Uber Eats has agreed to pay approximately €110M to the Spanish Labour Inspectorate for unpaid social security contributions covering roughly 60,000 delivery riders between 2022 and 2025. The settlement marks a critical enforcement moment for Spain's 2021 "Rider Law" and signals a precedent that could reshape gig economy regulation across the European Union—including Italy, where similar legal battles are already underway.
Why This Matters for You (If You Live in Italy)
If you're a delivery rider in Italy or concerned about gig-economy working conditions, this Spanish settlement directly affects your future. Spain's €110M enforcement action demonstrates that regulators and courts across Europe are willing to aggressively hold platforms accountable for worker misclassification. Italy is following suit with even sharper enforcement tools:
• Regulatory ripple effect: Italy has already begun prosecuting Glovo and Deliveroo for "digital caporalato" (digital labor exploitation), with criminal penalties looming. Simultaneously, a new decree came into force on 1 May 2026 presuming platform workers are employees unless proven otherwise.
• €110M precedent: Spain's settlement is among the largest enforcement actions in Europe for misclassified gig workers, establishing that platforms can no longer defer compliance indefinitely. This benchmark strengthens the case for Italian riders seeking retroactive contributions and back pay.
• EU Directive 2024/2831 requires all member states to transpose worker-protection standards for platform labor by 2 December 2026, meaning Spain's experience serves as a roadmap for Italian authorities and courts interpreting the new legal framework.
What This Means for Italy's Riders, Consumers, and Workers
For riders currently working in Italy, the Primo Maggio Decree (Decree-Law 62 of 30 April 2026, effective 1 May 2026) offers stronger legal footing to challenge misclassification. You can now:
• File complaints with the Ispettorato Nazionale del Lavoro (National Labour Inspectorate) or regional labor offices asserting employee status.
• Seek retroactive social contributions and back pay through labor tribunals.
• Join class actions organized by unions such as NIdiL-CGIL, Filcams-CGIL, and Filt-CGIL, which are already pursuing collective claims against Uber Eats and Deliveroo.
For consumers, potential service disruptions are possible as platforms restructure their operations. Spain saw temporary reductions in courier availability during the transition, though coverage has since stabilized. Prices may rise modestly to reflect higher labor costs, though competitive pressure among platforms limits any dramatic increases.
For investors and entrepreneurs operating in Italy's gig economy, the regulatory environment has fundamentally shifted. Business models predicated on contractor flexibility must now budget for full employment costs or face enforcement risk. The €110M Spain precedent demonstrates that deferred compliance accumulates into existential liabilities.
Spain's "Rider Law" and the €110M Reckoning
Spain enacted its Rider Law in August 2021, establishing a legal presumption that food-delivery couriers are employees, not independent contractors. The reform followed a September 2020 Supreme Court ruling that recognized a Glovo rider as a subordinate employee, and it obliged platforms to disclose the algorithmic mechanisms that govern order assignment, shift allocation, and performance ratings.
Despite the law, enforcement lagged. Uber Eats continued operating under a self-employed contractor model through early 2026. The Spanish Ministry of Labour, led by Deputy Prime Minister Yolanda Díaz, opened an investigation and threatened criminal proceedings—a tool already deployed against Glovo. Faced with escalating penalties and potential criminal liability, Uber Eats acknowledged the debt in a formal submission to authorities, effectively conceding that its riders should have been classified as employees for the entire period.
The €110M figure covers social security contributions only; additional administrative fines may yet be imposed. In January 2026, anticipating the settlement, Uber Eats announced it would abandon direct engagement with riders altogether, instead routing deliveries through subcontracted logistics companies that hire couriers as employees. This mirrors the model already adopted by other major platforms in Spain, which restructured their operations rather than exit the market—unlike Deliveroo, which withdrew entirely in 2021 after deeming the regulatory environment commercially unviable.
What This Means for Italy: Parallel Enforcement and Criminal Liability
Italy is pursuing a parallel, and in some respects more aggressive, enforcement strategy. In early 2026 the Milan Public Prosecutor's Office placed Glovo and Deliveroo under judicial supervision for alleged digital caporalato, a criminal offense that encompasses systematic labor exploitation. Prosecutors argue that riders, though nominally self-employed, work under direct platform control, earning wages below the poverty line and national collective-bargaining standards.
