Law 9/2025: Spain's Sustainable Mobility Act — what you need to know

Law 9/2025 on Sustainable Mobility entered into force on 5 December 2025. It is the first Spanish law to recognise mobility as a citizens’ right — but beyond the headline, it introduces specific obligations for companies: if any of your workplaces employs more than 200 people, this law applies to you directly.

The essentials in two minutes

The law creates a new obligation: the Sustainable Commuting Plan (Plan de Movilidad Sostenible al Trabajo, PMST). It is not optional, it has a deadline, and there are penalties for non-compliance. Summary:

• Who is affected: Companies with workplaces of more than 200 employees (or more than 100 per shift)
• What you must do: Draft a plan that organises how your employees commute to work, prioritising sustainable options
• Deadline: 5 December 2026 — cut from 24 to 12 months by art. 63 of Royal Decree-Law 7/2026
• Mandatory negotiation: The plan must be negotiated with employee representatives
• Penalties: From €101 to €2,000 for minor infractions, up to €6,000 for serious ones

Does this apply to your organisation?

Situation	Obligation
Workplace with more than 200 employees	Yes, mandatory
Workplace with more than 100 employees per shift	Yes, mandatory — but only where there are two or more shifts
Workplaces with 100–200 employees	No, but subsidies are available
Workplaces with fewer than 100 employees	No (for now)
Spanish state public sector	Yes, same thresholds
Large activity centres (business parks, hospitals, shopping centres)	Yes, with specific obligations

The threshold is measured per workplace, not per total company headcount. A company with 500 employees spread across five offices of 100 people would not be obligated. A company with 250 in a single location would be.

What the Sustainable Commuting Plan must include

The law establishes a hierarchy of measures: the most sustainable options must be prioritised. In practice, your PMST must address the following areas:

1. Active mobility Encouraging employees to cycle or walk to work. This means reviewing whether you have bicycle parking, showers, and safe access routes.

2. Public and collective transport Facilitating public transport use or creating company shuttle services. The law allows offering tax-exempt travel cards.

3. Low-emission vehicles Electric vehicle charging points, incentives for hybrid or electric cars, fleet renewal.

4. Shared mobility Employee carpooling schemes, shared company vehicles, coordination apps.

5. Remote working Where feasible, teleworking is the most effective way to reduce commuting. The plan must include it.

6. Road safety Measures to prevent commuting accidents (in itinere). Route analysis, staggered schedules, training.

The process: negotiation and registration

Having a plan is not enough — there is a formal process to follow:

Negotiate with workers: The plan must be negotiated with the legal employee representation. The law amends Article 85.1 of the Workers’ Statute to include this as a subject of collective bargaining. Where there is no union representation, a negotiating committee must be formed with sector trade unions.

Mandatory registration: Once approved, you have 3 months to notify the relevant regional authority (art. 27.3). The plan will be incorporated into the EDIM (Espacio de Datos Integrado de Movilidad), the new national mobility register. Enforcement sits with the State Secretariat for Transport (art. 110.1), not the Labour Inspectorate. The plan is also publicly accessible once communicated, including data aggregated by gender and age (art. 27.2).

Biennial review: Every two years from plan approval, you must produce a follow-up report evaluating implementation of measures. Failing to do so is also subject to sanctions.

Penalties

Non-compliance	Type	Penalty
No plan by the deadline	Minor	€101–€2,000
No follow-up reports	Minor	€101–€2,000
Significant harm to the mobility system	Serious	€2,001–€6,000

Minor infractions prescribe after 6 months. But the fines are not the main exposure: art. 64 of Royal Decree-Law 7/2026 requires an obligated company that received the direct aid granted under that decree-law and has no plan to repay that aid in full. If you have taken any of that funding, that is the risk to manage.

Other provisions you should know

Low Emission Zones (LEZ): Local authorities will be able to set charges for driving based on vehicle emissions. Breaching restrictions in LEZs becomes a serious traffic infraction. If you have a vehicle fleet or employees who commute by car into urban areas, this matters.

Freight transport: The administrative control document must be digitised within 10 months. If you operate in logistics, prepare now.

Voluntary subsidies: Even if you are not legally required to produce a PMST, workplaces with more than 100 employees (or more than 50 per shift) can access funding to prepare one voluntarily.

The ESG reporting connection

This is where it gets interesting for organisations already working on their carbon footprint.

Scope 3, Category 7 — Employee commuting: Emissions from employee commutes are one of the most significant Scope 3 categories for many businesses. The work you do for the PMST — commuting surveys, displacement pattern analysis, reduction measures — feeds directly into calculating and reducing this category.

CSRD and ESRS: If you are subject to the EU sustainability reporting directive, you will need to disclose employee mobility data. The PMST gives you the structure and the data.

In other words, this is not duplicated effort. Work done for the Mobility Law serves your carbon footprint calculation, and vice versa.

Go deeper

The Learning Hub has a full section on the PMST — thresholds and how to count seasonal staff, what the plan must contain, a ten-section structure, the survey and indicators, a measure catalogue and a roadmap to the deadline. Start with The Sustainable Commuting Plan: what it is and who answers for it.

How Dcycle can help

The mobility data collected for your PMST integrates directly into your carbon footprint calculation. Scope 3 Category 7, covered — no extra work. The biennial follow-up is fed by the same data you are already managing in Dcycle.

Next steps

If you fall within the mandatory thresholds, here is what we recommend:

1. Confirm whether you are obligated by reviewing headcount per workplace
2. Run an initial diagnostic of how your employees currently commute
3. Engage employee representatives early to get ahead of the negotiation
4. Integrate the plan with your ESG strategy to avoid duplicating effort

The deadline: you have until 5 December 2026 to have the plan approved and negotiated. Art. 63 of Royal Decree-Law 7/2026, of 20 March, cut the original 24-month period down to 12 months. Note that the Ministry’s press release says “before 31 December 2026” — the legal count of twelve months from entry into force lands on 5 December 2026, so work to that date.