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Bank account frozen in Spain over anti-money laundering checks: get your money back

Last updated 2026-09-28 · Reviewed by Jaime Piñeira Pardo, registered with the ICAM bar, no. 138826

The short answer

If you have a bank account frozen in Spain on anti-money laundering grounds, the governing law, Ley 10/2010, lets the bank stop executing transactions while it cannot apply due diligence, and close the account, but not keep your balance. Document the source of your funds, complain to the bank and, if it does not pay out, sue for the balance with interest and damages before the civil section of the Tribunal de Instancia (the first-instance court): you have five years from the refusal.

You are the director of a Spanish limited company that exports olive oil to the Middle East and has banked with the same institution since 2016. In July, 310,000 euros came in from a new customer in the United Arab Emirates, in three transfers from companies other than the buyer. The bank emailed a request for ‘documentation on the source and purpose of the funds’, to be provided within ten days; the invoices were sent, but not the contracts or any explanation of why third parties were paying. In August it stopped accepting transfers and two supplier direct debits bounced. At the branch you are told it is ‘a Compliance matter’ and nothing more. On 15 September a letter arrives: the bank is ending the relationship ‘pursuant to anti-money laundering legislation’ and the balance, 412,000 euros, ‘will remain withheld until the checks are completed’. Payroll is due at the end of the month; the quarterly VAT return, on 20 October.

The case, in five lines

What is brought: A written complaint to the bank and, if it does not release the balance, a claim for performance of the contract requiring it to pay out the balance or execute your instructions, with damages and statutory interest (articles 1101, 1108 and 1124 of the Civil Code). If the business cannot wait, pre-action interim measures, with no prior negotiation required (article 5.3 of Organic Law 1/2025). If the freeze was ordered by a judge or an authority, it is that order that must be challenged.
Before which court: The civil section of the Tribunal de Instancia (the first-instance court): the one for your home address if you are a consumer; for a company, the one where the bank is domiciled or where the relationship arose, if the bank has a branch there (articles 50 to 52 of the Civil Procedure Act, LEC). Before that, the bank's customer complaints department (departamento de atención a la clientela) and, optionally, the claims service of the Banco de España (Spain's central bank), whose report is not binding (article 30 of Ley 44/2002). Sepblac (Spain's financial intelligence unit) supervises the bank, but it does not return balances.
Deadline: A five-year limitation period from when you could demand the balance, in practice from when the bank refused it or closed the account without paying it out (article 1964.2 of the Civil Code), interrupted by each written demand (article 1973). The bank has one month to answer your complaint, or fifteen working days for payment services (article 69 of Royal Decree-Law 19/2018, Spain's payment services law); the Banco de España has 90 calendar days (article 30 of Ley 44/2002). A closure on commercial grounds requires two months' notice (article 32.4 of Royal Decree-Law 19/2018).
Who can bring it: The account holder brings the claim, whether an individual or a company; with several holders, according to the agreed signing arrangements, never a mere authorised signatory. The claim is brought against the institution holding the account: a bank, a payment institution or an e-money institution, including one from another EU Member State operating in Spain.
Financial risk: If you lose, you will normally pay the costs (article 394 LEC), and the closure remains shielded by article 7.3 of Ley 10/2010, save for unjust enrichment. If a possible offence surfaces during the case, the court alerts the public prosecutor, and criminal proceedings concerning the funds may stay the civil claim (article 40 LEC). The immediate cost lies elsewhere: months without liquidity, bounced direct debits and the possible closure of your accounts across the rest of the banking group.

First, find out who has frozen your money

A frozen balance can come from four places, and each has its own route: the bank itself, applying Ley 10/2010, Spain's anti-money laundering act; a judge, in an investigation or an attachment; the Agencia Tributaria (Spain's tax agency) or the Seguridad Social (the social security administration), through an attachment order; or an authority enforcing international financial sanctions or counter-terrorist financing measures. Only in the first case is the bank your opponent and the party you sue.

Ask in writing: which transactions are blocked, since when, and whether there is a court or administrative order. The bank can answer that: the tipping-off prohibition in article 24 protects what it reports to Sepblac, Spain's financial intelligence unit, not attachment orders that the authority serves on you. If the answer is ‘internal decision’ or ‘anti-money laundering rules’, your dispute is with the bank; if there is an order, it is challenged before whoever made it.

You should also distinguish three situations that banks tend to blur. A freeze while the bank reviews your documentation, which the law allows: it does not execute transactions while it cannot apply due diligence (article 7.3). The rejection of a specific payment order, which must be notified to you with its reasons unless another rule prohibits it (article 51 of Royal Decree-Law 19/2018). And termination of the relationship, after which the balance must be made available to you (article 32.2 of Royal Decree-Law 19/2018).

