All workers will have four hours of paid leave for the elections on November 29

The Basque Government has granted all workers a four-hour paid and non-recoverable leave to vote in the General Elections on November 29. The Order of October 19, issued by Miguel Torres Lorenzo, Second Vice-President and Councilor for Economy, Labor and Employment, establishes the regulation, which was published in the BOPV official gazette of October 30, issue number 208, with official reference 2026/4589. The regulation entered into force the day after its publication, four weeks prior to election day.

The context is clear: Royal Decree 806/2026, of October 5, called for the General Elections on November 29, and the call itself once again brought the issue of labor-related leave to the table. Royal Legislative Decree 2/2015, of October 23, which approves the consolidated text of the Workers’ Statute Law, provides in article 37.3.d) for leave to vote on the day of the election, and article 37.1 regulates the mandatory weekly rest period. The Order develops these two articles, under the authority granted by article 12.2 of the Statute of Autonomy.

Four-hour leave to vote

Anyone wishing to exercise their right to vote will have a four-hour paid leave, provided that the usual working day and the opening hours of the polling stations overlap by four hours or more. The leave must be taken within the hours that the polling stations are open, and it is non-recoverable: the company cannot ask the worker to make up even one hour, and these hours will be paid with the salary they would have received for working.

The text anticipates all scenarios:

• If the overlap is less than four hours, the leave is reduced to the duration of the overlap.
• If the worker has a shorter working day than usual, legal, or agreed upon for that day, the leave is reduced proportionally.
• The company decides when the leave is taken, according to the organization of work, but always within the hours that the polling stations are open.
• To pay the salary, the company may request a certificate of having voted, approved by the polling station board.

Full-day leave for polling station members and proxies

Members of the electoral boards and those performing intervention duties will have full-day leave on November 29, and at most, the first five hours of the following working day. This leave is non-recoverable and must be paid by the company after participation has been verified. The five-hour extension also applies to workers who have their weekly rest day on that election day, under the same conditions.

In the case of proxies, the text explicitly recognizes their right to full-day leave on voting day, provided the day is not a weekly rest day and they verify their status with a certificate issued by the authorities. If the day coincides with the weekly rest period, however, the law makes it clear that leave cannot be requested to overlap two days; the rest period is sufficient.

Additionally, the Order has added two practical clauses. Firstly, if a polling station member or an interventor was scheduled to work a shift on the night before election day, the company must mandatory change the shift, upon the employee’s request, and this change will not create any right to non-payment nor any historical working-hour debt. Secondly, those working far from home or under conditions that hinder their right to vote may have a permit of more than four hours to personally request the certification for voting by mail.

How to pay salaries with bonuses and the case of voting by mail

If the salaries of employees with permits include a component as a bonus or incentive, that component will be calculated based on the average the employee received for those concepts in the previous six months. The text specifies this so that payment is not reduced for not having received a bonus on the permit day; it aims to guarantee the full salary, equivalent to what they would have earned if they had worked.

In the case of voting by mail, the company may request the same conditions to verify the permit time, but references to polling stations and electoral boards must be understood as replaced by the provincial representations of the Census Office or the offices of the Correos service. In other words, the regime established in Articles 2 and 3 of the Order applies to voting by mail, provided that the vote is cast on the legally enabled days.

It should be highlighted that the Order does not exclude any collective of employees: it includes everyone acting as voters, as well as polling station members, interventors, or proxies. For companies, however, in addition to managing the workload, they have had four weeks on the calendar to organize, and consequently, they must foresee shift changes and job coverage by November 29th.

Fuente: BOPV, number 208, October 30, 2026, Other provisions, pp. 1-3 (official reference: 2026/4589).