It is sometimes wrongly assumed that the expression contrato de comisión refers exclusively to an agreement whereby an employee, agent or representative works solely on commission (trabaja a comisión) rather than receiving a fixed salary or other compensation. In that regard, contrato de comisión has at times been erroneously translated as a “sales commission agreement” or “commission-only agreement.”

But the Spanish Commercial Code’s contrato de comisión doesn’t necessarily denote “working on commission,” but rather is a type of agency agreement in which a principal (comitente) commissions an agent (comisionista) to carry out a specific commercial transaction on his behalf (the comisión). In that regard, the contrato de comisión may be considered the Commercial Code counterpart of the Spanish Civil Code’s contrato de mandato in which a principal (mandante) commissions an agent (mandatario) to perform a specific service (mandato). Depending on the context, both contrato de comisión and contrato de mandato can often be described in English simply as “agency agreements.”

Thus, in many contexts comitente, mandante and principal can generally be translated as “principal,” while comisionista, mandatario, agente and often gestor can be rendered as “agent.” If it is necessary to distinguish between the Commercial Code and Civil Code counterparts, a contrato de comisión might be described as a “commercial agency agreement” or “Commercial Code agency agreement,” while contrato de mandato might be rendered as “Civil Code agency agreement” or an “agency agreement governed by the Civil Code.” And of course, depending on the terms of the contrato de comisión, a comisionista may or may not “work on commission” (trabajar a comisión).

In other respects, contrato de agencia (“agency agreement”) is likewise used in Spain, having been formally defined in the Agency Agreement Act (Ley 12/1992, de 27 de mayo, sobre Contrato de Agencia), which incorporated into Spanish law the provisions of Directive 86/653/EEC of 18 December 1986 on the coordination of the laws of EU Member States relating to self-employed commercial agents.

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