Average payment period in Spanish construction: 96.5 days
Andrés Segnini Capriles7 min read
- Construction96.5
- Whole economy79.0
- Agri-food74.4
- Industry74.3
- Services70.6
Construction in Spain closed 2025 with an average payment period of 96.5 days, the highest of any sector and 36.5 days above the legal maximum of 60, according to the CEPYME Late Payment Observatory. It is the average time the sector’s commercial transactions take to be paid: the time whoever did the work waits to get paid for it.
Key figures
- 96.5 days
- Average payment period in construction, Q4 2025. The first value above 95 days since early 2024. CEPYME / CESCE
- +6.1 days
- More than a year earlier: the sector stood at 90.4 days at the end of 2024. CEPYME / CESCE
- 80.5 days
- Average across all companies in 2025, 34% above the legal maximum. CEPYME / CESCE
- 87 days
- Average period in which main contractors pay their subcontractors. PMcM, Payment Terms in Spain 2025
- 85%
- Of large companies fail to meet the legal payment terms. PMcM, Payment Terms in Spain 2025
- 30.4%
- Of invoice value was paid on time at the end of 2025, compared with 32.6% a year earlier. Figure for the whole economy. CEPYME / Informa D&B
Construction, the slowest sector to pay
In the fourth quarter of 2025, the average payment period in construction was 17.5 days longer than for the economy as a whole and almost 26 days longer than for services. It isn’t one bad quarter: among the major sectors, construction has had the longest period at every year-end since 2021.
| Sector | Q4 2024 | Q4 2025 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Construction | 90.4 | 96.5 | +6.1 |
| Whole economy | 79.7 | 79.0 | −0.7 |
| Agri-food | 73.0 | 74.4 | +1.4 |
| Industry | 76.0 | 74.3 | −1.7 |
| Services | 73.7 | 70.6 | −3.1 |
Days. Source: CEPYME, Late Payment Observatory, H2 2025, table 1 (CESCE data).
And inside that figure there is a worse one. The default rate on construction’s credit sales invoices is 55% above the national average: payment isn’t only later, it is also worse.
Five years of data
The year-end series shows a slow improvement that 2025 wiped out in one go:
See the data
| Q4 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Construction | 98.5 | 96.6 | 95.1 | 90.4 | 96.5 |
| Whole economy | 81.7 | 80.4 | 80.4 | 79.7 | 79.0 |
The jump came at the end of the year. Quarter by quarter, construction went through 91.7 days in the first, 93.2 in the second and 92.5 in the third before closing at 96.5.
What lies beneath the average
An average of 96.5 days hides very different situations. Two figures from Spain’s Multisector Platform against Late Payment (PMcM) help show where the problem is concentrated:
- The chain stretches the term. Main contractors pay their subcontractors at 87 days on average. Each level of subcontracting usually waits to be paid by the level above before paying the one below.
- Size matters. 85% of large companies fail to meet the legal payment terms. When the client is large and the supplier small, the payment term is rarely negotiated between equals.
The delay also has a measurable cost: CEPYME estimates that the financial cost of trade debt reached 5,568 million euros in the fourth quarter of 2025, almost 2,000 million of it borne by SMEs.
Every day past 60 is a day in which whoever did the work is financing whoever commissioned it.
What it means for a project
Applied to a specific progress certificate: if a contractor certifies 38,400 euros of structural work and gets paid at the sector’s average pace, it spends 96.5 days advancing that amount. Of those, 36.5 are beyond the legal maximum. Multiplied by every open progress certificate on every project, that advance is the cash the company can’t use to buy materials, pay its people or start the next job.
If you want to put a figure on your own case, the Gap Calculator (in Spanish) works out how much money you have at risk on your project. And if you’re looking for ways to shorten that period, we explain them in how to get paid for a progress certificate without waiting 90 days.
How to read these figures
- Average payment period and collection period are the same calculation seen from two sides. The days the client takes to pay are the days the contractor waits to get paid.
- CEPYME’s figures come from CESCE data on domestic commercial transactions, weighted by amount. The percentage of invoices paid on time comes from Informa D&B.
- PMcM’s figures come from a different study, with its own sample and method. That is why they are not added to or compared directly with CEPYME’s: each is cited with its source.
Sources: CEPYME, Late Payment Observatory, H2 2025 (CESCE and Informa D&B data) · Multisector Platform against Late Payment (PMcM), report Estudio Plazos de Pago en España 2025 · Law 3/2004, consolidated text (BOE).
What sits behind getting paid on time
| Division | What it brings here |
|---|---|
| CostPact | The budget that sets each milestone and its amount, and the measurement and draft progress certificate that start the payment. |
| PactStream | Safekeeping of the amount in an escrow account before work starts, and its release in under 24 hours from certification. Switching on with our first clients. |
| FiscalCore | The cash flow and taxes of each payment, with Spain’s tax forms 303, 111 and 130 in real time and tracking of due dates. |
| PropertyJourney | When the project is a real estate development, the sales that start it and the handover and after-sales that close it. |
Frequently asked questions
What is the average payment period in Spanish construction?
96.5 days at the end of 2025, according to the CEPYME Late Payment Observatory with CESCE data. It is the highest average payment period of any sector, compared with 79.0 days for the whole economy in the same quarter.
What is the legal maximum payment term between businesses in Spain?
Sixty calendar days. Law 3/2004 sets 30 days if the contract says nothing and allows it to be extended by agreement, but never beyond 60.
Why does construction take longer to get paid than other sectors?
Because of the combination of payments by progress certificate that depend on prior approval, long contracts with large amounts, and subcontracting chains in which each level waits to be paid before paying the next.
Has the payment period in construction improved?
It improved between 2021 and 2024, from 98.5 to 90.4 days at each year-end, but in 2025 it rose again to 96.5 days, the highest value since early 2024.
