Criminal law
Published on October 16th, 2026
Missing a criminal trial in Spain does not make the case disappear, and a warrant does not always follow. Where you stand depends on something the paper you were given may not say clearly, namely whether the offense was a minor one that a Spanish court tries in a single hearing, or one that the court cannot try without you.
Before you write to the court or book a flight, the first step is for a lawyer in Spain to read the court file and tell you which case you are in. If it was a minor offense, such as shoplifting up to €400, the judge could try you in your absence and may already have sentenced you, usually to a fine. If it was a more serious offense, the court can try you without you only within narrow limits, and when it cannot it suspends the trial and orders the police to look for you.
Status as of October 16th, 2026. The articles cited below were read in the consolidated text published by the Official State Gazette (BOE) on that date.
Spanish law separates the two by the penalty: a delito leve, a minor offense, is one punished with a light penalty (article 13.3 of the Criminal Code), which for theft means a fine of one to three months when the value does not exceed €400 and no aggravating circumstance of article 235 applies (articles 234.2 and 33.4.g), and anything else is a delito.
The court office must give the people concerned information on the state of the proceedings, and the parties can consult the file unless it is secret (article 234 of the Organic Law of the Judiciary). I start by asking it, on your behalf, for the state of the case and for copies: whether there is a judgment, whether there is a search order, at which address you were cited and who received the paper.
When shoplifting is caught in the act, the police cite everyone to the duty court and warn that the trial can be held there and then even if someone does not turn up (article 962.1 of the Criminal Procedure Act). An unjustified absence does not suspend the trial or the judgment, as long as you were cited as the law requires (article 971), and someone who lives outside the court's district can send a written statement or authorize a lawyer or a procurador, the court agent who represents parties in Spain, to put their case (article 970).
If you went home and the trial took place without you, there is probably a judgment, and for shoplifting probably a fine. The court can also fine an unjustified absence €200 to €2,000 (article 967.2). The judgment can be appealed within five days of being notified (article 976.1), so the first thing I check is when and where it was notified to you.
In the abbreviated procedure, which applies to offenses punished by up to nine years in prison (article 757), the trial requires the accused and the defense lawyer to be present, with one exception. The court can go ahead without you when you were cited in person, or at the address in Spain or through the person you named at your first appearance before the judge (article 775.1), the prosecutor or the accusing party asks for it, the defense is heard and the judge finds the evidence sufficient.
The penalties sought set the limit, since the most serious cannot exceed two years in prison, or six years if it is of another kind, a fine is allowed whatever its amount, and the prison sentences sought cannot add up to more than five years (article 787.1). These limits have applied since April 3rd, 2025, and a trial held earlier ran under a wording with no clause on fines and no ceiling on the sum.
Theft above €400 carries six to eighteen months (article 234.1), so a trial in your absence is possible if the other conditions are met, provided the summons was real. In 2019 the National Court annulled a trial in absence because the accused had not been warned at his first appearance and the summons sent to his address had come back undelivered and the police reported that he no longer lived there (Audiencia Nacional, March 21st, 2019, ECLI:ES:AN:2019:1926).
When you appear or are found, the judgment is notified to you with your right to challenge it by a recurso de anulación, which has the same period and requirements as an appeal and runs from the moment it is shown that you knew of the judgment (article 793.2), and the period is ten days (article 790.1). The remedy checks whether the legal requirements for a trial in absence were respected and annuls the trial if they were not, as in the 2019 decision above, while other complaints go through other routes.
If the accused is not found at home and their whereabouts are unknown, the judge orders a requisitoria (article 512), which people call busca y captura, and which reaches the national police and, in Catalonia, the Mossos d'Esquadra. Once its term has passed without an appearance the person is declared rebelde (article 839), a pending trial is suspended and the file archived (article 841), and when the person appears or is found the court reopens the case (article 846).
A requisitoria is a Spanish order, so the risk for someone who lives abroad sits at the border and the airport more than at home. Where at least two search orders have been issued against a person by any court in the previous two years, the Code treats prison pending trial as appropriate, without the usual penalty threshold (article 503.1.3.º a). Without them the threshold is a maximum penalty of two years (article 503.1.1.º), which an ordinary theft does not reach, apart from exceptions such as uncancelled prior convictions for intentional offenses.
If you live in another EU country, the question is whether Spain can ask that country to arrest and surrender you. A Spanish judge can issue a European arrest warrant to prosecute an offense whose maximum penalty is at least twelve months, or to enforce a sentence of at least four months, which a fine for a minor offense never reaches (article 37 of Act 23/2014 on mutual recognition of criminal decisions in the European Union). To prosecute, the requirements for prison pending trial must also be met, the prosecutor must have asked for it and the judge must decide by a reasoned order (article 39.1 and 39.3). An ordinary theft meets that requirement only where prison pending trial is possible, for instance after two search orders or with uncancelled prior convictions, so the file decides the answer, whatever the offense is called.
Outside the EU the warrant does not exist, since it works between member states (article 34). Spain can then only ask for extradition, which requires a reasoned order of provisional prison or a final sentence (article 825 of the Criminal Procedure Act) and covers the cases the treaties in force with that country provide (article 827.1.º).
A delito prescribes after five years, unless the penalty is heavier, and a minor offense after one (article 131.1). The clock starts again from zero when the proceedings are directed against you, which happens when the court issues a reasoned decision attributing to you a part in the offense, and it runs again only from the moment the proceedings are paralyzed or end without conviction (article 132.2).
Searching for the accused does not interrupt it, and the Supreme Court has counted as paralysis the period that starts with a search order and the declaration of rebeldía and lasts until the accused is found (Supreme Court, June 25th, 2015, ECLI:ES:TS:2015:2753). A Barcelona court applied that to a theft downgraded to a minor offense, where the accused had spent more than twenty months in rebeldía, and acquitted him because the year had run (Audiencia Provincial de Barcelona, June 28th, 2023, ECLI:ES:APB:2023:8504). Time can pass in your favor, on the facts of each file and only until a later step in the case directs the proceedings at you again. Since the price is staying out of Spain, I would not build a plan on it.
The first thing I do is ask the court office which of the two cases you are in and whether you were cited in person or at an address, which is what the trial in absence and the search order depend on. Then I check whether there is a judgment, when it was notified and which deadline is still open. If there is a search order, I prepare your appearance with the evidence of why you missed the date.
In my judgment appearing on your own initiative is better than being found, and for people on provisional release the judge can require them to appear when called and retain their passport (article 530). I would not write to the court on your own, nor travel to Spain before checking whether an order exists. I work directly, in English, and every article here has been checked against the official text.
You can write to me on WhatsApp with the court, the date and what you were charged with. If you want to read more first, see being summoned to a court in Barcelona, shoplifting and theft charges in Barcelona, the first 72 hours after an arrest in Barcelona, and my work in criminal law.
Editorial responsibility: Carles Jiménez, Spanish lawyer (Barcelona Bar No. 34.946). This note was prepared with the assistance of artificial-intelligence tools and reviewed and approved by the author before publication.
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