Free time tracking: the best options for small businesses in 2026
Is there really such a thing as free time tracking? Yes. We go through the best free options for complying with the law without spending anything, what they include and when it is worth moving to a paid plan.
Published on
Cover photo: a small business owner smiling while using their phone (landscape)
Complying with the time tracking law does not have to cost you money. If you have a small team, there are perfectly valid free time tracking options. We explain which ones are genuinely free, what they include and when it is worth making the jump to a paid plan.
Is there really such a thing as free time tracking?
Yes, and it is worth starting with the important part: the law does not oblige you to buy anything. Article 34.9 of the Workers' Statute imposes no format, and the Ministry of Labour's guide accepts «cualquier sistema o medio, en soporte papel o telemático» — any system or means, on paper or electronically — provided the information is reliable, unalterable and impossible to manipulate after the fact. A well-kept notebook complies. What you buy when you pay for a tool is convenience and evidence, not legality.
That said, there are three routes: paper or a spreadsheet (free, but laborious and fragile as evidence), apps with a limited free plan, and those with a genuinely free plan for small teams.
The free time tracking options
- Paper or your own template — free and legal. We go into it in the time tracking template.
- Jibble — a broad free plan. It offers facial recognition: turn it off. The Agencia Española de Protección de Datos (the Spanish data protection authority) has concluded that biometric clocking in currently finds no basis in Spanish law, not even with the worker's consent.
- Clockify — free and generous, but aimed at project time tracking rather than at the Spanish legal record.
We have not audited them one by one: check for yourself that the one you choose records a start and an end, does not allow the past to be rewritten and lets you export and keep four years.
⚠️ Paper and spreadsheets are legal, but…
- They get filled in after the fact, and then they stop being reliable.
- They get lost and they are work to square.
- They leave no trace of when each line was written, which is exactly what you have to be able to prove.
And about Cairos, in case you arrived looking for it
As of today, 4 September 2026: when this article was written, you still could not see the team's hours in Cairos. Now you can, and it is worth spelling out exactly how, because it is not what people usually assume: Cairos does not clock anyone in. The working time record is kept by ficheo.app and Cairos reads it — read-only — to show those hours next to your invoices and split them by project. A clocking that needs correcting is corrected in ficheo, which is where the record the law requires lives. With your ficheo account connected, that module is not charged separately in Cairos.
Note of 4 September 2026: Cairos and clocking in
As of today, 4 September 2026: when this article was written, you still could not see the team's hours in Cairos. Now you can, and it is worth spelling out exactly how, because it is not what people usually assume: Cairos does not clock anyone in. The working time record is kept by ficheo.app and Cairos reads it — read-only — to show those hours next to your invoices and split them by project. A clocking that needs correcting is corrected in ficheo, which is where the record the law requires lives. With your ficheo account connected, that module is not charged separately in Cairos.
See the plans and what they includeWhen is it worth moving to a paid plan?
When paper stops adding up. With two people you keep it by hand; with fifteen, every month you lose hours squaring clockings, chasing signatures and filing. The jump is usually worth it for features like geolocation, holidays and absences, reports or integrations with your payroll program. Compare the price with the hours it costs you to do it by hand today, not with zero.
Beware of the 'free' options that are not
Many "free" offers are really 14- to 30-day trials that charge afterwards, or free plans so limited that they do not comply with the law. Before choosing, check: is it genuinely free or just a trial? does it record working hours lawfully? does it export reports? If all three answers are yes, go ahead.
Frequently asked questions
Your hours, in the same program that invoices
Cairos does not clock anyone in: the working time record is kept by ficheo.app, and Cairos reads those hours to split them by project and keep them next to your invoices. With your ficheo account connected, the module is not charged separately.