Informe de vida laboral

Key facts

Why expats get asked for a document with an empty history

The counter-intuitive part first: institutions ask new arrivals for a vida laboral precisely because it may be empty. The report is negative evidence — an official statement of everything the social security system knows about you — so a blank one proves you have no Spanish employment record, and a short one dates exactly when your record began.

That matters in practice:

• Mortgages and loans. Spanish lenders assess your standing partly through your contribution history. An expat applying for a mortgage will be asked for the vida laboral alongside payslips — even if the Spanish part of their career is three months old. Lenders often want it together with the certificates of residence covered elsewhere in this node.
• Residence permit renewals. Renewals of work-based permits lean on evidence that you actually worked and contributed; extranjería offices routinely expect the report in the file.
• Job applications and public programmes. Employers and administrations use it to verify declared experience in Spain, and some benefits are calculated from days contributed.

There is no need to "build up" a history before requesting one. Request it whenever it is asked for; the system simply prints what it has.

How to get it in about two minutes

The TGSS moved citizen procedures to Import@ss, and the vida laboral is its flagship service. The whole process is online and free:

1. Open the Import@ss portal (portal.seg-social.gob.es) and choose "Informe de tu vida laboral".
2. Identify yourself. Three routes work: Cl@ve (PIN or Permanente), a digital certificate installed in your browser or phone, or — the route most new arrivals miss — simplified identification via SMS: your NIE, date of birth and the mobile number you previously registered with the TGSS.
3. The report is generated in about a minute. Download the PDF; it carries a secure verification code (CSV) that lets any institution check its authenticity online.

If none of the identification routes work for you yet — typically because the TGSS has no mobile number on file and you have neither Cl@ve nor a certificate — the report can be obtained through a representative; e-residence operates a vida laboral report service for exactly that gap. The durable fix, though, is to get a digital certificate: it unlocks this and every other sede electrónica in Spain.

What is inside the report

The vida laboral is a chronological table of your entire relationship with Spanish social security:

• Every alta — each date you were registered: hired by an employer, registered as self-employed (autónomo), or enrolled in any other contribution regime.
• Every baja — each date a registration ended.
• The regime and employer for each spell — General Regime, RETA for the self-employed, and so on.
• Days contributed, totalled — the figure pensions and many benefits are built on.

Read it the way institutions do: gaps are visible, overlaps are visible, and an employer who never actually registered you is conspicuous by absence. Checking your own vida laboral after starting a new job is the standard way to confirm your alta really happened. Note what the report is not: it does not show your address — that is what the empadronamiento is for — and it is not proof of residence status.

⚠ Scams to avoid

• ✗ Paid "vida laboral issuing" websites. The report is free from Import@ss. Sites charging to "issue" or "expedite" it are reselling a free public service — at best.
• ✗ Phishing SMS "from the Seguridad Social". The TGSS does send SMS codes during identification, but it does not send links asking for card details or fees. Type the portal address yourself; never enter data through a link in an unexpected message.
• ✗ "Certified translations required" upsells. For use inside Spain, the PDF with its verification code is the document. Translation is only a genuine need abroad.