What is FUNDAE and how does funded training (formación bonificada) work in Spain?

FUNDAE (Fundación Estatal para la Formación en el Empleo) is a Spanish state-sector foundation that acts as the collaborating and technical-support body of SEPE, the public employment service, for employment-related training. For companies, the best-known scheme is company-programmed training, usually called *formación bonificada* (funded training).

The basic idea. Companies pay a vocational training contribution with their social security payments. In return, each year they have a training credit they can recover by training their staff. It is not paid out: the company applies it as a discount (bonificación) on its social security contributions after the training has taken place.

Usual steps:

1. Check your available credit in the FUNDAE application. 2. Inform the workers' legal representatives, if there are any. 3. Notify the training action and the start of each group in the FUNDAE application, on time. 4. Deliver the training, keeping attendance evidence and, for a virtual classroom, the connection log. 5. Notify completion and costs. 6. Apply the discount in your social security contributions.

Who does what. The company can manage it itself or appoint an organising entity. Training is delivered by the company with its own resources or by a training provider registered in the State Register of Training Entities. Platforms and tools help produce the evidence, but notifications are filed by the company or the responsible entity.

Formats. In person (including the virtual classroom, which counts as in-person in 2026), e-learning (teleformación) or blended.

The virtual classroom rules are renewed every year by a SEPE resolution; the 2026 rules are in BOE-A-2025-25790. No tool can guarantee that training will be funded: that depends on meeting the requirements and on checks by the control bodies.