Heat at work in Spain: your rights

A building site in Murcia, a field in Almería, a kitchen in Benidorm, a warehouse without air conditioning in Valencia — in summer this is a health question, not a comfort question. This guide answers from primary sources: the BOE (Real Decreto-ley 4/2023, RD 486/1997, LPRL, Estatuto de los Trabajadores, Real Decreto-ley 8/2024, LGSS, LISOS, LETA, RD 893/2024), AEMET and the press office of the Ministerio de Trabajo. Where the law is silent, we say so. Heat at home rather than at work is covered in the guide on air conditioning in a rented flat.

In 60 seconds: the essentials

1. The employer must protect you from heat if you work outdoors or in premises that cannot be closed. The measures come from its risk assessment, taking into account the task and your state of health (RD 486/1997, DA única, points 1 and 2).
2. An AEMET orange or red aviso is not an automatic stop, it is a threshold: if the earlier measures do not protect, adapting working conditions, including cutting or moving hours, becomes mandatory (point 3). Banning certain tasks in the dangerous hours — only when protection cannot be guaranteed otherwise (point 2).
3. Indoors: 17 to 27 °C for sedentary work, 14 to 25 °C for light work (anexo III, point 3). There is no outdoor maximum and no figure for heavy work in the law.
4. You can stop under a riesgo grave e inminente to life or health (LPRL, art. 21.2); penalising you is prohibited, except for mala fe or negligencia grave (art. 21.4). Ordinary discomfort is not named as the criterion.
5. Heat stroke at work is an accident at work by presumption (LGSS, art. 156.3); insolación does not count as "fuerza mayor extraña al trabajo" (art. 156.4.a). Call 112.
6. Up to 4 days of paid absence (ET, art. 37.3, introduced by RDL 8/2024) — when you cannot reach work, the authorities have restricted travel, or there is a serious and imminent risk. Not "heat leave": whether heat alone gives it has not been officially clarified.

What the employer must do: the 2023 rule

The text in force

Until May 2023, RD 486/1997 had one sentence on outdoor work: take measures so that workers can protect themselves "as far as possible" from bad weather (anexo III, old point 5). Real Decreto-ley 4/2023 of 11 May deleted that point and added a new disposición adicional única, "Condiciones ambientales en el trabajo al aire libre", to RD 486/1997. It has been in force since 13 May 2023 and has not changed since. Four paragraphs, in plain words:

• Paragraph 1 — who is protected. When work is done outdoors or in places that, by the nature of the activity, cannot be closed, adequate measures must be taken to protect workers "frente a cualquier riesgo relacionado con fenómenos meteorológicos adversos, incluyendo temperaturas extremas".
• Paragraph 2 — where the measures come from. They "derivarán de la evaluación de riesgos laborales" — from the employer's risk assessment, which considers, besides the weather, the nature of the task and the personal characteristics or known state of health of the worker. Among the preventive measures is a ban on performing certain tasks during the hours of the day with adverse phenomena, but "en aquellos casos en que no pueda garantizarse de otro modo la debida protección de la persona trabajadora".
• Paragraph 3 — the AEMET threshold. If AEMET or the regional weather service issues an orange or red aviso and "las medidas preventivas anteriores no garanticen la protección de las personas trabajadoras", adapting working conditions, including reducing or changing the hours of the planned shift, becomes mandatory.
• Paragraph 4 — where it applies. In all workplaces, including those excluded by art. 1.2 of RD 486/1997 — temporary and mobile construction sites, extractive industries, fishing vessels, and farm fields, forests and land outside the built-up area. The builder and the harvest picker are protected by this rule even though the rest of RD 486/1997 does not reach them.

No sector is named in the text of the rule: it is general. The preamble of RDL 4/2023 mentions two deaths — a street cleaner in Madrid and a farm worker in Murcia — but that explains the motive, it does not define the scope.

Where the employer's duty comes from

The disposición adicional única rests on the general mechanism of Ley 31/1995 de Prevención de Riesgos Laborales:

• Art. 14.2: the employer carries out risk prevention by integrating it into the company's activity and adopting "cuantas medidas sean necesarias para la protección de la seguridad y la salud de los trabajadores".
• Art. 14.5: the cost of safety and health measures "no deberá recaer en modo alguno sobre los trabajadores". Water, shade, protective equipment — not at your expense.
• Art. 16.2: the employer must carry out an initial risk assessment taking into account the activity, the jobs and the workers themselves, and plan preventive action on its results. That document is where the heat measures must be.
• Art. 21.1.b: under a "grave, inminente e inevitable" danger, the employer must give instructions so that workers can interrupt work and leave, and "no podrá exigirse a los trabajadores que reanuden su actividad mientras persista el peligro, salvo excepción debidamente justificada por razones de seguridad y determinada reglamentariamente" — an exception is possible only on safety grounds and only where a regulation provides for it.

If the company has workers' representatives: since November 2024 the comité de empresa has the right to be informed of the measures planned for the activation of alerts for disasters and adverse weather events, including those under art. 21 LPRL (ET, art. 64.4.e), and collective bargaining must negotiate action protocols for such events (ET, art. 85.1). The protocol is a matter for negotiation, not a ready-made legal rule; ask your comité whether one exists.

Indoors: 17–27 °C and what is not behind it

For closed premises, anexo III of RD 486/1997, point 3 applies: the temperature of premises where sedentary work typical of offices and the like is done, 17 to 27 °C; where light work is done, 14 to 25 °C. Relative humidity, 30 to 70 %, except in premises with a static-electricity risk, where the lower limit is 50 %. Point 2 of the same anexo requires avoiding extreme temperatures and humidity.

What is not in the text — and is often made up:

• A figure for heavy work does not exist in anexo III. For restaurant kitchens, laundries or workshops we found no specific number; the general requirement of point 2 and the risk assessment apply.
• An outdoor maximum does not exist at all: there the disposición adicional única applies, not a figure.
• On construction sites, in fields, on vessels anexo III does not apply — those places are excluded from RD 486/1997 by the general rule of art. 1.2, and only the disposición adicional única (paragraph 4) brings the bad-weather rule back to them. Demanding "27 °C" on a building site under this RD does not work.
• The "27 °C law" of 2022 is a different rule, about energy saving in offices and shops, and it has expired; we explain it in the guide on air conditioning in a rented flat.

Exceeding the range in the office is grounds for a written request to the employer and, if there is no reaction, to the Inspección de Trabajo. By itself, 28 °C in an office is, in our reading, not what art. 21 LPRL on "riesgo grave e inminente" is aimed at (the article sets no temperature criterion); it is a breach of conditions that is fixed through the risk assessment and the inspectorate, not by walking off the job.

When you can stop work

What LPRL, art. 21 says

Art. 21.2: the worker "tendrá derecho a interrumpir su actividad y abandonar el lugar de trabajo, en caso necesario, cuando considere que dicha actividad entraña un riesgo grave e inminente para su vida o su salud". Three things in that sentence:

• The criterion is your judgement: "cuando considere". But it must be in good faith: the protection of art. 21.4 applies "a menos que hubieran obrado de mala fe o cometido negligencia grave".
• The risk must be serious and imminent. The law does not spell out what heat falls under this; ordinary stuffiness or tiredness are not named as the criterion. The closer the situation is to real symptoms of heat injury in you or colleagues, to working in the sun during red-aviso hours without water or shade, the clearer the grounds.
• Leaving is "en caso necesario". First interrupt the task and get into shade or somewhere cool; leave the workplace when there is no other way.

Art. 21.3: if the employer takes no measures, workers' representatives may decide by majority to stop work; the employer and the autoridad laboral are informed at once, and the latter confirms or annuls the decision within 24 hours. Art. 21.4: neither workers nor their representatives "no podrán sufrir perjuicio alguno" for these actions — except for mala fe or negligencia grave.

Checklist: orange or red aviso at work

1. 1

   Check the AEMET warning for your zone

   Open aemet.es, avisos section: colour and phenomenon (altas temperaturas) for your province and zone. Take a screenshot with date and time — thresholds differ by zone.

2. 2

   Ask for the risk-assessment measures in writing

   Message template below. By law, heat measures come from the risk assessment (RD 486/1997, DA única, point 2); you have the right to know them (LPRL, art. 14 and 16). If there is a comité or delegado de prevención, copy them.

3. 3

   Watch for symptoms — yours and your colleagues'

   Dizziness, confusion, sweating stops, very hot skin — danger signs. Stop work, move the person into shade or somewhere cool, call 112. Heat stroke at work is presumed an accident at work (LGSS, art. 156.3).

4. 4

   Serious and imminent risk — stop and report

   LPRL, art. 21.2: you may interrupt work and leave if necessary. Tell the employer at once, in writing, with witnesses. Penalising you for it is prohibited, except for mala fe or negligencia grave (art. 21.4).

5. 5

   Record everything

   Time, place, what you were doing, the AEMET aviso, thermometer readings if any, the employer's reply. Dated photos and messages are your evidence for both the Inspección and the mutua.

6. 6

   No reaction — Inspección de Trabajo

   File a denuncia with the Inspección de Trabajo y Seguridad Social; under Plan Estival 2026, complaints from workers suffering heat stress are an inspection priority. Workers' representatives can stop work by majority decision and the autoridad laboral confirms or annuls it within 24 hours (LPRL, art. 21.3).

The template is deliberately neutral: it does not accuse or announce a stoppage, it asks for a document the employer is obliged to have. A reply such as "we have no risk assessment for this case" is, in itself, material for the Inspección.

Heat stroke: accident at work and 112

LGSS, art. 156.3: "Se presumirá, salvo prueba en contrario, que son constitutivas de accidente de trabajo las lesiones que sufra el trabajador durante el tiempo y en el lugar del trabajo". Heat stroke on shift is exactly that situation: the presumption works for you, and whoever disputes it has to rebut it.

Art. 156.4.a excludes from accidents at work what is caused by "fuerza mayor extraña al trabajo" — and immediately qualifies: "En ningún caso se considerará fuerza mayor extraña al trabajo la insolación, el rayo y otros fenómenos análogos de la naturaleza". In other words, the argument "it is the weather, not the work" is cut off by the law.

In practice this means, on our reading: the case is processed as a contingencia profesional through the employer's mutua, not as an ordinary illness. For that, the event must be recorded as having happened at work — hence the importance of witnesses, calling 112 from the workplace, and a written message to the employer the same day. The rule is written for employed work (art. 156.1); we did not review case law specifically on heat stroke.

Absence of up to 4 days: what it is and what it is not

The text

Estatuto de los Trabajadores, art. 37.3 opens like this: the worker, "previo aviso y justificación, podrá ausentarse del trabajo, con derecho a remuneración, por alguno de los motivos y por el tiempo siguiente". So everything below in the list is paid absence. Among the letters of the list is the one introduced by Real Decreto-ley 8/2024 of 28 November:

"Hasta cuatro días por imposibilidad de acceder al centro de trabajo o transitar por las vías de circulación necesarias para acudir al mismo, como consecuencia de las recomendaciones, limitaciones o prohibiciones al desplazamiento establecidas por las autoridades competentes, así como cuando concurra una situación de riesgo grave e inminente, incluidas las derivadas de una catástrofe o fenómeno meteorológico adverso."

After the 4 days, the absence is extended while the circumstances persist; the company may then apply a suspension of the contract or a reduction of working hours for fuerza mayor (ET, art. 47.6). If the work is compatible with remote work and the communication networks allow it, the company may set it up, complying with Ley 10/2021 on remote work.

Three things people get wrong about it

• It is not "heat leave". The triggers in the text are inability to reach the workplace or travel the necessary roads because of recommendations, restrictions or bans by the authorities, or a "situación de riesgo grave e inminente". Heat as such is not named. Whether a red aviso by itself gives the right to these days when the road is open and the employer is waiting — we found no official reading from the Ministerio de Trabajo or the Inspección. The Ministerio de Trabajo note on Plan Estival 2026 recalls that the RDL 8/2024 measures, including this absence, are applicable in the summer period — but that is a reminder, not an interpretation of the conditions.
• It was introduced by RDL 8/2024, not RDL 4/2023. The 2023 rule is about the employer's duties in heat; the 2024 rule covers disasters and adverse weather events in general, not only heat. Sources attributing the "4 days" to the 2023 law are wrong; "Real Decreto Legislativo 8/2024" is also wrong — it is a Real Decreto-ley.
• It has no official name, and citing it "by letter" is unreliable: the consolidated text of art. 37.3 now has two letters g — the second, on organ donation, was added by Ley 6/2024 and has applied since March 2025. Call it by its text: "permiso del art. 37.3 ET por imposibilidad de acceder al centro de trabajo". "Permiso climático" is press shorthand; the name does not appear in the ET text.

When this absence really works in a heatwave, going by the text of the rule itself: the authorities have closed roads or advised against travel, or a risk near your way to work has been recognised as serious and imminent. Those situations are covered in detail in the guides on floods and DANA and on wildfires.

Who is outside these rules — or on their edge

Autónomos

Ley 20/2007 del Estatuto del trabajo autónomo, art. 8.7: "El trabajador autónomo tendrá derecho a interrumpir su actividad y abandonar el lugar de trabajo cuando considere que dicha actividad entraña un riesgo grave e inminente para su vida o salud" — the same formula as in the LPRL. If you work on a client's premises or alongside its workers, that client is bound by the duties of cooperation, information and instruction (art. 8.3), and the client company must monitor compliance with prevention rules when the work is part of its own activity ("propia actividad") and is done at its own premises (art. 8.4). What there is not: the paid absence under ET, art. 37.3 — that is a rule for employees. The RD 486/1997 rule is addressed to the employer; for an autónomo without employees it works as their own responsibility for themselves — that is our reading, the text has no such sentence. On status and contributions, see the guide on autónomo.

Domestic workers

Until 2022 the LPRL expressly excluded domestic work (art. 3.4); that paragraph was deleted by Real Decreto-ley 16/2022. Today prevention in a private home is governed by RD 893/2024 — and "exclusivamente" by it (art. 1.2), so the RD 486/1997 outdoor rule does not apply directly to the home, on our reading. What RD 893/2024 does contain: the employer must carry out an initial risk assessment (art. 3.1) and, where the assessment shows risks, record the measures in writing, with a date, giving the worker a copy (art. 3.3); the worker may interrupt work "cuando considere que dicha actividad entraña un riesgo grave e inminente para su vida o su salud, así como a abandonar el domicilio si fuera necesario", informing the employer immediately, and may not suffer any penalty for it, except for mala fe or negligencia grave (art. 6.2). What it does not contain: a single word on temperature or heat anywhere in the RD. Whether the up-to-4-day absence under the ET applies to you we could not verify — noted below.

Work without a contract or without alta

All the rules above are written for the "persona trabajadora" in an employment relationship. How they work for someone working without a contract or without registration with the Seguridad Social we did not research in this guide, and we claim nothing. Two things do not depend on status: calling 112 and emergency care for heat stroke. The Plan Estival 2026 note separately warns that the Inspección steps up checks on alta and cotización in summer, especially in agriculture, hostelería and retail.

