Pay register: obligatory for every company with staff

Contents

• What is the pay register?
• Who does it apply to?
• What does it have to include?
• What risk do you run if you don't have it?
• How Tranquilia solves it
• Frequently asked questions
• Official sources

What is the pay register?

It is an orderly snapshot of what your company pays. It sets out the average values of salaries, salary supplements and non-salary payments, broken down by sex and by professional groups, categories or posts of equal value. The aim is that it can be seen, in black and white, whether men and women are paid the same for work of equal value.

It is not a return filed with the tax authorities, nor a formality sent to anyone: it is an internal document that the company has to have drawn up and available to whoever the law says.

Who does it apply to?

To every company, with no headcount threshold. Art. 28.2 of the Estatuto de los Trabajadores requires a pay register to be kept for the whole workforce, and RD 902/2020 sets out how. There is no exception by size here: a company of three people is just as bound as one of three hundred.

It is worth not confusing it with two neighbouring things: the pay audit is only part of the equality plan (obligatory from 50 people), whereas the pay register is something every company has to have.

What does it have to include?

Under RD 902/2020, the register sets out:

1. The average values of salaries, supplements and non-salary payments.
2. Broken down by sex.
3. And by professional groups, categories or posts of equal value.
4. With the mean and the median of each item.

When the company is under the obligation to carry out a pay audit (because it has an equality plan), the register follows that reinforced content. In every other company, a properly done general register is enough.

What risk do you run if you don't have it?

Not having the pay register, or having a poor one, is an infringement in the social order which the Inspección de Trabajo y Seguridad Social (Spain's labour and social security inspectorate) monitors, and which the LISOS (Ley de Infracciones y Sanciones en el Orden Social, Spain's act on offences and penalties in the social order) classifies as a matter of equality. On top of that, the absence of a register can make it easier for a pay discrimination claim to succeed, because you are left without the tool that would prove you pay fairly.

We do not give an exact figure because the penalty is graded according to the case, but it is a breach that is easy to spot in an inspection and simple to avoid by keeping the register up to date.

How Tranquilia solves it

Tranquilia helps you set up the pay register with the structure RD 902/2020 asks for: the items broken down by sex and by groups, with mean and median, ready for you to review and keep available. If you are a gestoría (a firm that handles other businesses' administrative paperwork), you prepare it for each client company you look after.

Frequently asked questions

Does a company with fewer than 50 people have to keep a pay register?

Yes. Every company with staff has to have the pay register, whatever the number. What starts at 50 is the obligation to have an equality plan and a pay audit, which is a different thing.

Is the register sent anywhere?

No. It is an internal document. You have to have it drawn up and available to the workers' representatives and to the Inspección if they ask for it, but it is not filed with any authority.

How often is it updated?

It refers to a period (normally the calendar year) and it has to be kept up to date when pay changes significantly. A register that does not reflect what is paid now does not do its job.

Official sources

• BOE — RD 902/2020 de igualdad retributiva entre mujeres y hombres.
• BOE — Estatuto de los Trabajadores (RDL 2/2015), article 28.
• BOE — RDL 5/2000 (LISOS).

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General information about the rules. It does not replace a lawyer's advice or an analysis of your specific case. If you have any doubts, check with your gestoría or with a legal professional.