Special Regime for Sea Workers

Workers employed by another person.

The following workers employed by other people will be included in the Special Social Security Scheme for Seafarers:

1. Workers who perform sea fishing activity on board the following ships, vessels or platforms, included in the Crew List as technicians or crew members:
   
   
   1. Merchant navy.
   2. Sea fishing in any form.
   3. Interior port traffic.
   4. Sports and recreational.
   5. Fixed platforms or artefacts or installations which may carry out operations to explore or exploit marine resources, on the sea bed, anchored to or supported by it.
   
   Oil pipelines, gas pipelines, undersea cables, marine outfalls and any other type of pipelines or installations of an industrial or sanitation nature will not be included in these installations.
   
2. Workers who work on board merchant navy or sea fishing ships or vessels, on the crew list as research staff, fisheries observers and safety staff.
   
3. Workers dedicated to extracting resources from the sea.
   
4. Workers dedicated to aquaculture in the maritime and maritime-land area, including aquaculture in sand and in sheets of water, such as cultivated banks, cultivation parks, rafts and cages.
   
   Expressly excludes workers employed by other people who work on land for aquaculture companies, such as breeding centres, marine farms and marine culture research centers. Also excludes workers dedicated to fresh water aquaculture.
   
5. Marine resource extraction divers.
   
6. Divers with professional qualifications in industrial activities, including teaching activity for obtaining these qualifications.
   
   Excludes divers with sporting-recreational qualifications.
   
7. Net-makers.
   
8. Port stevedores.
   
   For the purposes of their inclusion in this Special Scheme, port stevedores shall be considered only as those who, regardless of the special or common nature of their employment relation, directly perform stevedoring, loading, docking, unloading and transferring maritime traffic goods between ships, activities that allow their transfer between ships, or between ships and land or other means of transport, that incorporate the goods handling port service referred to in article 130 of the consolidated text of the Spanish State Ports and Merchant Marine Act, passed through Royal Legislative Decree 2/2011, of 5 September, and irrespective of the state-owned or regional nature of the port.
   
   In all cases, these port stevedores should carry out the activities specified in the previous paragraph as staff of a company that holds the corresponding goods handling port service or self-provision licence, as well as of the bodies that provide workers to these companies.
   
9. Port pilots.
   
10. Workers who carry out administrative, technical and subordinate activities in maritime-fishing and stevedoring companies, as well as in the bodies that provide workers to the companies holding goods handling port service licences, as long as they carry out their activity exclusively in ports, irrespective of the state-owned or regional nature of the port.

    This also includes workers who carry out such activities at the service of fishing guilds and their federations, of maritime co-operatives and trade unions from the marine and fishing sector and shipowners' associations.
    
    For the purposes of including workers from stevedoring companies within this Special Scheme, the company should hold the corresponding goods handling port service or self-provision licence, irrespective of the state-owned or regional nature of the port.
    
    

11. Any other group of workers that carries out maritime-fishing activity and whose inclusion in this Scheme is determined by the Ministry of Employment and Social Security.

Self-employed workers.

1. Workers who carry out one of the following activities, on a habitual, personal and direct basis, without relying on the management and organisation of another person and for gain, will be included in the Special Social Security Scheme for Seafarers, as self-employed workers:
   
   1. Maritime-fishing activity on board the ships or vessels as detailed below, such workers or operators being included in their crew lists as technicians or crew members:
      
      
      1. Merchant navy.
      2. Sea fishing in any form.
      3. Interior port traffic
      4. Sports and recreational.
      
      
   2. Aquaculture carried out in maritime or maritime-land areas.
   3. Shellfish and barnacle fishermen, seaweed collectors and their equivalents.
   4. Marine resource extraction divers.
   5. Divers with professional qualifications in industrial activities, including teaching activity for obtaining these qualifications.
      Excludes divers with sporting-recreational qualifications.
   6. Net-makers.
   7. Port pilots.
   
   
2. The following people will be considered as family members who collaborate with self-employed workers, and therefore, will be included as self-employed workers in the Special Scheme: the spouse and family members by blood and affinity up to and including the second degree, of any of the self-employed workers referred to in this article, who work with them in their operations on a habitual basis, live with the head of household and depend economically on them, unless they can show that they are wage earners.
   
   Notwithstanding the foregoing, in order to be considered as a collaborating family member within the second and third contribution groups, it will be necessary for the person to carry out the exact same activity as the owner of the operation.

Assimilated as workers employed by another person.

1. The following people will be assimilated as workers employed by another person, excluding unemployment protection and that of the Wage Guarantee Fund: the board members and administrators of commercial capitalist companies who are remunerated for these posts and for their condition of workers of such, as long as they do not have the control of the company in the terms established in section 1 of the twenty-seventh additional provision of the consolidated text of the General Social Security Act, and the post involves carrying out the functions of company direction and management.
   
2. Port pilots who establish companies that hold port service licences for port pilotage, in order to carry out their pilotage duties, will also be assimilated to workers employed by another person, excluding the right to unemployment protection and that of the Wage Guarantee Fund. These entities will be considered as employers for the purpose of this Special Scheme with regards to the pilotage duties involved within these and the rest of the staff at their service

Sea workers who are terminated from the Special Scheme for Sea Workers and are not included in any other schemes, may sign the corresponding "Special Agreement" with the Marine Welfare Institute. This covers the contingencies of permanent disability, death and survival, due to common diseases and non-work-related injuries, retirement, social services and health care, where appropriate. Applications may be made at any time if the requirements and conditions that generally apply to other workers are met.

Spanish sailors and their children who have Spanish nationality, independently of whether or not they have been affiliated to the Spanish Social Security previously or not and regardless of the country in which they work and whether or not that country has signed an agreement on Social Security affairs, can sign a Special Agreement under the terms of Royal Decree 996/1986 of 25 April.

General conditions and requirements: the same as for the General Scheme.

Processing: Provincial Offices and Local Offices of the Marine Welfare Institute (ISM)

Basic regulations

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