IESS Now Lists 3.6 Million Active Affiliates: What The Five Regimes Mean

Ecuador's social security system had 3.6 million active affiliates as of May 2026.

That was a 3% increase from May 2025, equal to more than 102,000 additional people.

The Main Categories

IESS affiliates are concentrated in five regimes or modalities.

Workers with an employer relationship are people working for a company under a labor contract. The employer must affiliate workers from the first day of work and on the full salary amount.

For those workers, the employee contribution is 9.45% of monthly salary, while the employer contribution is 11.5% of the worker's salary.

Independent And Voluntary Affiliates

Independent affiliates make a regular IESS contribution of 17.6% of reported monthly income. The reported income cannot be less than Ecuador's unified basic salary, currently $482, so the minimum monthly contribution is $84.80.

Those contributions must be paid within 15 days after the corresponding month.

Voluntary affiliates are people who receive some type of income but are not dependent employees or self-employed workers. They may live in Ecuador or abroad. Their regular contribution is also 17.6% of reported monthly income, with the same $482 floor and $84.80 minimum monthly contribution.

The youth affiliation program is for people under 25 without access to social security systems. Young entrepreneurs can affiliate from age 15, and young voluntary affiliates from age 18, with a monthly contribution of $54.85.

If you are trying to decide whether IESS fits your situation, the first question is not just whether you can affiliate. It is which affiliation category actually matches your income and work status.