Administrative silence in Spanish law is the rule that turns a public body’s failure to answer you on time into a legal act in its own right. Under Law 39/2015, the Common Administrative Procedure Act, that silence counts as an approval in most requests citizens file, and as a rejection in a defined set of cases. The default deadline is three months from the day your request enters the electronic registry of the body handling it.
How Long the Administration Has to Answer
The general maximum period to resolve and notify a decision is three months.1Boletín Oficial del Estado. Law 39/2015 – Common Administrative Procedure of Public Administrations – Section: Article 21 Specific procedures can set a different period, but it cannot exceed six months unless a statute with the rank of law or an EU regulation authorizes something longer. Every public body must publish on its website the full list of procedures it handles, with the maximum deadline and the effect silence will have in each one. Within ten days of receiving a citizen’s request, the competent body must also send a personal communication confirming the date it was received and explaining what silence will mean.
The clock starts from the date your request lands in the electronic registry of the body responsible for it. For procedures the administration opens on its own, it starts from the formal initiation order. One detail matters more than any other: the administration must both decide and notify within the window. A resolution signed on the last day but delivered a week later still triggers silence. The exact day silence takes effect is what determines which rights you can enforce and when your appeal deadlines start running, so record it carefully.
When No Answer Means Yes: Positive Silence
In procedures you initiate, if the deadline expires without a decision being notified, your request is deemed granted.2Boletín Oficial del Estado. Law 39/2015 – Common Administrative Procedure of Public Administrations – Section: Article 24 This is positive silence (silencio positivo), and the law treats it as a full administrative act with the same legal force as a written approval. You can enforce it against the administration and against third parties.
Once positive silence takes effect, the administration cannot undo it by simply issuing a later decision to the contrary. Any express resolution that arrives afterward can only confirm the approval. To reverse it, the administration would have to go through a formal ex officio review (revisión de oficio), a much heavier process with its own safeguards. That is where positive silence has real weight: it does not just give you a theoretical right, it locks the administration into the outcome.
When No Answer Means No: Negative Silence
Article 24 carves out four categories where silence means rejection instead of approval:2Boletín Oficial del Estado. Law 39/2015 – Common Administrative Procedure of Public Administrations – Section: Article 24
- Procedures involving the constitutional right of petition under Article 29 of the Spanish Constitution.
- Requests whose approval would transfer authority or resources related to publicly owned property or public services to the applicant or a third party.
- Activities that could damage the environment.
- Claims for compensation for harm caused by the public administration (responsabilidad patrimonial).
Silence is also negative whenever a separate statute of legal rank or an EU regulation says so, and it is the default in appeals against administrative acts and in requests for ex officio review of earlier decisions. When a law imposes negative silence for access to activities or the exercise of rights, it must justify that choice on overriding reasons of public interest.
Negative silence does not carry the finality that positive silence does. It is a procedural fiction with one job: to open the door to the next step, whether an administrative appeal or a court challenge. If the administration later issues a formal decision, it is not bound by the earlier negative silence and can still grant or deny the request on the merits.
Tax Procedures Follow a Different Default
Tax matters operate under the General Tax Law (Ley 58/2003), and the default tilts heavily toward negative silence. When a taxpayer initiates a review procedure, such as requesting that a tax assessment be declared null and void, the failure to respond within the legal deadline counts as a rejection.3Agencia Tributaria. Review of Tax Management Decisions That Are Legally Null and Voida> The same pattern applies across most tax review and claims procedures administered by the Spanish Tax Agency. If you challenge a tax assessment and hear nothing, treat the silence as a denial and file the next-level appeal or court challenge before your deadlines expire.
The Double Silence Rule on Appeals
This is one of the strongest and least understood protections in the system. If your original request is denied by negative silence and you file an appeal, and the administration also fails to resolve the appeal, that second silence generally counts as approval, effectively granting the original request.2Boletín Oficial del Estado. Law 39/2015 – Common Administrative Procedure of Public Administrations – Section: Article 24 The logic is that the administration cannot benefit from ignoring the same citizen twice.
