Bank account or wage seizure (embargo) in Spain: what they can and cannot take

What an embargo is and who can order it

An embargo is a forced-enforcement measure: when a debt is due and unpaid, the creditor asks for your money or assets to be held and used to pay it. It is never the bank's or a debt collector's own decision — behind every freeze there is an order from a court or from an authority with enforcement powers.

Check the embargo — €9.90

A court orders it inside enforcement proceedings (ejecución, arts. 584+ LEC) — typically after a judgment, or after a monitorio (fast-track payment order) you did not oppose. Or an administration orders it directly through administrative enforcement: the tax agency (Hacienda) for tax debts, the Social Security treasury (TGSS) for contributions, the traffic authority (DGT) or your town hall for fines. The administrative route skips the judge but must respect the same wage-protection limits.

The order goes to your bank (which freezes the balance) or to your employer (which deducts from your payroll before paying you). Both are legally obliged to comply — arguing with the bank is pointless, because the bank decides nothing. You must address the body that issued the order.

The amount claimed is not just the original debt: enforcement is opened for the principal plus budgeted interest and costs, which courts provisionally set at roughly an extra 30% (art. 575 LEC). That is why the frozen figure is usually noticeably bigger than the debt you remember.

Important: an embargo never comes out of nowhere. Notifications came first — a demand, a monitorio, an administrative enforcement notice. If you genuinely never received anything, that service defect may be your strongest defence, as we explain below.

The most common scenarios

• After a lost or ignored monitorio. This is the most frequent origin: a payment order arrived, nobody answered within 20 days, and the creditor moved to enforcement. If you are here because you never knew about that monitorio, read our monitorio guide too — defective service is a real, if uphill, line of defence.
• Debts to the tax agency, Social Security or for traffic fines. The administration seizes through its own machinery, often highly automated: first an enforcement notice with a surcharge, then a seizure order (diligencia de embargo) to your bank. The wage limits are identical, and payment plans are granted routinely.
• Child or spousal support debts (pensiones de alimentos). Careful: here the SMI floor does not apply. Art. 608 LEC removes these debts from the ordinary limits and the judge decides how much is garnished. It is the system's one big exception.
• Co-holders of joint accounts. If you share an account with a debtor, the law only allows seizing the debtor's share — but in practice the bank freezes the entire balance, and it is you, the co-holder, who must claim your part in writing and prove where your money came from.

What they cannot take: the art. 607 LEC scale

• The absolute floor: salary, pension or equivalent income up to one SMI (salario mínimo interprofesional — the statutory minimum wage) can never be garnished, except for support debts. The SMI is set yearly by the government — 1,184 € per month in 14 payments in 2025 — so always check the current year's figure. If you earn the SMI or less, nothing can be taken from your wages.
• Above the SMI, only the excess is garnished, in progressive brackets: 30% of the slice up to a second SMI, 50% of the third, 60% of the fourth, 75% of the fifth, and 90% beyond. Example: someone earning two SMI does not lose half their pay — they lose 30% of the second slice, and the first slice stays fully intact.
• Salary or pension already paid into your account keeps this same protection during the month it is received. The practical problem: the bank cannot tell where the money came from, so it freezes everything. It is up to you to state in writing — to the court or the administration — that the frozen balance is protected salary or pension, and to do it before the money is transferred to the creditor.
• In joint accounts, only the debtor's share may be seized. The non-debtor co-holder is entitled to recover theirs by proving ownership and origin of the funds (their own payslips, identifiable transfers).
• Against excess you have concrete remedies: reduction of an over-broad seizure (art. 612 LEC), opposition to the enforcement itself within 10 working days on limited grounds such as payment or expiry (oposición a la ejecución, art. 556 LEC), and a refund claim for protected income already taken. And if your employer is already deducting from payroll while the bank also freezes that same salary in your account — double garnishment of the same money — that is challengeable and must be reported to the court.

Deadlines already running

• Opposition to the enforcement (art. 556 LEC): 10 working days from being served the order opening enforcement. The grounds are limited — the debt was already paid, the action had expired, there was a documented settlement — but if one applies, this is the deadline you cannot miss.
• Exemption claim (salary/pension in the account): as soon as possible. There is no formal deadline, but a brutal practical one — it must reach the court or administration before the bank transfers the frozen funds onward. Every day counts.
• Refund of protected income already taken: can still be claimed after the transfer, by proving with payslips and statements that what was seized was exempt income. Slower than stopping it in time, but it works.
• If the seizure is administrative (Hacienda, TGSS, DGT): a recurso de reposición (internal review appeal) within 1 month of being notified of the seizure order, or an economic-administrative claim in the same period. In parallel, a request for aplazamiento/fraccionamiento (deferral or instalment plan) can be filed at any time and usually halts further seizures.
• Nullity for defective service (the monitorio you never received): raise it as soon as you learn of the enforcement — sitting on it after finding out counts against you. It is an uphill path and requires proving the service was genuinely defective, not merely inconvenient.

