Spain arraigo sociolaboral: the contract the employer has to sign

Arraigo sociolaboral sits in the Immigration Regulation approved by Royal Decree 1155/2024 of 19 November (BOE-A-2024-24099), in force since 20 May 2025. The employer signs a contract of at least 20 hours a week and 90 days, paid at the statutory minimum wage or the applicable collective agreement, carrying a clause that makes it effective only once the permit is granted.

The hours and the duration the regulation accepts

The most common misreading at the Oficinas de Extranjería is that arraigo sociolaboral requires a full time job. It has not since RD 1155/2024. The contract can run at 40 hours a week, at 30, or at 20, and the immigration firms working this procedure have applied the reading through 2026 that several contracts with different companies add up towards the 20 hour floor. A worker holding two contracts of 12 hours each meets the hours test even though neither employer reaches the threshold alone.

Duration is the second limit. The contract has to cover a minimum of 90 days, and that is the figure the Oficina de Extranjería reads in the term clause, not the commercial intention behind the hire. The accepted forms are the open ended contract, the permanent seasonal contract known as fijo discontinuo, the production circumstances contract and the substitution contract. A fijo discontinuo whose scheduled call ups fall short of 90 days is the file that comes back most often, because the form fits and the calendar does not.

Pay closes the triangle. RD 1155/2024 requires the salary to reach the statutory minimum wage, set at 1,184 euros gross a month in 2025, or the higher figure set by the collective agreement covering the post. On part time hours the threshold applies in proportion, so a 20 hour weekly contract is measured against half the monthly reference. Where the sector agreement places the job grade above the minimum wage, the agreement governs and the minimum wage stops being the relevant number.

The conditional effectiveness clause, and the company's own file

The arraigo contract is signed before any residence permit exists, so the regulation requires a conditional effectiveness clause: the contract takes effect only when the Oficina de Extranjería grants the authorisation. Without it the company is bound to an employment relationship it cannot yet register with social security, and the file is sent back for correction. It is one line of text, and it is the cheapest correction notice in this procedure.

The second thing the administration reads is the company, not the worker. The employer has to show it is current with the tax agency, the Agencia Estatal de Administración Tributaria, and with the social security treasury, the Tesorería General de la Seguridad Social, and that it has the means to carry the contract for its term. In practice that means the last corporate or personal income tax return, an average headcount report, and the employment history of the social security contribution account. A newly incorporated company with no declared activity draws the most refusals, however well the contract itself is drafted.

How it lands on the calendar and on the cost

Arraigo sociolaboral is applied for by the worker at the Oficina de Extranjería of the province, with the company's contract inside the file. The fee is the one on form 790 code 052, the temporary residence permit for exceptional circumstances, and the Ministerio de Inclusión publishes the amount in the fee order in force. The real cost of the procedure is time: the decision period is three months from the day the file enters the register of the competent body, and a correction notice restarts the wait from the day the missing document is filed.

For the employer the calendar consequence is concrete. Registration with social security cannot be done until the permit is granted and in the worker's hands, so the start date is planned backwards from the decision, never from the signature on the contract. The comparison with the ordinary route sits in the employer procedure for a Spanish work and residence permit, and the fees on each route in the cost of hiring a foreign worker in Spain.

Registering the person before the grant buys nothing and exposes the company to the penalty regime described in labour inspection of foreign workers in Spain.

Arraigo sociolaboral is the worker's procedure, and the company supplies the piece that decides it. A contract of 20 hours, 90 days, agreement level pay and a conditional clause goes through; the same facts without that clause come back to the desk three weeks later.