Concurrently, the Milan Labour Court has already ordered Deliveroo Italy and Uber Eats Italy to remit retroactive INPS (social security) contributions for approximately 60,000 couriers. These rulings predate the government's most recent legislative push: Decree-Law 62 of 30 April 2026, colloquially known as the "Primo Maggio Decree", which came into force on 1 May 2026. The decree introduces a rebuttable presumption of subordination for platform workers—meaning that unless a company can affirmatively prove genuine autonomy, riders are presumed to be employees entitled to full labor protections, minimum wage, social insurance, and collective-bargaining coverage.
Italy's framework now resembles Spain's but with a sharper criminal-enforcement edge. Earlier case law had already laid the groundwork: in 2021 the Turin Labour Court ruled that ten Uber Eats riders were employees, a judgment upheld on appeal in 2022. Separately, Deliveroo was fined €2.5M in 2021 by the Italian Data Protection Authority (Garante) for unlawfully processing the personal data of 8,000 riders, particularly regarding opaque algorithmic ranking and excessive geolocation tracking. Glovo's subsidiary Foodinho received a similar €2.6M penalty for algorithmic discrimination in order assignment.
The European Dimension: Directive 2024/2831
Both Spain's and Italy's measures are converging with EU Directive 2024/2831, adopted in 2024 and requiring transposition by 2 December 2026. The directive establishes a legal presumption of employment when platforms exercise control or direction over workers, inverting the burden of proof: companies must demonstrate genuine self-employment, not workers prove subordination.
Key provisions include:
• Algorithmic transparency: Platforms must disclose how automated systems determine work allocation, earnings, and ratings.
• Data protection: Workers gain the right to contest algorithmic decisions that affect their income or standing.
• Collective bargaining: Member states must ensure platform workers can organize and negotiate collectively.
Italy's Primo Maggio Decree is an early transposition effort, positioning the country as a regulatory leader alongside Spain. France, Belgium, and the Netherlands have also initiated consultations or draft legislation, but enforcement timelines and criminal-liability provisions vary widely.
Industry Restructuring and the Subcontracting Shift
The Spain settlement illuminates the subcontracting workaround now favored by platforms. Rather than directly employ tens of thousands of riders—and assume full payroll, benefits, and collective-bargaining obligations—Uber Eats, Just Eat, and others are contracting with intermediary logistics firms that formally hire couriers as employees. This model:
• Insulates platforms from direct employment liability.
• Transfers pension, health insurance, and workers' compensation costs to subcontractors.
• Raises new questions about joint employer liability and whether platforms retain sufficient control to trigger co-employment under EU and national law.
Italian labor advocates warn that subcontracting may replicate historical patterns in construction and agriculture, where intermediaries depress wages and conditions while shielding ultimate beneficiaries. The Milan prosecutors' focus on caporalato—traditionally associated with organized exploitation of migrant farmworkers—signals intent to scrutinize these arrangements.
Precedent Value and Cross-Border Enforcement
Spain's €110M settlement is not merely a national story; it establishes a quantifiable benchmark for unpaid social charges across Europe. Assuming an average contribution rate of roughly 30% of gross wages (standard in Mediterranean economies), the figure implies that Uber Eats riders in Spain collectively earned approximately €360M over the three-year period—or about €2,000 per rider per year in underreported income. These metrics provide a template for labor inspectorates elsewhere.
In Italy, where INPS contribution rates range from 24% to 34% depending on wage tier, retroactive assessments could reach similar magnitudes. The Milan Labour Court rulings already affirm the principle; enforcement now depends on Ispettorato Nazionale del Lavoro (National Labour Inspectorate) capacity and political will. The Díaz ministry's willingness to invoke criminal sanctions has proven decisive in Spain; whether Italian prosecutors adopt an equally assertive stance will determine compliance velocity.
Outlook: Toward a Unified European Standard
The convergence of Spanish enforcement, Italian criminalization, and EU directive obligations suggests that by late 2026, a de facto harmonized standard will govern platform work across much of Western Europe. Divergence will persist—Eastern European member states may transpose the directive more leniently, and enforcement capacity varies—but major markets are aligning.
Uber Eats' capitulation in Spain, combined with ongoing judicial supervision in Italy, signals that the gig-platform sector has exhausted legal and political avenues to preserve contractor-based models in their original form. The question is no longer whether riders will be reclassified, but how quickly and through what mechanisms—direct employment, certified subcontracting, or cooperative structures.
Spain's experience offers a clear lesson: sustained political pressure, union coordination, and credible threat of criminal liability can compel compliance where softer regulatory nudges fail. Italy's adoption of the caporalato framework imports that enforcement intensity. The €110M payment is not merely a fine—it is a down payment on the reconstruction of Europe's gig economy.
