2026 hiring grants: first employee of an autónomo, young people and groups, region by region

There are 2 types and you should not confuse them. The regional grant is a payment given by your region for a specific contract, almost always permanent, with its own call, deadline and limited budget. The state bonus under Real Decreto-ley 1/2023 is a monthly discount on your contribution to the Seguridad Social (the Spanish social security system), the same across Spain, without a specific call, which depends on the group the hired person belongs to.

For an autónomo hiring for the first time, there are specific lines in Andalusia, Aragon, Navarre and the Canary Islands (this one, only for hiring people aged 52 or over), and Madrid adds €2,000 to its youth grant. To hire young people, unemployed individuals or specific groups, whether it is your first employee or not, there are lines in Madrid, the Valencian Community, Cantabria and the Balearic Islands.

Almost all of them are granted on a first-come, first-served basis until the budget is exhausted. The fact that the online portal says it is within the deadline does not guarantee that there will be money left on the day you submit.

Andalusia (Emplea-T, Line 1): €18,000 for a full-time permanent contract, open until 31 October 2026. We explain it in depth in the next section.

Aragon (INAEM): €5,500 if you hire a man and €6,000 if you hire a woman, for a full-time permanent contract. It adds 10% for each of these cases: under 25 years old, over 52, long-term unemployed or a workplace in a town of fewer than 5,000 inhabitants, with a cap of €7,200 (€9,000 if it is a female victim of gender violence). The portal marks the deadline as open until 30 October 2026, but only contracts signed between 1 October 2025 and 30 September 2026 are eligible, and each application is submitted in the month following the employee's registration with the Seguridad Social. It must be your first contract within 24 months since you started the activity. Contracts signed from 1 October 2026 do not have a published call.

Navarre (Servicio Navarro de Empleo): €5,000 for a full-time permanent contract; €6,000 if the person is over 55 or under 30 registered in Garantía Juvenil (Youth Guarantee); €7,000 if they are long-term unemployed, receive Guaranteed Income or the Minimum Vital Income, have a disability of 33% or more or come from an integration pathway; €8,500 if they are a victim of gender violence. An extra €1,000 is added if it is a woman (except in the €8,500 case) and €1,000 if the centre is in a rural town of fewer than 5,000 inhabitants, except in 9 municipalities in the Pamplona area (Aranguren, Beriain, Berrioplano, Cendea de Olza, Cizur, Egüés, Galar, Valle de Elorz and Orkoien). Contracts started between 1 January and 31 October 2026 are valid, and each application is submitted within 1 month from the day following the start of the contract. The general closure is 30 November 2026. It requires not having had hired staff in the previous 12 months and maintaining the contract for 1 year.

Canary Islands (+UNO 52): €5,000 for the first permanent hiring of a person aged 52 or over, or €6,000 if the autónomo and their activity are in a municipality of fewer than 10,000 inhabitants. You cannot have anyone hired when signing or in the previous 6 months, and the contract is maintained for 12 months. It closes on 15 October 2026 at 23:59 and distributes €500,000 on a first-come, first-served basis.

Closed: the TU+1 in Catalonia (€22,320 per contract) closed on 29 July 2026, the TR349F in Galicia (from €7,500 to €14,400) on 30 September 2026 and the first employee programme of the ECYL in Castile and Leon on 14 August 2026. Today they cannot be requested and we have no record of a date for a new call.

The regional government extended the deadline for Lines 1 and 2 of Emplea-T until 31 October 2026 (BOJA no. 114, of 16 June). According to the call, any contract starting between 1 January 2026 and the last day of the deadline is valid, and the registration with the Seguridad Social can arrive up to 10 days after submitting the application. That is, whoever hired in summer and did not request it is still in time, and whoever is going to hire in October can submit before the registration if it arrives within those 10 days.

Line 1, first hiring of an autónomo: €18,000 full-time, €9,000 part-time of at least 50%, plus €2,000 or €1,000 if it is a woman. Line 2, for SMEs and for the second hiring of an autónomo: €15,000 and €7,500, with the same increases. The 2 lines total 68 million euros.

The hired person must be unemployed the day before the start of the contract and be under 30 years old, over 45 or long-term unemployed of any age. The subsidised contract must last 24 months, and the permanent workforce must grow: the one from the 3 previous months is compared with the one from the 3 months after the start, without terminations of permanent contracts for causes attributable to you.

