Each collective agreement has its own working hours. Each department has its own schedule. And every new hire comes with a different set of circumstances: part-time, split shifts, rotating shifts… If you manage people, you know that “working hours” never means just one thing. It means several, depending on how you count.
This guide helps you identify each type of working hours, understand what current regulations require, and decide what makes sense for your company—without getting lost in the Workers’ Statute.
What are working hours?
Working hours are the agreed effective working time for an employee, whether measured in daily, weekly, monthly hours, or on an annual basis. In Spain, the Workers’ Statute sets a maximum duration of 40 hours of effective work per week on average, calculated annually, although the collective agreement or contract may set shorter working hours.
That is why full-time does not necessarily mean working exactly 40 hours every week, nor always working Monday to Friday in 8-hour blocks. What matters is checking what the collective agreement states, how working hours are distributed, and how actual time worked is recorded.
That maximum is the framework. Within it, there are different ways to organise time: by duration, by how hours are distributed throughout the day, and by when work is performed. That is where the types of working hours you will find in any collective agreement or contract come from.
If you need to run specific numbers, this guide on calculating working hours explains how to do it daily, weekly, and annually.
Types of working hours that exist in Spain
Full-time
This is the working hours arrangement that reaches the full standard duration applicable in the company, according to the collective agreement, contract, or work calendar.
It may match the 40-hour weekly average on an annual basis, if that is the applicable framework, but it may also be lower if the collective agreement sets it that way. In addition, it does not have to be Monday to Friday or in 8-hour days: it can be organised in shifts, from Monday to Saturday, or with an uneven distribution of hours, as long as legal rest periods and limits are respected.
Part-time
This applies when the employee works fewer hours than a comparable full-time employee in the same company or, if there is no such reference, fewer than the full-time working hours set in the collective agreement or the legal maximum.
It can be agreed in hours per day, week, month, or year, and its distribution must be reflected in the contract. In these cases, it is especially important to record working hours correctly and distinguish between ordinary hours and additional hours.
Split shift
It is a full-time working day split into two blocks, with a break of at least one hour in between, usually for lunch. It is common in retail and hospitality, and one of the arrangements that raises the most questions when clocking in.
Continuous or intensive working day
Work is done without interruption, with a short break of 15 to 30 minutes. Many companies adopt it in summer or on Fridays, and it is the option many employees prefer when they can choose. These breaks have their own regulations: we explain how they work and how to apply them correctly in this guide.
Shift work or rotating shifts
The team is organised into morning, afternoon, and night shifts that rotate among employees. It is most common in manufacturing, logistics, and healthcare, and it is also the one that creates the most friction when the rota is managed in a sheet shared via WhatsApp.
Irregular working hours
It allows you to distribute unevenly a percentage of annual hours (up to 10%, unless the collective agreement says otherwise) to cover peaks in activity without resorting to overtime. And if you still need it, it is worth being clear about the limit on maximum overtime hours before applying them.
Night work and work on public holidays
Night work covers the period between 22:00 and 6:00, with specific pay and rest conditions. Work on public holidays and weekends is usually regulated through specific contracts, very common in retail and leisure. To plan ahead, this 2026 work calendar with public holidays and long weekends will be useful.
What about 37.5 hours? What the law says in 2026
There is quite a lot of noise around this, so let’s stick to the facts: in July 2026, the maximum legal working week in Spain is still 40 hours. The proposal to reduce it to 37.5 hours with no pay cut was approved by the Council of Ministers in May 2025, but Congress halted its processing in September of that same year after a motion for a full rejection. As of today, there is no scheduled date for it to be debated again.
What does seem to be moving forward is the time tracking reform, which the Ministry of Labour wants to make digital, accessible, and interoperable, still pending approval by the Council of Ministers. In parallel, some sector collective agreements are already agreeing working-time reductions on their own, without waiting for the law.
If your company is governed by a collective agreement with reduced working hours, that agreement prevails over the general legal limit. It is worth reviewing it before accepting any figure that is circulating out there.
How to choose the type of working hours that suits your company
There is no “best” working hours arrangement. There is one that fits your activity. Before deciding, it is worth looking at three things:
- Your collective agreement. It sets limits and, sometimes, mandatory working hours arrangements that you cannot override by internal decision.
- Your actual operations. A production team cannot run on a continuous working day if the plant is open 24 hours. A sales team may need flexible working hours more than a specific working hours arrangement.
- What your workforce is asking for. Intensive working hours and flexible working hours appear, year after year, among what employees value most. Taking it into account helps retain talent. If you are considering taking that step, this guide on flexible working hours will help you understand the requirements and how to apply it without stepping outside the law.
The working hours arrangement you choose also affects how you will record it, how you will pay overtime or night hours, and how you will justify it in an inspection. That is why, more than the working hours themselves, what really makes the difference is how you manage them afterwards.
Managing multiple working hours arrangements without losing track
In practice, almost no company has just one type of working hours. Rotating shifts on the shop floor, split shifts in the office, part-time in some departments. Each with its collective agreement, its way of clocking in, and its way of calculating overtime.
That is where Woffu comes in. We adapt the tool to each work schedule policy, no matter how complex, and leave it running on its own: clocking in from the app, web, QR, biometrics, WhatsApp, or Slack, with over 99% real adoption across teams. Hours are calculated automatically, collective agreements are respected, and the HR team stops chasing timesheets in spreadsheets.
Many companies that work with Woffu already manage different working-time scenarios, collective agreements, shifts, absences, and calendars from a single environment. In cases such as Orbea, the digitisation of time tracking has made it possible to move from fragmented management to a much clearer view of how time is distributed across each team.
On average, companies that work with Woffu save 11,036 hours a year that used to be spent managing all of this manually. That time can go back where it should be: to people, not paperwork.
If you want to see how your own work schedule policy would fit in Woffu, you can request a demo and review it with your real data, not with a generic demo.
