In summary. A party served with a payment order in order for payment proceedings has twenty working days to either pay the amount claimed or file a written statement of opposition setting out, with reasoned justification, why the claimed amount is not owed (Article 815 of the Civil Procedure Act). If neither step is taken, the creditor may apply for enforcement and the debt can no longer be contested in separate proceedings (Article 816). If opposition is filed in time, the matter proceeds as a verbal hearing for claims up to €15,000; above that threshold, the creditor has one month to bring a claim under ordinary proceedings (Article 818).
What you have actually received
The payment order is issued by the Court Clerk following a review of the submitted documents. The creditor has filed a petition accompanied by invoices, delivery notes, a contract, or other supporting documents, and the court has considered these sufficient to constitute prima facie evidence of the debt. No judge has yet decided whether you actually owe the money. That question is precisely what the opposition process is designed to address.
Article 812 limits order for payment proceedings to monetary debts that are liquidated, ascertained, due, and enforceable, of any amount, evidenced by documents signed by the debtor or by documents created by the creditor that are customary in that commercial relationship, such as invoices. The court's initial review is confined to those documents. The substantive issues, whether the service was actually performed, whether the goods were delivered in proper condition, or whether the amount is correct, are examined at a later stage.
It is also worth checking which court has issued the payment order. Under Article 813, jurisdiction lies exclusively with the Court of First Instance for the debtor's domicile or place of residence, and jurisdiction clauses designating other courts are not valid. If the debtor is located in a different judicial district, the court closes the proceedings and the creditor must recommence the process before the correct court.
Finally, the amount stated in the payment order may differ from the amount originally claimed by the creditor. Article 815.3 allows the court to propose a reduced figure where the documentation indicates that the amount claimed is not fully supported and, where the debtor is a consumer, where a contractual clause may be unfair. This second check does not apply in disputes between businesses.
The Deadline: Twenty Business Days
The twenty days begin to run on the day after notification, with non-working days excluded from the count (Article 133). Non-working days include Saturdays, Sundays, national, regional and local public holidays, the period from 24 December to 6 January, and the entire month of August (Article 130.2). An order served in mid-July, for example, will not expire until September.
The deadline does not pause simply because the parties are in discussions. If negotiations are under way, both parties may jointly request a suspension of proceedings for a maximum of sixty days (Article 19.4), but the clock keeps running until the court formally grants that suspension. An opposition filed out of time has the same effect as filing nothing at all.
What the Statement of Opposition Must Contain
Article 815.1 requires the debtor to set out, in a "reasoned and substantiated" manner, the grounds on which they consider the claimed amount, in whole or in part, not to be owed. A statement that does no more than deny the debt risks failing to meet that standard and, in any event, leaves the defence without arguments for the subsequent trial. The practical approach is to set out the facts with specific dates and attach the supporting documents: proof of payment, the contract, communications raising defects, and delivery records.
The statement must be signed by a lawyer and a court representative (procurador) where their involvement is required by the amount in dispute, as set out in Article 818.1. This applies when the amount claimed exceeds €2,000. Below that threshold, Articles 23.2 and 31.2 allow the debtor to act without either.
Most Common Grounds for Opposition
| Ground | Recommended Supporting Evidence | Legal Basis |
|---|---|---|
| The debt has been paid, in full or in part | Bank transfers, receipts, account statements | Art. 815.1 LEC |
| The amount claimed exceeds what is actually owed (over-claim) | Own calculation, credits applied, corrective invoices | Art. 818.1 LEC |
| The debt is not yet due or the amount is not yet determined | Contract, payment terms, outstanding milestones | Art. 812.1 LEC |
| The creditor failed to perform, or performed defectively | Defect notifications, technical reports, delivery records | General rules of contract law |
| The debt is time-barred | Due dates and absence of prior claims | Art. 1964.2 of the Spanish Civil Code |
| The court is not the court for the debtor's place of residence | Proof of actual place of residence | Art. 813 LEC |
| Unfair contract term, only where the debtor is a consumer | Contract and general terms and conditions | Art. 815.3 LEC |
Excess claim (pluspetición). If you acknowledge part of the debt but dispute the remainder, your opposition may be limited to that excess. Article 818.1 provides that the acknowledged amount is dealt with in accordance with Article 21.2, which allows the creditor to obtain an enforceable order for that portion while proceedings continue in respect of the disputed amount.