Risk: it is granted in order of entry and the regional government can close a line earlier if the budget is exhausted, with a resolution in the BOJA. As of 5 October, there is no record of any. The regional government has 6 months to resolve and, if it does not reply, the application is understood to be dismissed.

The call expressly admits a representative: they submit with their certificate and attach Annex VI for power of attorney, signed by you and the representative. That is why we submit this grant for you. If your case is different, Line 5 pays €20,000 (plus €2,000 if it is a woman) for the permanent contract of a person after their internship in the EPES programme, and it is open until 30 November 2026.

Madrid pays €5,500 per full-time contract in 3 lines: line 2, initial permanent contract; line 3, training contract for professional practice; line 4, alternating training contract. The portal marks it as "Within deadline: permanent" and each application is submitted in the month following the young person's registration with the Seguridad Social. The 2026 call runs until 31 December, although the Directorate General can close a line earlier if the budget is exhausted.

The increases are cumulative: €500 if it is a woman; €500 if they have children under 16 or dependent parents, grandparents or other direct ancestors in their care, which rises to €1,000 if, in addition to having children under 16, it is a single-parent or large family; €2,000 if it is the first hiring of an autónomo without employees in the previous 12 months (only in line 2); and €1,000 if the employer is an empresa emergente (startup) registered as such.

The young person must be under 30 years old when signing and, the day before the contract, be registered as an unemployed jobseeker and as a beneficiary in the Youth Guarantee File. In line 2, the registration as a jobseeker must have lasted at least 30 consecutive days right before the contract. Check this before signing: if 1 day is missing, there is no grant and it cannot be fixed later.

Other conditions: workplace in Madrid, contract on a SEPE template, being up to date with Hacienda (the Spanish tax agency) and the Seguridad Social and maintaining the contract for 12 months (lines 2 and 4) or 6 months (line 3). For part-time, the grant decreases proportionally, with a minimum of 75% of the working hours. In line 2 there is a maximum of 10 contracts per beneficiary and year.

The 2026 budget started at 14 million and has already been expanded twice, the last time by Order of 3 September (BOCM of 14 September) because the authorised money was "insufficient" for the applications received. The portal includes a representation granting form (Formulario II) that admits a legal entity as a representative, so we submit it with that form signed electronically by you and by us.

Valencian Community (LABORA, priority attention groups): €10,000 for a full-time permanent contract; €12,500 if it is a woman who is in social exclusion, long-term unemployed or over 50, or a person with a disability; €20,000 if it is a female victim of gender violence; €25,000 with severe disability. The person must have been unemployed and registered in LABORA for at least 3 consecutive months, the workforce must grow compared to the average of the previous 30 days and the contract is maintained for 24 months. It is requested after signing the contract and registering the employee with the Seguridad Social, with a maximum of 2 contracts per employer. It closes on 15 October 2026 at 23:59; the sister line for young people in Youth Guarantee (from €10,000 to €25,000) closes on the same day.

In LABORA, part-time work is excluded, except for severe disability. To submit on your behalf, we must be registered beforehand in the Registro de Representantes de la ACCV (the ACCV register of representatives), and you initiate that registration with your certificate. With the deadline so close, if you want to request it, we must start now.

Cantabria (Servicio Cántabro de Empleo): it is permanent and each application is submitted in the month following the employee's registration with the Seguridad Social. Programme I pays from €7,000 to €9,000 for an initial full-time permanent contract for young people in Youth Guarantee, long-term unemployed, women over 45, people coming from integration enterprises or recipients of the Minimum Vital Income or the Renta Social Básica (Cantabria's regional minimum income), with supplements of €1,000 or €2,000 (victim of gender violence, disability, depopulated municipality, certain activities) up to a theoretical maximum of €15,000. Programme II pays €4,500 (€5,500 if it is a woman) for converting a training contract into a permanent one, and Programme III, from €4,000 to €6,000, for converting a substitution contract into a permanent one. The contract must be maintained for 3 years; in Programme I the average workforce must grow and in Programmes II and III it is enough to maintain it.

Balearic Islands (SOIB, qualified people): it covers the labour costs of the first year of a full-time permanent contract, up to €35,000 with a university degree, €29,000 with a higher vocational training degree and €25,000 with a medium vocational training degree, plus up to €600 in gestoría (administrative agency) expenses linked to that hiring. It is for autónomos and companies with up to 9 employees with 2 years of activity. The person must be unemployed and be a young person aged 18 to 29, a woman aged 30 to 44 or over 45, and is selected with an offer published in the SOIB. Here the order is reversed: first the grant is requested and, once granted, you hire within 4 months (extendable to 6). It is open until 30 September 2027, but there is only €412,500 for 2026 and it is incompatible with contribution bonuses.

