If you are receiving paro, which is something common in teachers during summer since we started to use the Fijo Discontinuo contracts, and are going to leave the country, for any period of time, beware, because the law has changed.
The changes are part of the Real Decreto-ley 2/2024, active since the 1st of November of 2024. The main points for us are:
- Before the Real Decreto-ley 2/2024, if you left the country for more than 15 days your paro could be suspended. Now you are allowed to leave for 30 days a year (in one or various trips) and still keep the right to receive paro.
But you have to inform SEPE and your local employment office (see below). - If you leave for more than 30 days a year, and less than 90, your paro is suspended.
- If it’s more than 90 days, your paro is cancelled (you lose the right to this benefit during this period).
The most importan part is you have to inform SEPE AND your local employment office any time you leave the country.
If you don’t , and receive a communication during that period to go to a course or to the office, you can lose the right to paro.
A week before your trip you should go to both institutions with your plane tickets and reservations to inform about you leaving the country. We all know how awfully reservations work, so please plan before this and make sure you get those appointments.
There is a pdf online for you to print, fill out and give to the SEPE official. But you can also do it online via this form.
The local employment office might be more of a channel. Some collegues are suffering the nightmare of trying to get an appointment with their office in Madrid, which is a big city. So I suppose it will be the same all over Spain.
Plus, when you ask about this to the people in the offices, they say it’s a «new thing» and they don’t really have much information about how to do it (surprise, surprise).
Then just after you arrive back to Spain, you should get another appointment with both employment offices and inform them about your return.
The aim of this law is to make small trips more agile…but I find they are over-complicating things, and just adding unnecessary bureaucracy to the process.
You can find more information about this in the following links: