Spain's Law 1/2026 on the social economy: what changes for cooperatives

The legal framework governing cooperatives and the social economy has been renewed by a statute that updates their internal governance, improves the social security position of worker-members and tightens control over the misuse of the cooperative form. Anyone who is a member of a cooperative, or is considering setting one up, now operates under a different framework.

What Law 1/2026 is and which statutes it amends

Law 1/2026 of 8 April, the comprehensive act promoting the social economy, was published in the Spanish Official State Gazette (BOE) on 9 April 2026 and entered into force the following day, in accordance with its fifth final provision. It is not an isolated reform of the cooperatives act. Its first article amends Law 27/1999 of 16 July on Cooperatives; its second article, Law 44/2007 of 13 December governing insertion enterprises; its third article, Law 5/2011 of 29 March on the Social Economy; and its fourth article, Law 20/1990 of 19 December on the Tax Regime of Cooperatives.

Its final provisions also reach Law 31/1995 of 8 November on the Prevention of Occupational Risks, Law 9/2017 of 8 November on Public Sector Contracts — whose fourth additional provision, on reserved contracts, is rewritten —, Law 19/2021 of 20 December on the minimum living income, and Royal Decree-Law 1/2023 of 10 January on employment hiring incentives. This is therefore a cross-cutting reform rather than a mere corporate adjustment.

The corporate website and the digitalisation of internal governance

One of the pillars of the reform is the digitalisation of cooperative governance and of relations with members. The new article 3 bis of Law 27/1999 regulates the corporate website as the channel for publishing the notices, acts and resolutions provided for in the act and in the bylaws, and requires every member to be given access credentials. Its creation or removal must be approved by the General Assembly, expressly included in the agenda, and must be registered with the Register of Cooperative Societies; until that registration takes place, entries made by the cooperative on the website have no legal effect.

A corporate website is mandatory for cooperatives with more than five hundred members. That particular obligation, however, did not enter into force with the rest of the act: the fifth final provision defers it by one year, so it becomes enforceable from April 2027. For all other cooperatives the website remains optional and, if adopted, must be provided for in the bylaws under article 3 of the same act.

Equality: balanced representation, committee and cooperative plans

The scope of the equality measures deserves precision, because they do not all carry the same degree of obligation. Article 19 of Law 27/1999 does impose a duty: cooperative societies and their associative structures must ensure balanced representation of women and men among the members sitting on whichever bodies they have, so that members of each sex neither exceed sixty per cent nor fall below forty per cent. The Equality Committee under the new article 44 bis, by contrast, is optional: cooperatives with fifty or more members may set one up, as may smaller ones if the Governing Board so resolves.

The cooperative equality plan under the new article 83 bis follows the same logic: worker cooperatives may draw up and implement one, applicable exclusively to their worker-members. What is mandatory, once the plan has been approved by the Governing Board, is its entry in the public register created for that purpose. Registration confers on the plan, within its scope, the same effects that Organic Law 3/2007 of 22 March attaches to workplace equality plans, including those operating in public procurement and in the award of public grants and subsidies. The plan may not run for more than four years. Until that register is made available, the first transitional provision refers to the deposit regime under the twelfth additional provision of Law 11/2023 of 8 May, and allows three months to register the plan once registration becomes possible. A different matter is the worker cooperative which, given its size, is already required to draw up an equality plan under article 45 of Organic Law 3/2007: in that case the content of both plans must be kept consistent.

Contribution reductions and rebates for worker-members

In the social security field, article 80 of Law 27/1999, as newly worded, introduces a significant improvement. Its paragraph 9 provides that worker-members of worker cooperatives are entitled, irrespective of the social security scheme under which they are registered, to the rebates or reductions in contribution rates established for employees or, as the case may be, for self-employed workers. This is a step towards equalising the rights of those who work under a cooperative arrangement, who until now fell outside incentives designed for salaried or self-employed work.

The same paragraph adds a second rule of assimilation: worker-members are treated as employees where the cooperative must evidence a number of jobs or headcount, whether in public body projects, for public procurement purposes or for subsidies, and also where a member must evidence to third parties the professional experience gained within the cooperative.

Disqualification of false cooperatives

The reform pays particular attention to the use of the cooperative form as a mechanism for disguised outsourcing of labour. Article 116 of Law 27/1999, rewritten in full, lists the grounds for disqualification and adds one aimed specifically at this practice: worker cooperatives that confine themselves to providing their worker-members with administrative and invoicing services for the formal engagement, or with social security registrations and deregistrations, where the client is brought in by the worker-member. Cooperatives providing public services, mutual societies and any others determined by regulation are excluded from this ground. It is also a ground for disqualification to prevent members from participating in and democratically managing the corporate bodies, or to allow this to occur other than on equal terms.

The procedure is governed by Law 39/2015 of 1 October, with significant particularities: a mandatory report from the Labour and Social Security Inspectorate, deemed issued if not delivered within one month; competence vested in the head of the ministry responsible for the social economy; and judicial review of the decision, which is not enforceable until a final judgment is handed down. The effect is severe: once final, disqualification takes effect in the register of its own motion and entails the dissolution of the cooperative followed by its liquidation. For legitimate cooperatives this tightening reinforces the security and standing of the form; for those who misuse it, the risk is no longer merely the loss of advantages, but the very survival of the company.

Housing cooperatives as specially protected cooperatives

The fourth article of the act amends Law 20/1990, with effect for tax periods beginning on or after 1 January 2025, and adds housing cooperatives to the list of specially protected cooperatives in its article 7. The new article 12 bis defines the category precisely: they must bring together natural persons in order to provide them, at cost price, with housing for habitual residence under a right of use derived from the corporate relationship; they may not transfer to their members ownership of, or any right in rem over, the properties or parts of them; contributions to capital and other refundable contributions may not exceed twenty per cent of the housing development costs; and their bylaws must expressly include the particulars set out in points (a) to (d) of the first additional provision of Law 27/1999. Where those requirements are met, the cooperative gains access to the tax benefits under articles 33 and 34 of Law 20/1990.

How we help with cooperatives and the social economy at RCM Legal

There are two situations that the reform makes particularly worth reviewing: that of an existing cooperative, which must measure its bylaws, its information and participation channels and the composition of its bodies against the new framework before the corporate website obligation becomes enforceable in April 2027; and that of anyone considering the cooperative form for a project and needing to structure it so that it does not fall within any of the grounds for disqualification under article 116. The most common difficulty is not learning what the reform says, but telling apart which measures are mandatory and which are optional: treating a duty as voluntary, or the reverse, leads to very different corporate decisions and to consequences that reach as far as dissolution.

At RCM Legal we advise on the incorporation, bylaw adaptation and day-to-day operation of cooperatives and social economy entities under Law 1/2026. As commercial lawyers in Murcia, if you are a member of a cooperative or are considering setting one up in the Region of Murcia, tell us about your project and we will help you fit it into the new framework with certainty.