If the underlying request did not fall into one of the four mandatory negative-silence categories, silence on the appeal flips to positive. The only exception is when the subject matter itself falls into one of those categories (environmental harm, public domain transfers, right of petition, or government liability), in which case silence on the appeal remains negative.
Procedures the Administration Starts Against You
The rules work differently when the government opens a procedure on its own. Under Article 25, if the administration fails to resolve a procedure it initiated, particularly one involving sanctions or inspections that could harm the person subject to them, the procedure lapses (caducidad) and the file must be closed.4Boletín Oficial del Estado. Law 39/2015 – Common Administrative Procedure of Public Administrations – Section: Article 25 If the administration wants to pursue the matter, it generally has to start over, and by then limitation periods may have run out.
When the Clock Pauses
The deadline does not always run uninterrupted. Article 22 of Law 39/2015 lists the situations where it pauses, and knowing them prevents surprises when you think silence should already have taken effect.5Boletín Oficial del Estado. Law 39/2015 – Common Administrative Procedure of Public Administrations – Section: Article 22
- When the administration requests a mandatory report from another body, the deadline pauses from the date of the request until the report arrives, for up to three months. If the report has not come in by then, the procedure moves forward without it.
- If you propose contradictory testing or technical analysis, the deadline pauses while those results are incorporated into the file.
- When the parties formally begin negotiating a possible agreement under Article 86, the deadline pauses until negotiations conclude.
- If resolving the procedure depends on a prior court ruling, the deadline pauses from the request until the outcome is known.
- If you challenge a procedural step, such as recusing a decision-maker, the deadline pauses until the superior body resolves the challenge.
Separately, if the delay is your fault, for example because you were asked to supply documents and have not, the deadline is interrupted entirely until you act. The administration must notify you of each suspension and its resolution. A gap in those communications can give you grounds to argue the suspension was improperly applied.
What to Do After Silence Takes Effect
Getting Proof That Silence Granted Your Request
When positive silence grants your request, you need documentation to prove it to banks, other agencies, or anyone else who needs to see a valid approval. Article 24 requires the competent body to issue a certificate of silence (certificado de acto presunto) on its own initiative within fifteen days of the deadline’s expiry.2Boletín Oficial del Estado. Law 39/2015 – Common Administrative Procedure of Public Administrations – Section: Article 24 In practice, the certificate is rarely issued unprompted, so submit a formal request through the electronic registry of the relevant body. Electronic submission generally requires an FNMT digital certificate or an electronic national identity card (DNIe), which can be arranged in Spain or through a consulate abroad.6Consulate General of Spain in Toronto. Digital Certificate
Appealing a Negative Silence
Negative silence opens the door to administrative appeals. The two main options are the recurso de alzada (appeal to a hierarchical superior) and the recurso potestativo de reposición (optional review by the same body that should have decided). Neither carries an administrative filing fee.
Timing works in your favor. Because no express decision was ever notified, the normal one-month deadline for filing an appeal does not apply. You can file the recurso de alzada at any time from the day after silence takes effect.7Boletín Oficial del Estado. Law 39/2015 – Common Administrative Procedure of Public Administrations – Section: Article 122 The administration then has three months to resolve the appeal, and if it fails and the double silence rule applies, your appeal is deemed granted. This open-ended filing window means the government cannot run out your clock by staying silent.
Going to Court
If the administrative appeal route does not resolve the matter, the next step is the contencioso-administrativo jurisdiction, Spain’s specialized administrative courts. Court fees for individual litigants were abolished under amendments to Law 10/2012, so private individuals face no filing fees in any jurisdiction or type of proceeding.8European e-Justice Portal. Costs – Spain You will still need to budget for a lawyer (abogado) and, in many cases, a court representative (procurador). Exhausting the administrative appeal route before filing in court is generally required.