Claiming unpaid invoices in Spain: what the court checks before your claim is admitted

A customer has gone months without paying, the reminders have gone unanswered, and you have decided to take the matter to court. Before it looks at the debt, a Spanish civil court checks something else: whether you tried to reach an agreement with the debtor before suing. If that is not documented, the claim is rejected without any examination of the merits.

The requirement has applied since 3 April 2025, when the relevant part of Organic Law 1/2025, on measures for the efficiency of the Public Justice Service, came into force. Spanish law calls it an appropriate means of dispute resolution, abbreviated MASC, and it operates as a condition of admissibility of the claim. It covers civil and commercial matters, cross-border disputes included.

Its effect on your case depends on three things: the procedural route you choose, whether you have already demanded payment, and how you did it. All three are settled before anything is sent, which is why they are best resolved together.

What the law requires and when it is checked

Article 5 of Organic Law 1/2025 makes admission of a civil claim conditional on the claimant showing that it first used one of the out-of-court routes the statute lists: direct negotiation between the parties or their lawyers, a confidential binding offer, mediation, private conciliation, or the opinion of an independent expert.

The check runs through three provisions of the Spanish Civil Procedure Act. Article 264.4 requires the document evidencing the attempt to be filed with the claim. Article 399.3 requires the claim itself to set out how the negotiation was conducted. Article 403.2 orders rejection where the requirement is not met.

There is a further condition that tends to go unnoticed and causes claims to be rejected: the subject matter of the prior negotiation and that of the claim must match. What was negotiated and what is later sought have to correspond.

Not every route requires it

The initial application in order-for-payment proceedings (proceso monitorio) does require it, and this is the point that most affects anyone chasing invoices. Every judges' assembly and every assembly of court clerks that has ruled on the question agrees, with two exceptions: the European order for payment and the notarial order for payment under articles 70 and 71 of the Notarial Act. Ordinary and simplified declaratory proceedings require it as well.

What falls outside is the declaratory procedure that opens when the debtor opposes an order for payment, since that is the continuation of proceedings already begun. Also outside, by express provision of article 5.3, are bill-of-exchange proceedings (juicio cambiario), enforcement claims, applications for interim measures before proceedings, and preliminary discovery measures.

The practical consequence is specific. If the debt is documented in dishonoured promissory notes or cheques, bill-of-exchange proceedings avoid the step altogether. If it rests on invoices and delivery notes, the step is unavoidable and needs to be built properly.

Where you stand right now

You have not yet made a formal demand. This is the best position to be in. The demand is prepared from scratch, with the right method of service, the right addressee and the right content, and it fits into the timetable of the case without friction. All it adds is the statutory waiting period. It is worth deciding how the first communication is sent before sending it, because a hurried informal message shapes everything that follows.

You have already chased payment yourself. This is the most common position in commercial relationships that have been deteriorating for months: warning emails, payment reminders, perhaps a letter. That material may satisfy the requirement or it may not, and the answer depends on the three points set out in the next section. Reviewing it before taking the next step determines whether the requirement is already met or has to be built again.

You have filed and the court has asked you to remedy a defect, or has rejected the claim. These are two different situations with different exits, and it is worth identifying which one is yours before replying to the court.

The three points decided before the demand goes out

Two instruments are used in debt recovery: direct negotiation, where a solution is proposed and a reply awaited, and the confidential binding offer under article 17, which is unilateral and needs no cooperation from the debtor. Where the debtor has been silent for months, the second tends to work better. In either case the court checks the same things.

Method of service. The burofax, a recorded delivery service with proof of receipt and certification of content, is the option no court disputes. The criteria several sectoral judges' assemblies adopted in the spring of 2025 were restrictive about electronic means, to the point of rejecting email and text messages. The Provincial Courts of Appeal corrected that line over the second half of that year and now accept email where something establishes receipt and access to the content: the recipient replies, the address appears in the contract or on the company's website, or there is a history of earlier correspondence between the parties at that same address. Some decisions have accepted even a text message with sufficient traceability. For a company chasing payment this means two things. Your email history with the debtor is worth more than it looks and should be preserved in full; and where no such history exists, a burofax avoids an argument that can cost months.

Addressee. The demand must be sent to the debtor company's registered office, not solely to the individual you have been dealing with. Sending it to an address or telephone number that appears neither in the contract nor at the Companies Register has been treated as equivalent to not having sent it at all.

Content. The communication must identify who is claiming, from whom, what is claimed, for how much, and what solution is being proposed. A bare demand for payment is not enough, because the law requires a genuine negotiating dimension. It must also match what is later sought in the claim. This is where many business-to-business demands come apart: if the letter claims "the outstanding amount" and the claim then seeks the principal, late payment interest under Law 3/2004, the forty-euro recovery costs allowance and legal costs, the court may find that what was negotiated and what is sought do not correspond.