Inspección and sanctions: without figures

No article of the LISOS (RDLeg 5/2000) names heat. The general offences apply: failing to carry out the risk assessment or to adopt the measures that follow from it is an infracción grave (art. 12.1.b); breaching prevention rules in a way that creates a serious risk to health, including in the design and maintenance of workplaces, is grave (art. 12.16); obstructing workers' right to stop work under a riesgo grave e inminente is muy grave (art. 13.9), as is failing to adopt any other applicable preventive measures from which a serious and imminent risk derives ("no adoptar cualesquiera otras medidas preventivas aplicables… de las que se derive un riesgo grave e inminente", art. 13.10). The scale of amounts is in art. 40.2; which grade applies to a specific heat case is for the Inspección to decide, and there is no "heat fine" as a separate figure in the law — the sums circulating online are the top of the general scale, not a rule about heat.

The Ministerio de Trabajo note of 9 June 2026 on the Plan Estival: monitoring is stepped up in the activities most exposed to high temperatures — agriculture, construction and other sectors — and the Inspección "prioriza las actuaciones que se deriven de denuncias motivadas por las personas trabajadoras que sufren estrés térmico". The denuncia is your tool.

What is changing

Status as of 3 October 2026: on 28 April 2026 the Consejo de Ministros approved an anteproyecto de ley that amends the LPRL, the Estatuto de los Trabajadores and the Reglamento de los Servicios de Prevención and makes action measures for disasters and adverse weather events mandatory — it is a draft, not a law, and as far as we found it has not entered into force. Real Decreto-ley 8/2024 (disposición final quinta) instructed the Government to adopt within 12 months a regulation on protecting workers from the effects of climate change; RDL 8/2024 took effect on 30 November 2024, so the deadline ran out in late November 2025; we found no adopted text. The INSST technical guide on RD 486/1997 dates from 2015 — before the 2023 reform — and is not law.

What we could not confirm

• Whether heat alone gives the right to the absence under ET, art. 37.3 when the road is open and the business is running — no official reading from the Ministerio de Trabajo or Inspección criterion found.
• Whether that absence applies to domestic workers — we could not obtain the consolidated text of RD 1620/2011 on the special employment relationship.
• Whether the duty to adapt under an orange or red aviso reaches a private home as a workplace — not found.
• How "grave e inminente" has been read in heat cases by courts and the Inspección — not searched.
• Case law on heat stroke as an accident at work — not reviewed.
• Current Meteoalerta thresholds — we have the 2022 version of the plan; current values are on aemet.es.
• Which LISOS grade applies to heat breaches — the law does not say; the Inspección decides.
• Sectoral convenios colectivos may add heat rules (ET, art. 85.1 requires protocols to be negotiated) — we did not study them; ask your company's comité.
• The Congreso resolution validating RDL 4/2023 — not found; the consolidated RD 486/1997 shows the rule in force without changes.

Common mistakes

• Walking off the job "because it is red". The warning colour alone gives no right to leave; the ground is a riesgo grave e inminente (LPRL, art. 21.2). First demand the risk-assessment measures, record, then act.
• Pushing through symptoms so as "not to let the crew down". Heat stroke at work is presumed to be an accident at work — a rebuttable presumption (LGSS, art. 156.3); 112 from the workplace and a message to the employer the same day.
• Demanding "27 °C" on a building site or in a field. Anexo III does not apply there (art. 1.2 RD 486/1997); only the bad-weather rule does.
• Asking for "permiso climático" on a hot day with the road open. The conditions are inability to reach work, authority restrictions, or a serious and imminent risk; on heat as such the text is silent.
• Citing the "fine of almost a million for heat". That is the top of the general LISOS scale, not a rule about heat; leave the figures to the Inspección.
• Thinking an autónomo is entirely outside the rules. The right to stop exists (LETA, art. 8.7); only the paid absence under the ET is missing.
• Paying for water and protection yourself. The cost of measures cannot fall on the worker (LPRL, art. 14.5).

This article is for reference and describes the general state rules; your convenio colectivo and your company's risk assessment may add rules — check boe.es (RD 486/1997, LPRL, Estatuto de los Trabajadores), aemet.es (the current aviso for your zone) and the Inspección de Trabajo website. Facts checked against these sources on 3 October 2026. If you need a Russian- or Ukrainian-speaking employment lawyer, see our verified directory.