Spanish Law for Expats and Residents: Codes, Courts and How Citations Work (2026)

Spanish law is codified. The rules that settle an ordinary dispute about a job, a flat, an inheritance or a fine are written into national statutes, above all the civil code (Código Civil, CC), and a case is decided by finding the article that applies rather than by reasoning from a chain of earlier decisions.

This page is the map for the Spain sections of this site. It sets out where the law is written down, which court decides what, how a Spanish citation is put together, why the region you live in can change the bill, and which figures are reset each year.

A labelled section further down covers one trap worth naming early: much of the Spanish-language legal material online describes Latin-American law, which shares the language and none of the Spanish machinery. Everything here is the law of Spain.

Information last verified on 22 July 2026. This page provides general legal information about Spanish law and does not constitute legal advice in an individual case. Before acting, check the current text in the Boletín Oficial del Estado (www.boe.es).

Where Spanish law is written down

The single source of truth is the Boletín Oficial del Estado (BOE). Every state statute, royal decree and consolidated code is published there, and the BOE website carries the consolidated (currently-in-force) text with each amendment marked. When this site cites a figure, it points at the BOE version, not at a commentary.

The rules a resident actually meets live in a handful of codes:

EU regulations, above all the RGPD (the GDPR), apply directly in Spain and sit beside the national codes. Those are cited the EU way, with Art., for example art. 6 RGPD.

Which court decides what

Spanish courts are divided into four órdenes jurisdiccionales, and the order is chosen by the subject matter, not by how much money is at stake:

• Civil: contracts, property, family, inheritance, most consumer and tenancy disputes. The entry court is the Juzgado de Primera Instancia.
• Penal: crimes. Minor matters go to the Juzgado de lo Penal, serious ones to the Audiencia Provincial.
• Social (laboral): employment and Seguridad Social. The Juzgado de lo Social hears a dismissal claim whatever the salary involved.
• Contencioso-administrativo: disputes with a public body, from a traffic fine to a tax assessment, once the internal appeal is exhausted.

Above the entry courts sit the Audiencias Provinciales, the Tribunales Superiores de Justicia (one per comunidad autónoma), the Audiencia Nacional, and at the top the Tribunal Supremo for casación. Separately, the Tribunal Constitucional rules on constitutional rights (the recurso de amparo) and on whether a statute is constitutional; it is not a further appeal on the ordinary facts. The judiciary is administered by the Consejo General del Poder Judicial (CGPJ).

How a Spanish legal citation is built

A Spanish citation names the article and the code. "Unfair dismissal is compensated under art. 56 ET" means article 56 of the Estatuto de los Trabajadores. Illegal recording is "art. 197 CP", article 197 of the Código Penal.

Two conventions matter for anyone reading across borders:

• Spain writes art., never the section sign. If you see "§ 56" on a page about Spanish law, that is a German or Austrian convention that has leaked in.
• Longer statutes are divided into an artículo, then numbered apartados (art. 56.1), and sometimes lettered letras (art. 56.1.a). A disposición transitoria or disposición adicional at the end of a code carries rules that do not fit the numbered articles, and they can be decisive, as the dismissal example below shows.

Where you live changes the law

Spain is a single country with one BOE, but two things genuinely turn on your comunidad autónoma:

Inheritance and gift tax (Impuesto de Sucesiones y Donaciones, ISD). The tax is created by a state law, but the reductions and bonificaciones are ceded to each comunidad. In practice a spouse or child can pay almost nothing in Madrid or Andalucía and a substantial sum on the same estate in another region. This is the one place where "where you die" changes the bill, and the site covers it region by region rather than pretending there is a single national answer.

Derecho civil foral. Six regions keep their own civil law in specific areas, above all inheritance and matrimonial property: Cataluña, País Vasco, Navarra, Aragón, Galicia and Baleares. In those regions the common-code rules on the reserved share (legítima) and on the default marital regime do not apply, or apply differently. On any inheritance or matrimonial-regime topic, the foral question has to be asked first.