What the anti-money laundering act allows the bank to do, and why it tells you nothing

Customer due diligence does not end when the account is opened. The bank must identify you and the beneficial owner, understand the purpose of the relationship and monitor whether your transactions fit your profile, including the source of funds (articles 3 to 6). It repeats the exercise when your circumstances change or a transaction is significant (article 7.2), and applies enhanced due diligence to high-risk countries, private banking and money remittance (article 11).

Article 7.3 is the key provision: if it cannot apply those measures, the bank does not execute transactions and ends the relationship, carrying out the special review in article 17. If there are indications of money laundering, it reports them to Sepblac (article 18) and refrains from executing the transaction (article 19). The law shields it: terminating because due diligence is impossible gives rise to no liability, save where there is unjust enrichment (article 7.3), and neither does a report made in good faith (article 23).

That is why nobody at the branch will explain anything: article 24 prohibits disclosing to the customer that information has been reported to Sepblac or that a transaction is under examination. The prohibition does not extend to the authorities, nor does it prevent sharing within the group, which is why the closure sometimes spreads to other group entities. What the bank can, and must, tell you is which documents it needs: asking for information discloses nothing. Insist on that list in writing.

What the bank cannot do: keep your money or leave you in limbo

The article 7.3 exemption covers refusing to transact and ending the relationship, not keeping the money: the provision carves out unjust enrichment. And payment services law, when regulating termination of a payment account contract, requires the balance to be made available to the user (article 32.2 of Royal Decree-Law 19/2018). From the moment you demand it in writing, the bank is in default and owes statutory interest (articles 1100 and 1108 of the Civil Code). Ask for a transfer to an account in your own name at another institution.

If the closure is not because you failed to provide information but because the bank no longer wants your profile or your sector, it is a commercial decision and the contract governs: an open-ended framework contract may only be terminated if the contract so provides and on at least two months' notice (article 32.4 of Royal Decree-Law 19/2018). If your company is not a micro-enterprise, check the terms: with users that are neither consumers nor micro-enterprises, the parties may agree to disapply those rules (article 28.2).

Neither article 19 nor any other provision of Ley 10/2010 says how long funds may be held, and that cuts both ways. The bank may wait while the authorities assess its report, but it cannot turn the wait into a deposit with no repayment date: performance of the contract cannot be left to its discretion (article 1256 of the Civil Code). A lasting freeze requires an order from a judge or an authority; without one, and with everything delivered, the retention loses its legal footing.

The source-of-funds file: where the case is won or lost

In court, the bank cannot openly rely on anything it may have reported to Sepblac, because disclosing it to the customer is prohibited. Its defence rests on article 7.3: it could not apply due diligence because you did not provide what it asked for. The case then turns on a specific paper trail: what the bank requested, when, by what deadline and what you delivered. If you can prove that you delivered everything, complete and consistent, that defence loses its premise.

The file is built transaction by transaction. A memo explains each movement that triggered the alert (who paid, why and from where), backed by contracts, invoices, deeds, tax returns, statements from the originating account and the ownership chain up to the beneficial owner (article 4); for crypto-assets, the provider's statements and the on-chain trail. Consistency with what you declared when opening the account (article 5) matters as much as volume.

It is delivered through the channel the bank specified and also by burofax (a certified letter whose contents are officially recorded), asking for acknowledgement, a list of anything missing and a decision within a reasonable time. We review it first: an inconsistent explanation, such as a ‘loan from a friend’ with no written agreement, can turn the review into a suspicious activity report (article 18). And never refuse to provide information on data protection grounds: that hands the bank the exact ground in article 7.3.

Before suing: the bank, the Banco de España and pre-action negotiation

The formal complaint goes to the bank's customer complaints department (departamento de atención a la clientela), which, since Ley 10/2025 amended Ley 44/2002, has one month to resolve it; if it concerns payment services, such as a rejected transfer, fifteen working days, extendable to one month only in exceptional cases (article 69 of Royal Decree-Law 19/2018). List the documents delivered and their dates, request that the account be unblocked or the balance transferred with interest, and reserve your right to damages. The complaint interrupts the limitation period (article 1973 of the Civil Code).

If a month passes without a reply, or your complaint is rejected, you may go to the claims service of the Banco de España, which decides within 90 calendar days through a reasoned report that is neither appealable nor binding on the bank (article 30 of Ley 44/2002). It will not judge whether the bank was right to be suspicious, but whether it was transparent and followed good practice: whether it asked for documents clearly, respected the notice period and is returning your balance.

Suing requires meeting article 5 of Organic Law 1/2025: first attempting an appropriate dispute resolution method (MASC) on the same subject matter. For a consumer, a complaint to the bank left unanswered in time or answered unsatisfactorily is enough, as is the Banco de España's decision (seventh additional provision). A company, because that provision is aimed at consumer disputes, must open a formal negotiation, such as a confidential binding offer. The step is not required for pre-action interim measures (article 5.3).