Creditor's breach. This is the most common defence in business disputes, where the service was not performed as agreed or the goods arrived defective. It carries considerably more weight if the complaint was raised in writing before the claim was filed, rather than appearing for the first time in the opposition. If you have emails, minutes or a contemporaneous technical report, those documents form the core of your written submission.
Limitation period. Personal actions with no specific time limit become time-barred five years after payment could first have been demanded (Article 1964.2 of the Spanish Civil Code). Before raising this defence, check whether the limitation period was interrupted by an out-of-court demand from the creditor, by your own acknowledgement of the debt (Article 1973), or by a prior negotiation request, which, under Article 7.1 of Organic Law 1/2025, interrupts the limitation period from the moment the attempt to initiate it is evidenced.
The mandatory prior negotiation requirement also applies to order-for-payment proceedings
Since 3 April 2025, Article 5 of Organic Law 1/2025 requires parties to have attempted an appropriate dispute resolution method before bringing court proceedings. This obligation applies to ordinary declaratory proceedings and to the special proceedings under the Spanish Civil Procedure Act, including the order-for-payment procedure. Exceptions that may be relevant to monetary claims include bill-of-exchange proceedings, enforcement claims, and the European order-for-payment procedure. The subject matter of the negotiation must correspond to that of the claim.
If the creditor did not attempt negotiation, or cannot demonstrate that they did, the debtor may raise this point in the opposition. How courts treat this omission in the initial order-for-payment application is not consistent across all courts. However, where the amount exceeds €15,000 and the creditor must file an ordinary claim, the claim must describe the prior negotiation attempt and will not be admitted without it (Articles 399.3 and 403.2). We explain this further in rejection of a claim for failure to comply with the MASC requirement.
The rule also works in reverse. If the creditor invited you to negotiate and you did not respond, Article 394 deprives you of a costs award even if you win the case, provided the refusal was without good cause and the invitation was effective, and it exempts the creditor from paying costs if they lose, unless they have abused the public justice system. Before opposing a payment order, it is worth reviewing what communications you received in the preceding months. Further detail is available at procedural costs where a party rejects a MASC without good cause.
What happens after the opposition
The subsequent procedure depends on the amount claimed.
| Amount claimed | How the case proceeds | What the creditor must do | If the creditor takes no action |
|---|---|---|---|
| Up to €15,000 | Summary oral proceedings (juicio verbal), no new claim required | May challenge the opposition in writing within 10 days; both parties then have 5 days to propose evidence | The proceedings continue regardless |
| Over €15,000 | Ordinary proceedings (juicio ordinario) | Must file a claim within one month of service of the opposition | The case is dismissed and the creditor is ordered to pay costs |
| Rent arrears or other amounts owed by a tenant of an urban property, any amount | Summary oral proceedings (juicio verbal) | Follows the summary oral procedure, without the one-month deadline applicable to ordinary proceedings | The proceedings continue regardless |
The €15,000 threshold is the dividing line between the verbal procedure and the ordinary procedure under Articles 249.2 and 250.2. In the ordinary procedure, filing an objection does not exempt you from responding to the claim: once the creditor submits it, the court serves it on you and you have twenty days to file your response (Article 404). In all three cases, the ruling handed down carries the force of res judicata, meaning the matter is conclusively and definitively resolved.
If you let the deadline pass
If the debtor neither pays nor objects, the Court Registrar issues a decree closing the order-for-payment procedure, and the creditor may then request enforcement by a simple application, without having to wait the twenty days that Article 548 imposes in other cases.
