Bottom line up front: When a business client in Spain leaves your invoice unpaid, the EU Late Payment Directive (2011/7/EU), as transposed into national law, generally lets you claim the principal, statutory late-payment interest, and a fixed recovery sum (an EU minimum of €40). For a debtor in your OWN country you use the national order-for-payment route (proceso monitorio); for a debtor in ANOTHER EU country you can escalate cross-border with the European Payment Order (Form A). This is general information, not legal advice.

The situation: an overdue B2B invoice in Spain

You delivered the work, sent a correct invoice, and the payment deadline has passed. For freelancers and small agencies, an unpaid B2B invoice is a direct strain on cash flow. A debtor in another EU member state adds distance and an unfamiliar court system.

The legal position, however, is well defined, and you can prepare the first formal documents yourself. For cross-border cases, Spain designates its ordinary first-instance civil courts — the Courts of First Instance (Juzgados de Primera Instancia) — to handle European Payment Order applications: a clear entry point for creditors elsewhere in the EU whose debtor is in Spain.

Your position under Directive 2011/7/EU

For commercial transactions between businesses (B2B) or between businesses and public authorities (B2G), the Directive establishes that statutory interest and a fixed recovery sum of at least €40 generally apply once payment becomes late, as transposed into national law. In Spain these rules are found in Ley 3/2004 of 29 December 2004 on combating late payment in commercial transactions, as amended to implement the Directive. Default is automatic: it arises on mere failure to pay within the agreed or legally established period, with no notice of expiry or demand needed from you (art. 5 Ley 3/2004). As a rule payment periods run 30 calendar days, and an agreed period may never exceed 60 calendar days (art. 4).

The interest rate is set by formula. Statutory late-payment interest is the rate the European Central Bank applied to its most recent main refinancing operation before the half-year began — before 1 January for the first semester, before 1 July for the second — plus eight percentage points (art. 7.2 Ley 3/2004). That is the Directive's floor, applied exactly in Spain. (Germany, for comparison, uses a nine-point margin — over its own statutory base rate.) The rate stays fixed for the half-year, and the resulting figure is published each semester in the Official State Gazette (BOE) (art. 7.3).

Once the debtor is in default you are also entitled to a fixed €40 for recovery costs, added to the principal in every case and without any express request (art. 8 Ley 3/2004) — the EU minimum, which Spanish law sets at exactly that amount. These are baseline entitlements, not absolute legal guarantees; how they apply to a specific claim depends on its circumstances.

Domestic vs. cross-border: which route applies

The procedure depends on where your debtor is located:

• Same country (Spain): use the proceso monitorio (order-for-payment procedure) under arts. 812 ff. of the Ley de Enjuiciamiento Civil, the Spanish code of civil procedure: a streamlined route for money debts that are liquid, determined, due and payable and evidenced by documents such as invoices or delivery notes — with no monetary ceiling.
• Different EU country (cross-border): you can use the European Payment Order (Form A), a standardised procedure under Regulation (EC) No 1896/2006 for cross-border civil and commercial claims. It is available for cross-border cases only — national routes such as the monitorio remain open too — and does not apply to Denmark.

Which country's courts take the application is set by EU jurisdiction rules — as a general rule the courts of the debtor's member state. When the Spanish courts are competent (for example, because your debtor is based in Spain), the application goes on standard Form A to a Court of First Instance (Juzgado de Primera Instancia); these courts handle European Payment Orders in Spain exclusively.

Service of the order starts a clock: the debtor can either pay the amount stated or lodge a statement of opposition within 30 days of service (arts. 12 and 16 of the Regulation). A timely opposition moves the case to the competent courts of the member state of origin — normally under ordinary civil procedure, or the European Small Claims Procedure where it applies — unless you have explicitly requested that the proceedings end instead (art. 17).

In either scenario, starting with a courtesy payment reminder and, if necessary, a formal late-payment demand can often resolve the matter without court involvement. MoraDirect helps you generate both.

The manual way (and why it's tedious)

Doing this manually means several error-prone steps:

1. Drafting a correctly formatted demand letter that includes all required elements.
2. Calculating the exact statutory interest since the due date, using the right semester's ECB reference rate and the eight-point margin for Spain.
3. For cross-border cases, completing the official European Payment Order Form A with every field as the Regulation prescribes.
4. Checking the formatting — incorrect or incomplete submissions can trigger requests for correction or rejection, adding weeks of delay.

Both routes reward precision: the monitorio rests on documents that evidence the debt, and Form A leaves no room for improvised formatting.

Doing it yourself vs. MoraDirect

Generate your documents

Don't want to calculate interest and format court forms by hand? MoraDirect builds your reminder, late-payment demand, and (for cross-border cases) the official European Payment Order Form A from one set of details — no account, nothing stored after your download. Create your documents

General information, not legal advice. MoraDirect is a document-formatting tool.