Documents to gather

• The seizure order reference: ask your bank in writing or via the app chat. They must tell you who ordered the hold (court and case number, or authority and file/order number). Keep dated screenshots of the freeze and the amount.
• Recent payslips or your pension certificate: they prove the frozen money is income protected by art. 607 and establish your actual garnishable bracket.
• Account statements showing the salary or pension credits — date, payer, concept. They demonstrate that the frozen balance is precisely this month's wages.
• The enforcement order or the administrative file, once you have it or obtain it by appearing in the case. It states the amount enforced (principal + ~30%), the creditor, and the deadlines that apply to you.

What to do, step by step

• 1. Get the order reference from the bank. Who issued it, case number, amount held. Without this you cannot address the right body. The bank is obliged to tell you the origin of a hold on your own account.
• 2. Identify the body: court or administration? A case number from a first-instance court means civil enforcement (probably a prior monitorio); an order from the tax agency, Social Security or traffic authority means administrative enforcement. The remedies differ; the wage limits are the same.
• 3. Appear in the proceedings (personarse). In a court case, formally appearing — with a lawyer and court agent where the amount requires it — means you start receiving notifications and can request copies of everything. Half of all enforcements are lost simply by not knowing what is happening.
• 4. Claim the exemption in writing. File a submission with the court or administration attaching payslips and statements: the frozen balance is this month's salary/pension, the exempt portion is X, release the excess. Do it before the funds are transferred.
• 5. Check for double garnishment. If your employer already deducts from payroll and the bank also holds that same salary once credited, the same money is being seized twice: report it in the same submission and ask for one of the holds to be lifted.
• 6. Weigh an opposition or appeal. If you paid, the debt had expired, or there was a documented agreement: art. 556 opposition within 10 working days. If administrative: reposición or economic-administrative claim within 1 month. If the original monitorio never reached you: a nullity motion for defective service.
• 7. Negotiate a payment plan. With Hacienda and the TGSS, deferral/instalments are a routine procedure that can halt enforcement. In court enforcement, a deal with the creditor — who often prefers certain partial payment over fighting for everything — can close the case.

Costly mistakes

• Emptying the account or moving the money to a relative «to keep it safe». This is the gravest error: hiding or removing assets to dodge a seizure can constitute alzamiento de bienes — asset concealment, a crime under art. 257 of the Criminal Code. The lawful defence is claiming statutory exemptions and using the remedies — never hiding money.
• Ignoring the notifications that follow. After the first freeze more rulings will come: extended seizures, calculations, transfers. Each one opens or closes a deadline. Not collecting your mail stops nothing; it only takes you out of the game.
• Not claiming the exempt portion, assuming «the court will apply it anyway». It does not work that way with account money: the bank freezes everything, and nobody releases your protected salary unless you request it in writing with proof.
• Paying «fixers» who promise to unfreeze the account for a fee. No outsider can lift a court or administrative hold in exchange for a commission — anyone selling that via WhatsApp or an ad is a scammer feeding on your panic.
• Confusing a bank's own block (KYC verification, fraud suspicion, expired ID documents) with a court seizure. They are different problems with different fixes: a bank block is resolved with the bank by providing documents; an embargo, before the court or administration. Always ask first which one it is.
• Letting the 10 working days for opposition slip by. It is the only window with substantive grounds against the enforcement itself. Once it closes, the fight is limited to the seizure's limits, not its existence.

If they took more than allowed — or the money is already gone

• Claim a refund in writing. Exempt income that was taken is not lost: file a refund request with the court or administration, attaching payslips and statements proving the transferred money was protected salary or pension. It comes back — more slowly than it was taken, but it comes back.
• Request a reduction of the seizure (art. 612 LEC) if what was frozen clearly exceeds what is needed to cover principal, interest and costs — for instance, simultaneous holds on several accounts for the full amount in each.
• If everything stems from a monitorio that was never properly served on you, seek nullity of the proceedings for defective service. It is an uphill battle — you must prove the defect, not just allege it — but when it succeeds it brings down the entire enforcement. Our monitorio guide explains what counts as defective service.
• And if a collection agency is pressuring you over this or another debt in parallel, our debt-collectors guide covers what they can and cannot do, and our court-letters guide shows how to read every ruling that will reach you from now on.

Related guides

Frequently asked questions

Official sources