From that point, the options for defence narrow considerably. Enforcement follows the rules applicable to judgments, and the grounds for opposing enforcement under Article 556 are essentially limited to: payment evidenced by documentary proof, expiry of the right to enforce, and agreements to avoid enforcement set out in a public deed, all within a ten-day window. Neither the creditor nor the debtor may subsequently bring ordinary proceedings to claim the amount covered by the order-for-payment procedure or to recover sums already collected. Furthermore, from the enforcement order onwards, the debt accrues interest at the statutory rate plus two percentage points (Article 576).
If the debt is genuine
Paying within the deadline and evidencing payment to the court closes the proceedings, which are then archived (Article 817). If the debt is undisputed but you are unable to pay it in full at once, the alternative is to propose a payment deferral to the creditor before the deadline expires. For the creditor, an orderly recovery may well be preferable to enforcing against a debtor with limited liquidity. One practical approach is to draw up a payment schedule signed by both parties and then notify the court of the agreement, for example, by way of a joint application to suspend proceedings or by the creditor's withdrawal from contract. Until that agreement is on record with the court, the objection deadline continues to run.
If only part of the debt is genuine, paying or acknowledging that part while contesting the remainder is usually the most defensible course of action, as it focuses the proceedings on the amount actually in dispute.
Who pays the costs
In any subsequent trial following opposition, the general rule under Article 394 applies: the party whose claims are entirely rejected bears the costs, unless the case raises serious questions of fact or law. As regards lawyers' fees, any costs order cannot exceed one third of the value of the proceedings, except where bad faith is found. Where claims succeed only in part, each party bears its own costs and shares the common costs equally. This rule operates alongside the effects of prior negotiation described above. There is also a rule specific to order for payment proceedings: a creditor who fails to file a claim for ordinary proceedings within the month following the opposition will be ordered to pay costs.
If you are the creditor
If the debtor has filed an opposition, you have ten days to challenge the opposition where the matter continues as a verbal hearing, and one month to file a claim where the debt exceeds €15,000, with evidence of prior negotiation. A full guide to the procedure from the claimant's perspective is available in our guide to order for payment proceedings, and further options are covered in how to claim a debt and on our debt recovery page.
Frequently asked questions
Can I oppose an order for payment without a lawyer?
Yes, provided the amount claimed does not exceed €2,000. Above that threshold, the opposition must be signed by both a lawyer and a court representative (procurador) (Articles 23.2, 31.2 and 818.1 of the Spanish Civil Procedure Act).
Does August count towards the twenty-day time limit?
No. August is excluded from procedural time limits, as are Saturdays, Sundays, public holidays, and the period between 24 December and 6 January (Article 130.2).
Can I oppose only part of the debt?
Yes. If you acknowledge part of the debt but argue that the amount claimed is excessive, the proceedings continue only in respect of the disputed difference, and the creditor may seek enforcement of the acknowledged amount (Articles 818.1 and 21.2).
If I contest, will there definitely be a court hearing?
For amounts up to €15,000, yes: the order for payment procedure automatically converts into an oral hearing, with no further action required from the creditor. Above that threshold, a full hearing only takes place if the creditor files a claim for ordinary proceedings within one month. If they fail to do so, the case is dismissed and they are ordered to pay costs (Article 818.2).
What happens if I do nothing?
The court will close the order for payment proceedings and the creditor may immediately apply for enforcement. Once that happens, the debt can no longer be challenged in separate proceedings, and the grounds available to contest enforcement are very limited (Articles 816 and 556).
Is it worth arguing that the creditor made no attempt to negotiate beforehand?
It may well be, since prior negotiation is also a procedural prerequisite in order for payment proceedings (Article 5.2 of Organic Law 1/2025). Its practical effect will depend on the stage of the proceedings and the court concerned, and it does not replace substantive grounds of defence. It should be raised alongside those grounds, never instead of them.
Let's talk about your situation
If you have received a payment order, the clock is already ticking. Share the details of your case with us, including the order itself and any documents relating to the commercial relationship, and we will advise you on which grounds of opposition are likely to succeed and what each option may cost.
