The bullfighters who step on the ring (matadores, banderilleros and choppers) can be retired at age 55, and professionals who work in the alley (sword and aid young men) at 65. For this, the bars of the crews must prove that they have participated in a minimum of 150 celebrations over 10 years of their active life, which amounts to 200 in the case of the subaltern. cluster.
This is one of the peculiarities established by Royal Decree 2621/1986 of December 24, whereby Bullfighting professionals are integrated into the General Social Security regime, with the same rights and duties of any worker on behalf of others, although with special contribution connotations by the characteristics of their activity, as with the artists and soccer players, among other groups.
This is what Rafael Barcia, director of Barcia Consulting, tells a Sevillian office dedicated to fiscal and labor advice, with a very long experience in the bullfighting sector.
Professionals have the right to specific health coverage for their profession if they are active, either because in the month of January of each year they have submitted their annual census statement, or because from their first performance in that season they have registered in the General Treasury of Social Security.
A Bullfighting Professional by accident must continue paying social security contribution
The entrepreneur who organizes a show is obliged to pay the social contributions of the actors as an indispensable condition for the subsequent authorization of the celebration; And of this prerequisite only those considered ‘usual businessmen’ are exempt, coincident, in general, with those of the first category places. “It is evident that social security is cured in health and ensures the economic disbursement to which entrepreneurs are obliged,” says Barcia.
The maximum contribution bases of the bullfighters are established annually by the central administration, and those of this year 2025 are the following: 1,514 euros per celebration for matadores and rejoneadores classified in groups A (those that have participated in the previous season in a minimum of 37 runs) and B (between 13 and 36 runs); 1,396 euros for each chopper and banderillero of both groups; 1,047 euros, for matadores and rejoneadores of Group C (less than 13 celebrations the previous year) and remaining choppers and banderilleros; and 626 euros for sword young men, aid, bullfighters and comic bullfighters.
The entrepreneur pays 33% of these amounts for social contributions, and 6.4% more contribution of each professional, which is discounted from the final liquidation.
As with the rest of the workers of any sector, these quotes, whose amount varies according to the emoluments that are perceived, are the prelude to economic benefits due to common contingencies and accidents (fuck, fundamentally) and access to unemployment and retirement.
If a bullfighter is forced to stop working for an accident, he has the right to a temporary disability subsid 4,909.50 euros per month.
The problem is that the professional must continue paying the price during the time to leave, so, in general, the difference between what is perceived and what must continue to pay social security is a ridiculous amount.
Social quotes are only stopped paying if, after the decline, the injured period is recognized a total or absolute permanent disability.
Also, like any worker, bullfighters have the right to unemployment benefit.
The vast majority of bullfighters, including figures, request unemployment when the season ends, and who does not accumulate the four months to which he is entitled for each season quoted for later years. And it is not strange, in addition, the case of professionals who take advantage of the winter to request a work decline for the healing of some ailment that have dragged during the months of activity or to register in another professional activity.
The daily amount of unemployment benefit is calculated from the average of the quotation bases of the 180 days prior to unemployment, proofing those bases between the quoted days of that period. It is mandatory to have quoted a minimum of 365 days (a full year) within the six years prior to the date on which unemployment benefit is requested. The maximum unemployment provision never exceeds the amount of 1,575 euros per month, and it is the State Public Employment Service (SEPE) that determines the amount depending on the daily regulatory base that results to each professional for their real contributions.
“It is a neat regulation,” Barcia concludes, “but it equates the bullfighters with the rest of the workers since 1987, an achievement that must be appreciated to the insistence and effort of the National Union of Spanish choppers and banderilleros.”
Mariano de la Viña is still a lawsuit with Social Security
Mariano de la Viña (Albacete, 56 years old) is alive of a miracle after a bull wounded him of maximum severity on October 13, 2019 in the Plaza de Zaragoza. Subaltern of trust in the gang of Enrique Ponce, entered the nursing in “cataclysmic state”, according to the medical part signed by Dr. Val Carreres.
Today, almost six years after that drama, with serious locomotive, nervous and circulatory sequelae, there is still a social security lawsuit in order to recognize an absolute disability for the performance of any work activity.
This is said by María Amelia Buedo, lawyer Albacete, in charge of the case, which in October 2024 filed an appeal before the Superior Court of Justice of Castilla-La Mancha and still awaits the sentence.
Of the vineyard exhausted the 18 months of leave due to transitory work disability during which 75% of the regulatory base of the maximum contribution that he paid during his active life was charged monthly. But as I had to continue the payment of social security, the difference between what he received and what he paid in a low situation rarely exceeded 100 euros. “A nonsense only relieved by the savings of the bullfighter after a long professional career,” in Buedo’s opinion.
After this period, at the proposal of the mutual Fremap, the total permanent disability was granted, which supposed a relief, since it charged 55% of its regulatory base and was exempt from the payment of the social security contribution.
“But that recognition,” explains the lawyer, “supposed Mariano was disabled for her profession, which was evident, but not for another work activity.”
And as soon as the resolution reached the office was appealed to the National Institute of Social Security (INSS), which dismissed it, to which a appeal followed before the Social Court number 1 of Albacete, which also sentenced against the bullfighter.
Mariano de la Viña turned 55 in October 2023, date from which he began to collect 75% of the regulatory base, but Buedo continues because he considers that “he is sufficiently accredited by the medical reports that Mariano cannot perform any type of work, and the absolute inability would allow him to perceive 100% of the regulatory base”.
Lawyer and client await with patience – the verdicts of the High Court Manchego usually take between two and three years – that, in the end, justice gives them reason.