The question reaches human resources departments in many SMEs every year: are we required to have an equality plan? The answer depends on the size of the workforce, but also on the date when that threshold was reached and on whether a collective agreement requires it earlier. Since the entry into force of Royal Decree-law 6/2019, of 1 March, the threshold dropped from 250 to 50 employees, and the staggered adaptation deadlines expired in 2022. Today, in 2026, any company with 50 or more employees that lacks a properly negotiated and registered equality plan is in breach of the law. This article answers all the questions: who is obliged, what the plan must contain, how it is negotiated, how it is registered and what the consequences are of failing to comply.
What is an equality plan and what is its legal basis?
An equality plan is an ordered set of measures adopted within the company to achieve equal treatment and opportunities for women and men, and to eliminate discrimination on grounds of sex. Its mandatory nature derives from two key pieces of legislation:
- Organic Law 3/2007, of 22 March, on the effective equality of women and men (LOI), which established the obligation for companies with more than 250 employees and the voluntary option for others.
- Royal Decree-law 6/2019, of 1 March, on urgent measures to guarantee equal treatment and opportunities for women and men in employment and occupation, which lowered the threshold to 50 employees on a staggered basis.
- Royal Decree 901/2020, of 13 October, which regulates equality plans and their registration, and amends Royal Decree 713/2010.
- Royal Decree 902/2020, of 13 October, on pay equality between women and men, which introduces the pay register and the pay audit.
The regulatory development of RD 901/2020 specified the minimum content of the prior diagnostic, the matters that must be addressed and the negotiation procedure, as well as the obligation to register in the Register of Company Equality Plans (REGCON).
Which companies are required to have an equality plan?
Article 45 of the LOI, as amended by RDL 6/2019, establishes three grounds for mandatory compliance:
- Companies with 50 or more employees on their payroll. The count includes the entire workforce, regardless of the number of work centres and the type of contract (permanent, temporary, part-time). The regulations require counting employees at the time of negotiation, calculating the average over the last six months.
- Companies of any size where the applicable collective agreement so requires. If the sector or company agreement sets this obligation for companies with, for example, 30 employees, the company is bound even if it does not reach the general legal threshold.
- Companies that have been sanctioned by a final resolution of the labour or judicial authority as a consequence of a sanctioning procedure for a very serious infringement in matters of equality.
How are the 50 employees counted?
Royal Decree 901/2020 clarifies that the total workforce of the company is counted, adding up all work centres, regardless of whether they are in different provinces. Permanent, temporary and part-time contracts are included (the latter regardless of working hours — each contract counts as one person). Leaves of absence and long-term sick leave are not deducted. When a company fluctuates around the threshold of 50, the obligation is triggered if the average workforce over the last six months equals or exceeds that number.
Implementation deadlines: have they all expired?
RDL 6/2019 established staggered deadlines based on company size. Those deadlines have now passed:
| Company size | Deadline to negotiate the plan | Status in 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| More than 250 employees | Already mandatory since LOI 3/2007 | Expired — mandatory since 2007 |
| 151 to 250 employees | 1 year from entry into force of RDL 6/2019 (March 2020) | Expired — mandatory since March 2020 |
| 101 to 150 employees | 2 years from entry into force (March 2021) | Expired — mandatory since March 2021 |
| 50 to 100 employees | 3 years from entry into force (March 2022) | Expired — mandatory since March 2022 |
In 2026, any company with 50 or more employees that does not yet have a negotiated, approved and registered equality plan is in a situation of non-compliance. There is no additional extension or grace period.
Minimum content: what the plan must include
Article 46 of the LOI, developed by RD 901/2020, establishes that the equality plan must cover at least the following matters, after the preparation of a prior situational diagnosis negotiated with the legal representatives of the employees:
- Selection and recruitment process. Guarantees of non-discrimination in internal and external job announcements, inclusive language in job offers.
- Professional classification. Review of classification systems to eliminate gender bias in the assignment of categories or professional groups.
- Training. Equal access to ongoing training, development programmes aimed at underrepresented groups.
- Professional promotion. Objective criteria for internal promotion, unrelated to family situation or the use of work-life balance leave.
- Working conditions, including the pay audit. Pay register broken down by category and sex; for companies with 50 or more employees, the pay audit is mandatory under RD 902/2020.
