleta before the count ends; the papeleta stops the clock, an e-mail does not.
• The protected cases. Pregnancy, birth and parental leave, reduced hours and adaptations, gender or sexual violence: a dismissal in those situations is void unless the employer proves an unrelated fair cause, and the burden is the employer's.
• The aid. A company that took the 2026 direct aid for diesel, fishing, rail or maritime transport may not dismiss on economic or force-majeure grounds linked to the crisis until 31 December 2026; check the aid before the letter.
• The probation. A dismissal during a valid probation period is a free withdrawal, not a dismissal; a probation period beyond the agreement's limit or not in writing is no probation at all, as our article on the first employee explains.

The dismissal at a glance

What our team does

The firm's employment practice advises employers and employees in Tenerife and Fuerteventura, hospitality above all, on both sides of the same letter: for an employer, the choice between the disciplinary and the objective route, the hearing before the letter, the letter itself with the facts and the numbers, the finiquito and the position at the SMAC; for an employee, the reading of the letter and the payslips, the daily salary and the three figures, the papeleta within the twenty working days, the conciliation and the claim before the social courts of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Arona and Puerto del Rosario, and the appeal when a judgment deserves one. The team works in Spanish, English, German, Russian and Italian in-house, and agrees the fee before any work begins. If you have been handed a letter, or are about to hand one over, write to us with the letter, the contract and the last three payslips, and we will tell you which kind of dismissal it is, what it is worth and what the calendar allows.

Common questions

Can my employer dismiss me for poor performance without hearing me first?

Not since 18 November 2024 for a disciplinary dismissal. The Supreme Court's plenary ruling 1250/2024 applies article 7 of ILO Convention 158 directly: before a dismissal for conduct or performance the worker must be given the chance to defend himself against the charges, and a short written exchange is enough. A letter handed over without that chance can be challenged on form; dismissals before that date are covered by the Court's own exception, and where the collective agreement already required a hearing there was never an exception.

How much is my dismissal worth?

If it is unfair, thirty-three days of salary per year of service, months pro rata, capped at twenty-four months' pay, with forty-five days per year for service before 12 February 2012 and a ceiling of seven hundred and twenty days; if it is a fair objective dismissal, the twenty days per year capped at twelve months that came with the letter; if it is a fair disciplinary dismissal, nothing; if it is void, readmission with back wages. The salary is the daily salary at dismissal with the extra payments prorated. A receptionist on 21,600 € a year with seven years and eight months of service is owed 14,972 € for an unfair dismissal.

Can a judge award more than the thirty-three days?

Not under the Convention or the European Social Charter: the Supreme Court's plenary rulings 1350/2024 and 736/2025, and ruling 1131/2025 after them, hold that article 10 of the Convention and article 24 of the Charter are addressed to the legislator, that the European Committee of Social Rights' decisions are not directly applicable, and that the statutory figure is the compensation. Damages are added only where the dismissal is void for breach of a fundamental right, and a collective agreement may improve the figures. On 21 October 2026 the Estatuto has not been amended on this point.

Do I have to sign the letter?

You sign to acknowledge receipt, which is in your interest because it fixes the date, and you write «no conforme» beside the signature; refusing to sign changes nothing, since the employer will prove the delivery otherwise. Keep the letter and the finiquito proposal. What you should not sign without advice is a finiquito or settlement in which you declare yourself paid and with nothing further to claim, because that document can close the dismissal claim.

My company received the 2026 diesel aid. Can we dismiss a driver?

For a disciplinary cause, or for an objective cause unrelated to the crisis, yes, with the ordinary rules. For force majeure or for economic, technical, organisational or production causes that derive from the crisis the decree addresses, no: article 36 of Royal Decree-Law 25/2026 forbids it to the beneficiaries of the direct aid until 31 December 2026, and a dismissal made anyway is void and the aid must be repaid. The same applies to the activity periods of fijos-discontinuos.

General information on the law as it stands in October 2026 (Estatuto de los Trabajadores, articles 49, 50, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56 and 59 and the eleventh transitional provision; Ley 36/2011 reguladora de la jurisdicción social, articles 63 to 66 and 103 to 113; Real Decreto-ley 25/2026, article 36; ILO Convention 158, articles 7 and 10; Supreme Court rulings 1250/2024, 1350/2024, 512/2025, 540/2025, 736/2025 and 1131/2025). It is not legal advice; every dismissal turns on its letter, its dates and its salary, and the collective agreement may add rules of its own.