New employment rules for workers with care responsibilities

At a glance

• Employees caring for children with severe disabilities or high dependency needs may continue to work reduced working hours beyond the existing age limits, and both parents may share the reduction simultaneously.
• Employers must now consider workplace adaptations not only for employees with disabilities, but also for certain family caregivers.
• Roles involving regular contact with people with disabilities or dependency needs require enhanced background checks, and certain criminal records may prevent or terminate employment.

Spain’s Law 4/2026, which amends the General Disability Law and legislation on dependency and personal autonomy, introduces several important employment law changes affecting carers, employers, and organisations working with people with disabilities or dependency needs. The law was published on 3 October 2026 and will enter into force 20 days later.

One of the most significant changes concerns the right to reduce working hours for caregiving purposes. Employees caring for a child with a severe disability or high dependency needs may continue benefiting from a working-time reduction beyond the usual age limits, provided the need for care and cohabitation continue. In these cases, both parents may share the reduction simultaneously, provided the combined reduction does not exceed 100% of normal working hours. Attendance at school can no longer be used as a reason to deny, suspend, or terminate the related financial benefit.

The law also revises the rules on reduced working hours for employees caring for children with cancer or another serious illness. References to salary reductions and age limits have been removed. In addition, the entitlement to reduce working hours to care for relatives has been broadened, focusing on the need to provide direct care to a relative up to the second degree of kinship who cannot care for themselves and is not engaged in paid work.

Employers’ obligations to provide workplace accommodations and accessibility measures have also been expanded. These duties now extend not only to employees with disabilities but also to spouses, partners, and close relatives acting as caregivers, unless the measures would impose a disproportionate burden on the employer.

Finally, the law introduces stricter safeguarding requirements. Employees working in positions involving regular contact with people with disabilities or dependency needs must provide clean certificates from specific criminal-record registers. Individuals with relevant records cannot be employed in these roles, and newly arising entries may lead to termination unless reassignment is possible. The law also reformulates the legal framework governing special employment centres, now referred to as companies for the labour inclusion of people with disabilities.