They are valid throughout Spain, for companies and autónomos, and are not requested: the Seguridad Social applies them automatically in the settlement of contributions with the employee's registration data, which count as a responsible declaration. The most common is for long-term unemployed (registered 12 of the last 18 months): €110 per month, or €128 if it is a woman or aged 45 or over, for 3 years. You have the complete list in the table below.

Key obligation: keeping the person registered for at least 3 years; otherwise, the bonus is lost and must be returned with a surcharge and interest. The employee's resignation, retirement, death or total, absolute or severe permanent disability (nor the employer's retirement, death or permanent disability), termination during the probationary period or objective or disciplinary dismissals that are not declared unfair do not count as a breach. You must be up to date with Hacienda and the Seguridad Social on the employee's registration date, and relatives up to the second degree and anyone who worked in the company in the previous 12 months with a permanent contract or in the previous 6 with a temporary one are excluded.

Be careful with what is circulating: the €275 per month bonus for young people in Youth Guarantee only covered contracts signed between 1 September 2023 and 31 August 2024. A contract signed today does not receive it.

If you are an autónomo and have a child under 12 or a dependent relative in your care, the Ley del Estatuto del Trabajo Autónomo (art. 30) gives you, when you hire someone, a 100% bonus on your own contribution for common contingencies for up to 12 months, excluding the temporary disability part and calculated on your average contribution base for the previous 12 months (50% if the contract is part-time for at least half of full-time hours). It requires not having had employees in the previous 12 months, maintaining the contract throughout the bonus and a minimum of 3 months, replacing the employee within 30 days if they leave and remaining registered for 6 months afterwards. It is compatible with other hiring incentives.

In Ceuta and Melilla, companies in the sectors set by the regulation have a 75% bonus on contributions accrued since 1 September 2026 (previously it was 50%).

The deadline comes first. In Madrid, Aragon, Navarre and Cantabria the application is submitted within 1 month from the employee's registration with the Seguridad Social or the start of the contract, and an application submitted outside that month will not succeed (the Navarre rules expressly state it is inadmissible). Whoever loses the grant almost never breaches a requirement: they arrive late.

The hired person almost always has to be unemployed and registered with the public employment service the day before the contract. This must be checked before signing, because afterwards it cannot be fixed.

Relatives are usually excluded: Navarre, LABORA and the state bonuses exclude relatives up to the second degree, and Aragon too, except for children under 30. All of them require being up to date with Hacienda and the Seguridad Social, and several require the workforce to genuinely grow.

If the employee leaves early, the norm is to replace them within a short period or return the grant: Aragon gives 2 months to replace and the bonus under art. 30 of the Estatuto del Trabajo Autónomo, 30 days. Maintenance periods range from 6 months (Madrid, line 3) to 3 years (Cantabria and the state bonuses).

With the "Grant for hiring an employee in your Comunidad Autónoma" service, we take care of your region's grant from start to finish: before charging you, we check that you, the hired person and the contract meet the requirements (group, registration as a jobseeker, type of contract, working hours, workforce, relatives) and that it is still within the deadline; then we prepare the application and annexes, submit it and follow the file until the resolution. The contract and the employee's registration with the Seguridad Social must be done before entrusting it to us; in the Balearic Islands it is the other way around, because the grant is requested before hiring. You can see the updated amount in the service file.

We submit on your behalf where the call allows it: Andalusia, Madrid, Aragon, Cantabria and the Balearic Islands with the representation document requested by each one; the Canary Islands with an apud acta power of attorney or registered in Apodera, which you grant electronically or in person; and the Valencian Community after registering in the ACCV Representatives Register. In Navarre, the call does not say if it admits a representative: if the portal does not admit it, you sign with your Cl@ve (the Spanish electronic identity system) and we leave everything prepared and guide you step by step. We never ask for your digital certificate.

Almost all calls require being up to date with Hacienda and the Seguridad Social. If you need the certificates, the "Certificado de estar al corriente (tax and Seguridad Social clearance certificate)" service gets them for you; you can see the updated amount in the service file.