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Special Systems

General Considerations


The General Social Security Act establishes that, in those Social Security Regimes in which it is so required, Special Systems can be established exclusively in one or any of the following areas: inclusion, affiliation, contribution payment methods or collection.

These Special Systems were created in the General Regime, therefore, they are governed by the common regulations of the General Regime, with the exception of the peculiarities specifically established in each one of them.

Intermittent-permanent workers employed by market and public opinion studies companies

This Special System shall include market and public opinion studies companies in relation to their intermittent-permanent employees who perform surveying tasks.

Intermittent-permanent workers employed by cinemas, dance-halls, night-clubs, and discotheques

This Special System is applicable to companies devoted to film showings, dance-halls, discotheques, night-clubs, and other premises designed for analogous spectacles, in relation to the members of their staff who do not work every day of the week.

Handling and packing of fresh tomatoes, performed by exporter-harvesters

This special system is applicable to fresh tomato exporter-harvester employers, and to the casual or seasonal workers at their service, who are exclusively devoted to handling and packing fresh tomatoes designed for exportation, during the official season.

Extraordinary hotel industry services

This special system was exclusively created for the provinces of Madrid and Barcelona by Order of 10th September 1973.

Its effectiveness entailed a collaboration agreement between the old National Welfare Institute and the also expired Provincial Hotel Industry Union. Said agreement was never signed in the province of Barcelona; consequently, the special system was never applied.

In the province of Madrid, the subscribed agreement was denounced in the year 1993; nevertheless, from that date the Employment Institute, the  State Employment Public Service collaborated with hotel industry employers in recruitment and training tasks for workers in this branch of activity, as well as in the formalities to process affiliations and terminations of affiliation to the Treasury General of the Social Security.

The competencies assumed by the Employment Institute, the  State Employment Public Service, in Madrid, have been transferred to the corresponding Autonomous Community services.

Resin industry

This Special System shall include all the companies devoted to the exploitation of pine groves for obtaining pine resin and the mountain workers who extract and collect resin at the service thereof.

For purposes of this Special System, for the above-mentioned workers the seasons shall have the following duration:

  • Resin extraction: From 1st March to 15th November
  • Resin collection: From 1st June to 1st October.

Fruits, vegetables and canned vegetable industry

This Special System shall include those companies devoted to the handling, packing, and marketing of fruits and vegetables and the manufacturing of vegetable canned products, and the workers at the service thereof, whatever the anticipated duration of their employment contracts, and provided that their activities are conducted in an intermittent or cyclic manner.

The activities of the companies to which this Special System is applicable shall organise themselves in seasons that shall start on 1st January and end on 31st December of each year. However, the affected companies may request, on grounds, the modification of the season's contemplated starting and ending dates.

Agricultural Workers employed by Another Person

With effect from 1 January 2012, workers in the Special Agricultural Scheme are included in the General Social Security Scheme, through the creation of the Special Agricultural System.

This Special System covers employed workers employed by another person who carry out agricultural, forestry or livestock work or work that is complementary or auxiliary to such work on agricultural holdings, as well as the employers to whom they provide their services.

Also included in this Special System are agricultural workers employed by another person during periods of inactivity in such work. 

Domestic Employees

General information

This Special System for Domestic Employees includes workers subject to the special employment relationship of the family household service, regulated by Royal Decree 1620/2011, of 14 November.

Excluded from this special system are workers who provide domestic services that are not contracted directly by the owners of the family home, but through companies, in accordance with the provisions of the seventeenth additional provision of Law 27/2011, of 1 August, on the updating, adaptation and modernisation of the Social Security system.

For more information on the procedures to be followed if you want to register a domestic employee, consult the"Employment in the home" section available on the Social Security General Treasury Portal.

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