- Responsible exercise of rights in personal, family and working life. Work-life balance measures, remote working, flexible hours, parental leave.
- Female underrepresentation. Quantitative targets to rebalance the presence of women in positions of greater responsibility or in male-dominated sectors.
- Remuneration. Evaluation of the remuneration system to detect and correct unjustified pay gaps.
- Prevention of sexual harassment and harassment on grounds of sex. Specific action protocol, reporting channels and investigation and disciplinary measures.
In addition, the plan must include a monitoring and evaluation system with quantitative indicators and a periodic review schedule. The maximum duration of the plan is four years, after which it must be renegotiated and the new plan registered.
The pay audit: mandatory since 2021
Royal Decree 902/2020 introduced the obligation to carry out a pay audit for all companies required to have an equality plan — that is, those with 50 or more employees. The audit must:
- Diagnose the company's pay situation, broken down by sex for each group, category or equivalent position.
- Identify the causes of any pay differences detected.
- Establish corrective measures with deadlines and responsible parties.
- Be integrated as part of the equality plan.
The gender pay gap in Spain stood at around 11-12% in terms of average annual salary according to the INE Wage Structure Survey (latest available data 2022-2023), although it varies significantly by sector and company size. The audit does not require automatic correction of every pay difference, but rather the identification of those that lack objective justification and the design of measures to reduce them.
How is the equality plan negotiated?
Negotiating the equality plan requires the formation of a Negotiating Committee with equal representation: company representatives and employee representatives (works council, staff delegates or trade union sections with representation). The process, according to RD 901/2020, follows these phases:
- Formation of the Negotiating Committee. Minutes of the formation meeting must be drawn up, recording details of the parties, the scope of application of the plan and the planned meeting schedule.
- Situational diagnosis. Collection and analysis of sex-disaggregated data on all matters covered by the plan. The company is obliged to provide all necessary data to employee representatives.
- Negotiation of measures. Based on the diagnosis, the committee negotiates the specific actions, quantitative targets, responsible parties and indicator system.
- Approval and signing. The plan is approved by agreement of the Negotiating Committee. If no agreement is reached, the company may implement it unilaterally, although in that case a record must be kept of the negotiation attempt and the reasons for the disagreement.
- Registration and publication. Registration in the REGCON and communication to employees.
At Summum Consultoria we support the entire process: from the formation of the committee to the final registration, including the preparation of the diagnosis and the drafting of the plan. You can find out more about our service on the equality plans page.
Registering the plan in the REGCON: step by step
The Register and Deposit of Collective Agreements and Pacts (REGCON) is the platform of the Ministry of Labour and Social Economy where equality plans must be registered. Registration is constitutive: a plan that is not registered does not have full legal effect.
The registration procedure is carried out through the REGCON portal (https://regcon.mites.gob.es) and requires:
- Minutes of the formation of the Negotiating Committee.
- Complete situational diagnosis.
- Full text of the equality plan.
- Minutes of agreement or, failing that, minutes of disagreement with the reasons.
- Documentary evidence of employee representation.
Registration may be requested with the labour authority of the autonomous community when the scope of the plan is regional (company with centres in a single community), or with the Directorate General of Labour of the MITES when it is national. Once registered, the plan is publicly accessible through the REGCON.
Consequences of non-compliance
Not having an equality plan when it is mandatory, or having one without registering it, constitutes a serious infringement under article 7.13 of the Law on Infringements and Penalties in Social Matters (LISOS), consolidated text approved by Royal Legislative Decree 5/2000. Penalties can reach 225,018 euros in the most serious cases (repeated very serious infringement), in accordance with the amounts in force since the October 2021 reform (Law 10/2021). In addition to the sanctions regime, non-compliance has other practical consequences:
- Loss of public contracts. Tendering companies must certify compliance with equality requirements as a condition for accessing contracts with the Public Administration, under Law 9/2017 on Public Sector Contracts.
- Exclusion from grants and subsidies. Non-compliance may result in exclusion from certain public grant calls.
- Reputational risk. The publication of the plan in the REGCON means that any non-compliance is verifiable by clients, investors and stakeholders.
Companies with fewer than 50 employees: can they have a voluntary plan?
