Working time records for self-employed people in Spain

This question comes up often in small businesses: if I am self-employed, do I need to clock in? The answer depends on whether you work alone or have employees. Recording your own time as a self-employed professional is not the same as keeping working time records for people you employ.

The working time record obligation exists when there is an employment relationship with employees. That is why it is important to separate the cases before choosing a system.

If you also manage a workplace, shop or frontline team, this guide to mandatory time tracking in Spain may help.

If you work alone, you do not record your own working day

A self-employed person with no employees does not need to keep a working time record for themselves under the general time tracking obligation. They may track hours for organisation, billing or productivity, but that is not the same labour-law duty that applies to companies with staff.

This applies to a professional working alone, the owner of a small business with no hired staff or a self-employed person providing services on their own account. In those cases, there are no employees whose working time needs to be documented.

If you have employees, you need to record their time

The situation changes when you hire someone as an employee. From the first employee, even if they work part time, by the hour or on reduced hours, you need to record their start and finish times each day.

Being self-employed does not remove that obligation. In practice, you are the employer for your team and need to keep records for four years, with the information available to the employee, their representatives or the Labour Inspectorate if requested.

For a small business, the goal is not to create more administration. It is to have a simple system that shows who worked, when they started, when they finished and which incidents were corrected.

Cases with nuance: relatives, partners and collaborators

Some cases need specific review with an accountant or labour adviser: relatives helping in the business, self-employed collaborators, working partners or interns. The key point is how that relationship is classified.

If there is an employment contract, it is prudent to treat the working time as recordable. If the relationship has another classification, confirm it before deciding that the obligation does not apply.

What the record should include

At minimum, the record should show the employee, date and concrete start and finish times. In businesses with breaks, split shifts or frequent changes, it is also useful to record breaks, incidents and corrections.

When there is a physical workplace, adding the location makes review much easier. Reviewing one shop is not the same as reviewing several points of sale, a café and a warehouse.

How to do it without losing time

A self-employed person with employees usually has little room for administration. The system should be direct: clock-ins from mobile, PIN, QR or a shared tablet in the workplace; automatic hour calculation; visible incidents; exports for accounting or inspection.

Paper and Excel may seem enough at first, but they force you to chase clock-ins, add hours and reconstruct mistakes. With two or three employees, that work already starts to weigh at month end.

Signs you need to digitise

If you only review hours at month end, if clock-ins are written from memory, if corrections live in WhatsApp or if finding a specific week is difficult, the system has fallen short.

Digitising does not need to be complex. For many self-employed people with a small team, a simple app that lets employees clock in quickly and keeps history organised is enough.

How Woblip fits

Woblip lets small businesses record clock-ins from app, PIN, QR or kiosk, review incidents and export reports by dates, employees and workplaces. It also helps connect time tracking with rotas and absences when the team grows or works across several locations.

FAQ

I am self-employed with no employees. Do I need to clock in?
Not under the general working time record obligation. You may still track hours for your own organisation.

I have one part-time employee. Does it apply?
Yes. Employee working time should also be recorded when someone works part time.

Do I record my hours and my employee’s hours?
You need to record your employees’ working time. Your own working day as a self-employed person is not covered by the general obligation.

Can I use a spreadsheet?
The law does not impose one specific tool, but the system must be reliable, accessible and preserved. In small teams, a digital solution reduces missed records and manual corrections.