Figures that change

Some numbers are reset on a schedule, so a figure is only ever right "as of" a date:

• The Salario Mínimo Interprofesional (SMI) is the statutory minimum wage, fixed by the government, usually once a year.
• The IPREM is the reference income used to means-test many benefits and thresholds.
• Residential rents are not updated freely: the LAU ties the annual update to a published reference index rather than to the old IPC-for-everything rule, after the 2023 housing reform.

Where a page on this site states one of these, it carries the year it applies to.

One worked example: unfair dismissal

The clearest way to see how a code, an article and a disposición transitoria work together is the compensation for an unfair dismissal (despido improcedente), verified here against the ET itself:

• The rule in art. 56.1 ET is 33 days of salary per year of service, with periods under a year prorated by month, up to a maximum of 24 monthly payments.
• The disposición transitoria undécima adds the history that catches out long-tenure workers: for service before 12 February 2012 the rate is 45 days per year, and 33 days per year for service after that date, with an overall cap of 720 days of salary (unless the pre-2012 part alone already exceeds it) and never more than 42 monthly payments.

That single example is why the site builds a calculator for the number rather than quoting a headline rate: the answer depends on the salary, the exact start date and whether any service predates February 2012.

The Spain sections of this site

The Spain guides are organised by the problem a reader actually has, each anchored to the BOE and the relevant regulator (the DGT for driving, the AEPD for data, the Agencia Tributaria for tax, the Seguridad Social and SEPE for work and benefits):

• Employment: despido improcedente and objetivo, the finiquito, severance, ERE, FOGASA and excedencia.
• Debt, credit and insolvency: getting out of the ASNEF delinquency file, the segunda oportunidad, and the monitorio debt claim.
• Inheritance: the estate process, the region-by-region ISD tax, the will (testamento), the reserved share (legítima) and the declaración de herederos.
• Recording, privacy and defamation: whether you may record a conversation, when a recording is admissible as evidence, data protection and the AEPD complaint route, and injurias y calumnias.
• Family: divorce (including the notarial route), custody, child support and protection orders.
• Housing and tenancy: eviction (desahucio), okupas, the burofax demand letter, and the Ley de Vivienda.
• Community of owners: the junta and its majorities, derramas, morosos and noise.
• Consumer and everyday law: the PPP dog regime, knife rules, and where everyday-device law lives.
• Driving: DGT fines, the 50 percent early-payment trade, and the points system.
• Criminal records: the antecedentes penales certificate and the art. 136 cancellation clocks.

For the recording, privacy and defamation topics, the existing country guides give the current baseline:

• Spain recording laws
• Spain data privacy laws
• Spain defamation laws

Because data protection in Spain runs on the EU regime, these EU explainers give the wider frame the Spanish pages build on:

• The EU-US Data Privacy Framework
• GDPR consent requirements

This page is general legal information about how Spanish law is organised and does not constitute legal advice in an individual case. Statutes and figures change; the controlling text is always the current version in the BOE or the relevant boletín oficial.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Spanish law the same as the law in Latin America?

No. Spain and the Spanish-speaking countries of Latin America share the language but not the statutes, courts or institutions. A great deal of Spanish-language legal content online describes Mexican, Argentine or Colombian law. Everything on the Spain pages of this site is the law of Spain, published in the Boletín Oficial del Estado.

What is the BOE?

The Boletín Oficial del Estado is Spain's official gazette. Every state statute, royal decree and consolidated code is published there, and the BOE website shows the version currently in force with each amendment marked. It is the authoritative source this site cites.

Why do people say inheritance tax depends on the region?

The Impuesto de Sucesiones y Donaciones is created by a national law, but each comunidad autónoma sets its own reductions and bonificaciones. As a result the same estate can produce a very different bill depending on where the deceased was resident, which is why the site covers the tax region by region.

How is a Spanish law citation written?

By article and code, for example art. 56 ET (article 56 of the Estatuto de los Trabajadores) or art. 197 CP (article 197 of the Código Penal). Spain uses the abbreviation art. and never the section sign, which belongs to German and Austrian law.

Do I need a lawyer to use these guides?

The guides give general legal information so you can understand a rule, a procedure or a figure before acting. They do not replace advice on your specific situation. For a binding assessment of your case, consult a colegiado professional such as an abogado, and for many administrative steps a gestor administrativo or graduado social can help.