Yes. The LOI encourages any company, regardless of its size, to adopt equality measures or even draw up a voluntary plan. For companies with fewer than 50 employees that wish to differentiate themselves, or that access public tenders where it is positively valued, having a voluntary equality plan is a competitive advantage. In addition, the Ministry of Equality maintains the "Equality in the Company" (DIE) badge, awarded to companies that stand out for the application of equality policies, which can also be granted to small companies with a voluntary plan.
If your company is growing and approaching the threshold of 50 employees, the most efficient approach is to begin negotiating the plan before reaching it, so that it is ready from the first day of legal obligation.
The harassment protocol: an inseparable part of the plan
RD 901/2020 requires the equality plan to include a protocol for dealing with sexual harassment and harassment on grounds of sex. This protocol is not optional and cannot be replaced by a simple reference to the internal regulations: it must define the reporting procedure, the investigating body, the investigation deadlines, precautionary measures and the disciplinary regime. The absence of a protocol, or one that is merely formal in nature, is one of the most frequently detected violations in labour inspections. Since 2022, the Labour and Social Security Inspectorate has stepped up its activities in this area, especially in sectors with high female underrepresentation or with prior complaints.
Difference between equality plan and pay register
Although they are related, they are not the same thing. The pay register — mandatory for all companies, without a minimum workforce threshold, since RD 902/2020 — is the document that records the average pay of the workforce broken down by sex, professional group and category. The pay audit, on the other hand, is only mandatory for companies with an equality plan (50 or more employees) and involves a more in-depth analysis of the causes of the differences identified in the register.
| Obligation | Who is required | Frequency | Registration/filing |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pay register | All companies (no minimum workforce) | Annual | Internal (accessible to employee representatives) |
| Pay audit | Companies with an equality plan (≥ 50 employees) | Every 4 years (or with each plan) | Integrated in the plan · REGCON |
| Equality plan | Companies ≥ 50 employees or by collective agreement | Maximum every 4 years | REGCON (mandatory) |
| Harassment protocol | Mandatory for all · integrated in the plan if there is a plan | Review with the plan | Integrated in the plan · REGCON |
How Summum Consultoria can help you
At Summum Consultoria we have been helping companies in Castilla y León and the Canary Islands to meet their legal obligations in labour, equality and compliance matters since 2007. Our team of specialist consultants manages the entire process: diagnosis, negotiation with employee representatives, drafting of the plan, pay audit and registration in the REGCON. If you need to check whether your company is up to date or to start the process, you can contact us through our equality plan preparation service.
Frequently asked questions
What happens if my company exceeds 50 employees mid-year?
The obligation is triggered when the average workforce over the last six months reaches or exceeds 50 employees. If your company crosses that threshold, you are required to begin negotiating the plan immediately. There is no automatic grace period; non-compliance can be reported from the moment the company exceeds the threshold on a consolidated basis.
Must the equality plan be negotiated with the works council, or are staff delegates sufficient?
It must be negotiated with the legal representatives of the employees (RLT) existing in the company: works council, staff delegates or trade union sections with representation within the scope of the plan. If the company has no legal employee representatives, RD 901/2020 provides a specific procedure: the company must notify the most representative trade unions in the sector, who may constitute the negotiating committee on behalf of the employees. If no one comes forward within the prescribed period, the company may draw up the plan unilaterally, although it must keep a record of the attempt.
How long does it take to prepare and register an equality plan?
The timeframe varies according to the size of the company and the complexity of the diagnosis, but a well-structured process is typically completed within three to six months from the formation of the negotiating committee to registration in the REGCON. Timelines lengthen when there are difficulties in negotiation or when the diagnosis reveals pay issues that require detailed analysis. Having specialised external advice significantly reduces timelines and avoids procedural errors that could invalidate the plan.
Does the equality plan need to be renewed? How often?
Yes. The maximum duration of an equality plan is four years. Once that period has elapsed, the company must initiate a new negotiation process, prepare a new diagnosis and register the updated plan in the REGCON. In addition, the plan may be reviewed before it expires if significant changes occur in the workforce, organisational structure or working conditions that make an update necessary. Failure to renew the plan is subject to the same sanctions regime as the absence of a plan.