20 hours of paid training leave: who is entitled and how to manage it

Many employees don't know it, but they are entitled to 20 hours of paid training leave every year. It isn't a perk that depends on the employer's goodwill: it's a right set out in article 23.3 of the Spanish Workers' Statute for anyone with at least one year of service at the company.

What's more, those hours are not lost if they go unused: they can be accumulated over a period of up to five years, which means an employee can build up to a maximum of 100 hours of paid training. For companies, that means keeping careful track of the hours used and the hours still pending, year after year.

What article 23.3 of the Workers' Statute actually says

Article 23.3 of the Workers' Statute grants employees with one year or more of service the right to twenty hours of paid leave per year for vocational training linked to the company's activity, accumulable over a period of up to five years. The leave is paid: the company must remunerate those hours as if they were effective working time.

It's important to understand the real scope of the right. It is not a pot of free hours to spend on any course whatsoever, nor is it an obligation for the company to build a training plan: it's a leave entitlement the employee can request in order to attend training related to the business.

Which training qualifies and which doesn't

The key requirement is that the training be linked to the company's activity. That is broader than it sounds: it doesn't have to match the employee's exact role or professional group, but it does need a connection with the sector or the business activity.

How to tell whether training fits the leave entitlement

• It must be linked to the company's activity, even if it doesn't match the specific duties of the role.
• It doesn't cover purely personal interests unrelated to the sector: a marketing specialist, for example, couldn't use these hours to prepare for public-sector exams unrelated to the business.
• Mandatory training that the law imposes on the employer — such as occupational risk prevention — is not deducted from these 20 hours.
• If the company already provides equivalent training through internal plans or the collective agreement, the right is considered covered.

It's a leave entitlement, not a duty to provide training

This is the point that causes the most confusion, and one the Spanish Supreme Court clarified in a ruling dated 20 November 2019, in a case originating in the private security sector.

The 20 annual hours are the worker's right to paid leave, not an employer duty to organise and finance courses.

In practice: the company must grant and pay for the hours so the employee can train, but it is not required to design a course catalogue or cover enrolment fees. That distinction matters both when answering requests and when drafting an internal training policy.

How it's requested and who decides when it's taken

Employees cannot unilaterally decide which days they take off to train. If the collective agreement doesn't set specific conditions, it is up to the company and the employee to agree on when the training takes place, how the hours are distributed and which course is chosen.

Best practices for handling requests

• Check the applicable collective agreement first: it may set deadlines, procedures or improvements on the legal minimum.
• Ask for requests in writing, stating the course, the dates and the number of hours expected.
• Agree the schedule with peak workload periods and the minimum cover for each shift in mind.
• Keep a record of the hours granted and those still pending within the five-year cycle.
• Communicate the criteria to the whole workforce to avoid perceived unfairness.

The real challenge: balancing training, working time and shifts

Granting the leave is simple on paper. The hard part is fitting it into daily operations: you need to know how many hours each person has left, reflect those hours correctly in the recorded working day — because they are paid time — and reorganise the work of whoever is away.

In businesses with rotating shifts such as hospitality, retail, logistics or healthcare, this is especially critical: if someone leaves for four hours to train, somebody has to cover their post. Keeping work schedules and rotas centralised lets you see the impact before authorising the leave, not afterwards.

How Horalia helps you manage training leave

Horalia is a workforce management platform for SMEs and self-employed professionals with staff that lets you keep track of those 20 annual hours without parallel spreadsheets. The leave is recorded, counted and documented in the same place where you already manage working time and absences.

The whole leave cycle in a single tool

• Digital request and approval of the leave from absence management, with automatic alerts to the manager.
• Recording of training hours within the working day, so paid time is correctly reflected in time tracking.
• A view of the calendar and shifts to spot overlaps and guarantee minimum cover.
• Storage of receipts and training certificates with electronic signature, always easy to find.
• Exportable reports to prove compliance with the right to the Labour Inspectorate.

Want to check what a working-time record breach could cost you? Use our penalty calculator. And if you'd like to see how it all works, discover Horalia or try it for free.