The claim: what to seek, where and by when

The action is contractual: you ask for the bank to pay out the balance or execute your instructions and to compensate the loss caused by its breach (articles 1101 and 1124 of the Civil Code), with statutory interest from your demand. The case is heard by the civil section of the Tribunal de Instancia: the one for your home address if you are a consumer; for a company, the one where the bank is domiciled or where the relationship arose, if it has a branch there (article 51 LEC). Claims of up to 15,000 euros follow the simplified procedure (juicio verbal).

It is a limitation period: five years from when repayment could be demanded, in practice from when the bank refused it or closed the account without paying out the balance (article 1964.2 of the Civil Code), and each written demand interrupts it. The time limit is rarely the problem; proving the loss is: bounced direct debits, surcharges, emergency financing and lost contracts, with a forensic accountant where there is loss of profits. If you lose, you will normally pay the costs (article 394 LEC).

If the business cannot wait, interim measures are sought before filing the claim and with no prior negotiation: an order that the bank transfer the balance to your new account or release what is needed for payroll and taxes. They require a prima facie case, a risk arising from delay, and the provision of security (article 728 LEC), and the claim must be filed within twenty days of their adoption (article 730 LEC). If there are criminal proceedings concerning the funds, the civil claim may be stayed (article 40 LEC) and the fight moves to the investigating section (sección de instrucción) of the Tribunal de Instancia.

Fintechs, crypto firms and neobanks: when the closure is about your sector

Many closures have nothing to do with your transactions and everything to do with your sector: crypto-assets, remittances, payments. The European Banking Authority has asked banks not to reject whole categories of customers without an individual assessment, and payment institutions have a right of their own: objective, non-discriminatory and proportionate access to bank accounts and, if access is refused or the contract terminated, a duly reasoned decision sent immediately to the Banco de España and to the institution itself (article 9 of Royal Decree-Law 19/2018).

For a crypto-asset service provider (CASP), losing its bank account puts its licence at risk: client funds must be placed with a credit institution or a central bank by the end of the next business day (article 70.3 MiCA). If your account is held in another Member State, a consumer may sue at home where the institution directs its business to Spain (articles 17 and 18 of Regulation (EU) 1215/2012, Brussels I recast); a company sues where the provider is domiciled or where the service is provided (articles 4 and 7.1), unless a valid jurisdiction clause applies (article 25).

If whoever closes your account competes with you, as a bank that also sends money competes with a payment institution, and seeks to push you out of the market, you can bring an unfair competition claim before the commercial section (sección de lo mercantil) of the Tribunal de Instancia; it becomes time-barred one year after it could be brought and you knew who was responsible (article 35 of Ley 3/1991). In a Spanish case of this kind, the Court of Justice of the European Union held that anti-money laundering measures must be risk-based and proportionate, and left it to the national court to verify that.

How we run the case, step by step

1
We establish who froze the account and why
We ask in writing what is blocked, since when and whether there is a court or administrative order, and gather the contract, statements and the bank's requests. If a judge or an authority issued the order, we take action before that court or authority.
2
We build the source-of-funds file
A memo for each transaction that triggered the alert, with contracts, invoices, deeds, tax returns, statements from the originating account and the ownership chain up to the beneficial owner, without a single inconsistency.
3
We deliver it with proof and arrange where the money will go
Delivery through the bank's channel and by burofax, asking for acknowledgement, a list of anything missing and a decision, with an account in your name at another institution designated to receive the balance.
4
We file the complaint and open pre-action negotiation
A complaint to the customer complaints department, which has one month to reply, or fifteen working days for payment services. For a company, also a formal negotiation that satisfies article 5 of Organic Law 1/2025 and interrupts the limitation period.
5
We seek interim measures if you cannot wait
When payroll, taxes or suppliers are at risk, we ask the court, before filing the claim, to order the transfer of the balance or the release of what is essential, against security.
6
We sue before the civil section of the Tribunal de Instancia
Repayment of the balance, damages proven by expert evidence and statutory interest, within the five-year limitation period and, if interim measures were granted, within the following twenty days.

The evidence that decides the case

The bank's requests, with dates, the list of documents and the deadline: they define what it could require and whether your response was complete.
The burofax or acknowledgement proving delivery of the complete file: it is what dismantles the ‘impossibility’ defence under article 7.3.
The source-of-funds documents, consistent with the profile declared on opening the account.
The account contract and the closure letter: the termination clause, the notice period and whether the bank relies on anti-money laundering rules or on a commercial decision.
The bank's answer on whether there is a court or administrative order, and the time elapsed since delivery: together they prove a retention without legal cover.
Evidence of loss: bounced direct debits, surcharges, penalties, lost contracts and emergency financing, quantified by a forensic accountant.