If the step is missing or poorly documented

These are two situations with different consequences.

Where the attempt was made but the evidence filed is incomplete, the defect can be remedied. The court grants time under article 231 of the Civil Procedure Act, the missing documentation is filed, and the case proceeds. Several Provincial Courts of Appeal have insisted that this opportunity to remedy must be given before a claim is rejected.

Where there was no prior attempt at all, correction is far harder. The prevailing view treats that defect as incapable of remedy and upholds rejection, which means making the demand properly, waiting out the statutory period and filing again. The position is not uniform across the country, but it is safer to assume the court will take that reading.

This is why the documentation of the pre-action demand is prepared with the same care as the claim itself. It is the first thing that gets examined.

Time limits, limitation periods and costs

How long you have to wait. The process is treated as having ended without agreement, and the requirement as satisfied, in four situations: thirty calendar days pass from receipt of the request without a first meeting and without a written reply; thirty days pass from receipt of a specific settlement proposal without a reply; three months pass from the first meeting without agreement, a period the parties may extend by consent; or either party states in writing that it treats the negotiations as over. If the debtor expressly rejects the proposal, you may sue immediately.

The effect on limitation periods. The request interrupts the limitation period from the date on which the attempt to communicate with the debtor is recorded, even where receipt never takes place. In return, the law imposes a strict discipline: you have one year to file, counted from receipt of the request where the debtor does not reply, or from the end of the negotiation without agreement. The year runs from receipt, not from the expiry of the thirty days of silence. Once it passes, the requirement ceases to be treated as satisfied and the whole step has to be reopened.

The effect on costs. Article 7.4 requires the court to take the parties' cooperation towards a negotiated solution into account when ruling on costs and assessing them. A debtor who ignores a properly drafted demand without justification takes on an added financial risk, and that too forms part of the calculation of when and how to claim.

What the step costs. The pre-action demand forms part of the civil litigation engagement and is included in the fixed price of the procedure, with no separate invoice.

Claiming from outside Spain

Being established outside Spain does not exempt you. Article 3 of the Civil Procedure Act subjects civil proceedings conducted on Spanish territory to Spanish procedural rules alone, and the statute expressly covers cross-border disputes. A contractual clause giving jurisdiction to the Spanish courts determines which court hears the case; that court will require the step exactly as it would of any other claimant.

You do not, however, need to travel. The pre-action demand is handled entirely in writing and your lawyer in Spain can deal with it under a power of attorney, as with most later stages of a debt recovery procedure. If the non-payment is the first serious friction in an operation that has only recently started in the Spanish market, it is worth reviewing at the same time the contractual architecture you are trading on, because the weaknesses that surface in one recovery tend to repeat across the rest of the customer book. That is the ground covered by the Spain Entry Pack.

Before you move

Three decisions put the matter in order. The first is which route you will take, because a debt held in promissory notes goes to bill-of-exchange proceedings and skips the step, while a debt resting on invoices has no shortcut. The second is what you already hold: your email history with the debtor may satisfy the requirement or leave it half met, and that review decides whether time starts running today or in a month. The third is what exactly is being claimed, with principal, late payment interest and recovery costs broken out, because anything absent from the pre-action letter may fall away from the claim.

With that work done the timetable is predictable: thirty days of waiting if the debtor stays silent, and a year to file that starts running earlier than it appears.

Frequently asked questions

Does the requirement also apply to an order for payment?
Yes. Order-for-payment proceedings are not among the exceptions in article 5, and the judges' assemblies agree in requiring the step. The European order for payment and the notarial order for payment fall outside. If you are proceeding by way of a bill-of-exchange claim, on a dishonoured promissory note or cheque, the step is not required.

How long must I wait before I can sue?
Thirty calendar days from the debtor's receipt of the communication, if there is no reply. If the debtor expressly rejects the proposal sooner, you may sue immediately. If negotiations open and come to nothing, the maximum is three months from the first meeting.

What if the debtor does not respond to anything at all?
That is the most common scenario and it does not block the claim. The law requires a good faith attempt, not a successful negotiation. Properly documented silence satisfies the requirement, and the debtor's failure to cooperate may weigh later in the costs order.

Do the emails I have already sent count?
It depends on whether receipt can be established and on what they said. An email to an address that appears in the contract, or one the debtor answered at some point, has a fair chance of counting. A generic overdue notice with no proposal and no breakdown does not. The history is worth reviewing before anything is taken for granted.

Do I have to travel to Spain to complete this step?
No. The pre-action demand is made in writing and your lawyer in Spain can handle it in full under a power of attorney. Nor do you need to be present for most later stages of a debt recovery procedure.

Does it apply in the same way if the debtor is a sole trader rather than a company?
Yes. The requirement applies by reference to subject matter, not to the debtor's legal form. What changes is the recovery strategy afterwards, because the assets a sole trader answers with and those of a limited company work differently.