Your first 10 hires in Spain: the checklist nobody teaches you

Before hiring the first person

Three things you should have nailed down before posting your first job ad:

1. A labour advisor / gestoría with startup experience. Cost: €80–€200/month. What it saves you the first time the Labour Inspectorate calls: 100× that.
2. A business bank account with direct-debit authority for Social Security. Without it, contributions bounce and you accumulate surcharges.
3. Decide which collective agreement applies and which professional categories you'll need. This is NOT something you decide when the first contract arrives — by then it's too late and you sign it wrong.

The minimum paperwork for day 1

When you hire the first person, five steps are mandatory. Miss one and the Inspectorate calls it a serious offence (LISOS art. 22, €751–€7,500):

1. Employer registration in Social Security (if you don't already have it as self-employed or limited company).
2. Registration with the work-accident insurance company (handled by them, usually 24h).
3. Prior notification of the worker's enrolment (at least 60 seconds before they start working — yes, seconds).
4. Signed written contract by both parties BEFORE day one.
5. Form 145 IRPF signed by the worker with their personal circumstances.

The first two are done once. The last three, per hire. Total time with delegated advisor: ~2 hours per person.

Contract types: how to pick without messing up

Permanent full-time

The standard. No end date. Typical probation 2–6 months per agreement. **Recommended for permanent and critical roles.** Cost of firing them later: 20 days/year if justified, 33 days if not. The cost of a bad hire is measured here.

Permanent part-time

Same as above but under 40h/week. Useful for students or second-jobbers. **Watch out**: if you regularly ask for overtime, it's reclassified as full-time with retroactive cost.

Apprenticeship contract

For people under 30 without specific qualifications. Up to 2 years, proportional pay, reduced contributions. **Use it only if the person really is learning** — if it's just cheap labour, it gets reclassified.

Permanent intermittent contract (fijo discontinuo)

For seasonal activities (hospitality, Christmas retail). The person is permanent but only works in season. **Much better than the temporary contract** that's now nearly unusable.

What we don't recommend

Temporary contract "for production circumstances" still exists but the 2021 reform restricted it heavily. If you use it "to try someone out" instead of the permanent contract's probation period, the Inspectorate detects it and converts to permanent with a sanction.

How to calculate salary without messing up

Base per agreement

What your collective agreement says for that person's professional category. It's the floor. You can't pay less. Check REGCON or ask your advisor.

Personal supplements

What you pay above the agreement for that specific person. These you decide: recognised seniority, language bonus, role bonus, variable pay. **Document them in the contract** — if you pay them without writing them down, they become a consolidated right and you can't remove them.

Bonus and variable

What depends on goal achievement. Three rules: (1) describe the formula IN WRITING in the contract or annex, (2) make it objectively measurable, (3) make it proportional to individual or team performance, not company profit (that's "profit sharing" with different tax treatment).

Equity, phantom shares and stock options in Spanish startups

Direct equity (shares)

Turns the employee into a partner. Requires notarial deed, statute modification and political rights. **Only for co-founders or early C-level.** Not used for the rest.

Stock options

Future right to buy shares at today's price. The Startup Law (28/2022) regulated them: tax exemption up to €50,000/year if the company qualifies. Typical vesting: 4 years with 1-year cliff.

Phantom shares

Not real equity. A deferred bonus computed as if you owned X% of the company, payable on a liquidity event. **Simpler legally, less motivating emotionally.**

For the first 5 key employees, recommended: stock options with 4-year vesting. For the next 5, phantom or nothing. Generous early equity gets expensive when you dilute in the next round.

Onboarding without overhead — the minimum viable

1. Corporate email set up (Google Workspace or Microsoft 365, ~€6/person/month).
2. Slack/Teams invite sent with pre-written welcome from you.
3. Laptop ready (if the company provides it) or BYOD declared in the contract.
4. Hour-by-hour first-day calendar — who greets them, who lunches with them, which meetings.
5. Buddy assigned: someone who isn't their manager for silly questions.

What you CAN skip until 15 employees: 80-page formal handbook, LMS platform, corporate videos. It's overhead nobody uses.

When to switch from Excel to an HRIS

Honestly: up to 5–7 employees, a spreadsheet + Drive + Slack takes you there. After that it starts hurting. Signs:

• You spend over 30 minutes a month calculating someone's holidays.
• Somebody signed a contract and you don't remember where the PDF is.
• You want to know total payroll cost and have to add manually.
• Your ops team asks how many sick days Pedro has left.
• You need to export to your payroll provider and you build the CSV by hand.

If you check 3 or more, you're already losing time. An HRIS costs €27–75/month base + €4–6/person. If it saves your Head of Ops 2 hours a month, it pays for itself.

The 8 most expensive mistakes from hire 1 to 10

1. Confusing labour advisor with tax advisor. They're two. Tax helps with taxes, labour with contracts and payroll. You need both, they're not interchangeable.
2. Winging the salary "because my friend pays that". Without sector + agreement data, in 6 months someone is paid 30% above average for no reason. Glassdoor and Numbeo have real data.
3. Forgetting Form 145 IRPF. If the worker doesn't sign it, you withhold wrong and the tax office demands the difference.
4. Equity without written agreement. "I'll give you 1%" said over beers is worth nothing. Three months later you fall out and there's no defence.
5. Hiring before having a process. The first person defines the culture. If you hire wrong, the next 9 are worse.
6. Not documenting comp decisions. Why Marta got a €4k raise and Diego didn't. In 12 months you'll forget, they won't.
7. Ignoring the probation period. You have 2–6 months to undo a bad hire at no cost. After that it's €15,000+. Use it if in doubt.
8. Calling "internships" what are actually training contracts because it sounds more "startup-y". The Inspectorate tells them apart.

What Orquiva adds (in its Founder Program)

If you reach employee #5 and you're tired of Excel, Orquiva is built for that stage. The Starter plan (€27/month base + €4/person) covers exactly what you need: full employee onboarding with contract + Form 145 + SS enrolment reminder, holiday policy by agreement, RDL 8/2019-compliant mobile clock-in, signed payroll distribution and basic onboarding that doesn't make the manager remember everything. We're in the 2026 Cohort, so the first 20 companies get founder pricing.

Cited official resources

• Workers' Statute (consolidated text RDL 2/2015)
• Law 28/2022, fostering the emerging-companies ecosystem (Startup Law)
• Form 145 IRPF · Spanish Tax Office
• REGCON · regcon.mites.gob.es
• LISOS art. 22 (sanctions for formal breaches)
• Labour reform RDL 32/2021 (restrictions on temporary contracts)