What closes the door

Ignoring the request, answering late or in part, or refusing on data protection grounds: that hands the bank its article 7.3 ground to close the account without liability.
Giving inconsistent or undocumented explanations, or supplying altered documents: it can turn the review into a report to Sepblac and a criminal investigation.
Moving the money through third-party accounts, splitting cash deposits or hiding the closure from your new bank: it triggers new alerts and new closures.
Suing without first attempting negotiation or, as a consumer, without first complaining to the bank: the claim will not be admitted (article 5 of Organic Law 1/2025).
Suing the bank when the freeze was ordered by a judge or an authority: you lose, you pay the costs and the order remains in force.
Signing, in order to receive the balance, a document accepting the closure as justified or waiving any claim for damages: the balance was already yours (article 32.2 of Royal Decree-Law 19/2018).

The law that applies

Art. 7 Ley 10/2010. Where due diligence, which also covers existing customers, cannot be applied, no transactions are executed and the relationship is ended, with no liability save where there is unjust enrichment. BOE-A-2010-6737
Arts. 17, 18 y 19 Ley 10/2010. They require unusual transactions, or those with no apparent economic purpose, to be examined with special attention, those showing indications of money laundering to be reported to Sepblac without delay, and their execution to be withheld. BOE-A-2010-6737
Arts. 23 y 24 Ley 10/2010. A good-faith report creates no liability, and the obliged entity may not disclose to the customer that it has reported information to Sepblac or is examining a transaction, save to the authorities and within its group. BOE-A-2010-6737
Arts. 32, 51 y 69 RDL 19/2018. In regulating termination of a payment account, it requires the balance to be made available to the user, and prior agreement and two months' notice for the provider to terminate an open-ended contract; a rejected payment order is notified with reasons unless the law prohibits it, and payment complaints are resolved within fifteen working days. BOE-A-2018-16036
Art. 30 Ley 44/2002. It requires a prior written complaint to the institution and either one month without a decision or a rejection; the Banco de España then decides within 90 calendar days by a reasoned report that is not an appealable administrative act. BOE-A-2002-22807
Arts. 1101 y 1124 CC. Whoever breaches their obligations must compensate the loss caused; in reciprocal obligations, the injured party may demand performance or termination, with damages and interest in either case. BOE-A-1889-4763
Arts. 1964.2 y 1973 CC. Personal actions with no special time limit are time-barred five years after performance can be demanded; limitation is interrupted by a court claim, by an out-of-court demand from the creditor and by acknowledgement of the debt. BOE-A-1889-4763
Art. 5 y disposición adicional séptima LO 1/2025. A civil claim requires a prior attempt at an appropriate dispute resolution method, except for pre-action interim measures and pre-action disclosure; for a consumer, a prior complaint to the institution left unanswered in time or answered unsatisfactorily is enough, as is a Banco de España decision. BOE-A-2025-76

Each article checked against the consolidated text published in the BOE (the Spanish official gazette).

Frequently asked questions

How long can a Spanish bank keep my account frozen?

The law sets no fixed period. While it cannot apply due diligence, the bank may refuse to execute transactions (article 7.3 of Ley 10/2010); once you have delivered the documents, it must decide within a reasonable time whether to reactivate the account or end the relationship and return your balance. A lasting freeze requires a court or administrative order. Demand repayment in writing: interest runs from then.

Why won't my bank tell me why my account was frozen?

Because article 24 of Ley 10/2010 prohibits it from disclosing that it has reported information to Sepblac or that it is examining a transaction. It can tell you which documents it needs and whether a court or administrative attachment exists. Ask for both in writing: the list tells you what to provide, and the answer on attachment, whom to act against.

Can a Spanish bank close my account without notice and keep my money?

It may close without notice if it has been unable to apply due diligence, usually because you did not provide what was requested (article 7.3 of Ley 10/2010). If the closure is a commercial decision, the contract must provide for it and two months' notice is required (article 32.4 of Royal Decree-Law 19/2018). It cannot keep the balance: absent a court or administrative order, it must make it available to you.

All my bank accounts were closed: can another bank in Spain refuse to open one?

If you are legally resident in the European Union, even with no fixed address, or you are seeking asylum, you are entitled to a basic payment account (article 3 of Royal Decree-Law 19/2017). It may be refused if you do not provide the information anti-money laundering rules require, and, unless Ley 10/2010 prevents it, the refusal must be notified in writing, free of charge and with reasons, within ten working days (articles 4 and 5).

If I complain to the bank, will I trigger a money laundering investigation?

Asking for your money back is not, in itself, an indication of anything, and if the bank had something to report to Sepblac, it will normally have done so already. What exposes you is contradictory explanations or incomplete documents. If your funds are lawful, the file that proves it is your best protection. If criminal proceedings already exist, your defence is conducted there.

This guide explains how the action works in general. It does not replace the study of your own case: deadlines depend on when things happened and on what you have done since.