In Spain, the number of serious workplace accidents during working hours fell by 5.6 percent in the first half of 2026 compared with the same period in 2025. This is according to official figures from the Instituto Nacional de Seguridad y Salud en el Trabajo (INSST), Spain’s national institute for occupational safety and health. The figures paint a mixed picture: the decline in serious accidents coincides with a rise in the total number of accidents involving sick leave and a notable increase in fatalities among self-employed workers.
What do the figures show?
Between January and June 2026, Spain recorded 1,700 serious accidents during working hours, a hundred fewer than in the same period of 2025. Serious commuting accidents (in itinere), by contrast, rose by 1.8 percent. The total number of fatal workplace accidents came to 358, five fewer than a year earlier, a decrease of 1.4 percent. Of these, 290 victims died during working hours and 68 while commuting. Men accounted for 94.7 percent of fatalities, women for 5.3 percent.
Among salaried employees, the number of fatalities fell to 322, a decrease of 3.6 percent. Among the self-employed, by contrast, this number rose to 36, an increase of 24.1 percent. The total number of accidents involving sick leave rose by 1.8 percent to 303,853, while accidents without sick leave fell by 0.7 percent. The incidence index during working hours came to 203.9 per 100,000 insured workers, a decrease of 1.1 percent. INSST cites natural causes such as heart attacks and strokes (119 cases), falls (51), being trapped or crushed (49) and traffic accidents (36) as the leading causes of death during working hours.
Which sectors stand out?
Construction remains the sector with the highest fatality rate, at 0.98 fatalities per 100,000 insured workers, although this figure improved by 4.5 percent compared with 2025. Industry showed the largest improvement, with its fatality index falling by 22.3 percent. The agricultural sector recorded a decrease of 3.1 percent. The services sector was the only one to see a rise, up 1.3 percent, although its absolute level, at 0.14 fatalities per 100,000 insured workers, remains considerably lower than in construction.
Context
The Spanish figures fit into a broader, less clear-cut European picture. According to the most recent Eurostat data, 3,367 people died in workplace accidents across the European Union in 2024, a rise of 1.4 percent compared with 2023. At the same time, the number of non-fatal workplace accidents across the EU fell by 1.5 percent to 2.78 million. At EU level too, construction was the sector with the most fatalities, with 776, followed by transport and storage (537) and manufacturing (466). For HSE professionals worldwide, these half-year and annual figures underscore that progress on one front (fewer serious accidents, fewer non-fatal injuries) does not automatically carry over to other indicators, such as fatal accidents among the self-employed in Spain or the slight rise in fatal accidents across the EU.
Source: Los accidentes graves en jornada de trabajo se reducen un 5,6% durante el primer semestre de 2026, 5 October 2026. Additional source: Eurostat figures on fatal and non-fatal workplace accidents in the EU (2024), via Brussels Times.
