Criminal law
Published on September 17th, 2026
A Spanish court summons is a short document, giving you a date, a time, a court and a room number and being served on you in a way that starts a clock, but explaining none of what determines how that day goes, which is what this guide goes through, along with what is particular about doing it in Barcelona.
This is the first thing to establish, before anything else, and it is not always stated in terms a non-lawyer will recognize.
You may be summoned as a witness, in which case you are obliged to attend and to tell the truth, or as an investigado, the person whose possible involvement is being examined, in which case you are not obliged to answer anything, you have the right to a lawyer, and you have the right to be told what facts are attributed to you before you speak. A third possibility is a hearing that is already a trial, which in fast-track proceedings can happen sooner than most people expect.
Since the summons is a form and forms are read quickly, attending as an investigado believing you are a witness is the single most damaging error at this stage, and an easy one to make. If the summons calls you as an investigado, what that status means is the next thing to understand.
In Barcelona most of it happens at the Ciutat de la Justícia de Barcelona i L'Hospitalet, on Gran Via, which concentrates the investigating courts and much of the city's criminal jurisdiction. It is a large complex with several buildings, and the summons will tell you which one and which floor.
The Ciutat is not the only possibility, given that cases outside the city of Barcelona are heard in the courts of their own judicial district and there are other jurisdictions with their own buildings. If the address on your summons is not the one you expected, the address on the summons is the one that counts.
It is worth knowing that since December 31st, 2025, the old Juzgados de lo Penal no longer exist as such. They are now sections of a single Tribunal de Instancia in each district, as the first transitional provision of Organic Act 1/2025 provides, the same Act that gave article 14 of the Criminal Procedure Act the wording that has named them this way since October 3rd, 2025. That Act is dated January 2nd, 2025, and came into force in stages, and the date that matters for the names of the courts is therefore the end of 2025, not the date of the Act itself. Guidance written before that reform, which is most of what is available in English, still uses the old names.
Failing to appear when properly summoned, which people tend to underestimate, has consequences that escalate, and an avoidable problem becomes a serious one. An investigado who cannot be found at their address, and whose whereabouts are unknown, is searched for by requisitoria, an order entered in the judicial records system and published on the single judicial notice board, with instructions to the national police forces and to the regional police of the autonomous communities with competence in public security, which in Catalonia means the Mossos (article 512 of the Criminal Procedure Act, in the wording in force since April 3rd, 2025). That turns a case you might have resolved into one that follows you, and it removes your best argument for good faith, which judges notice.
If the date is genuinely impossible, that is a reason to ask for a change through a lawyer, with evidence, and to do so before the date rather than simply not turning up.
Service is the moment that matters, not the moment you read it, since deadlines run from proper notification and proper notification can happen at the address you designated, or with the person you designated, without the paper ever reaching your hands. The court warns you of this at your first appearance, and the warning is specific, namely that a summons served that way allows the trial to be held in your absence (articles 775 and 787.1 of the Criminal Procedure Act).
For a foreign resident the practical edge is that if you have moved, if you spend part of the year abroad, or if your registered address is an apartment you no longer occupy, you can be validly summoned to a hearing you never learn about until the consequences arrive.
You do not always have to be physically present for every step, and there are mechanisms to act through a lawyer and a procurador with a power of attorney. What those mechanisms cover, and what still requires you in the room, depends on the stage and on what you are summoned for. I recommend resolving it early rather than booking a flight for every appearance, or worse, missing one.
The first thing I do with a summons is read what capacity it calls you in, and if the document is not clear, find out from the court file rather than guess. That single answer decides whether you must speak, whether you should and what we need before the date.
Then I check what has already been served and when, which tells me which deadlines are running, and I prepare the appearance itself: what will be asked, what the file already contains, and what is better said in writing beforehand. I do this directly, in English, and the sources I rely on are checked against the official text rather than quoted from memory. You can read how I work, or what I do in criminal defense in Barcelona.
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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