Documents Required for the Second Chance Law in Spain: Complete Checklist and How to Get Them

Spain's Second Chance Law (Ley de Segunda Oportunidad) is applied for in 2 stages: first, the insolvency petition (solicitud de concurso de acreedores) and second, the application for discharge of unsatisfied liabilities (exoneración del pasivo insatisfecho). Each stage requires specific documents established by the Ley Concursal (Spanish Insolvency Act), not by the habits of each law firm.

Three mandatory documents accompany the insolvency petition. The personal statement (memoria) sets out your financial and legal history, the activities you have carried out over the last 3 years and the causes of your insolvency; if you are married, it states your spouse's identity, the date of marriage, the matrimonial property regime and, if agreed, the date of any prenuptial or postnuptial agreements (capitulaciones), and if you have a registered partner, their identity and the registration date. The inventory lists your assets and rights along with their registry details, acquisition value, market value and encumbrances. The list of creditors gives each creditor's identity, address, email address, debt amount, due date, guarantees and any ongoing court proceedings with their current status.

Only if you are an employer do you add a list of employees. In addition, the petition must state whether your insolvency is current or imminent and attach supporting documents: this is where the CIRBE report, debt certificates, payslips and bank statements come in.

When applying for debt discharge, you submit your IRPF (personal income tax) returns for the last 3 years, both those filed and those that should have been filed, and you declare that you are not subject to any legal bar preventing discharge. If you apply using a payment plan, you also attach the tax returns of the other members of your household and your consent for the discharge to appear in the Public Insolvency Register (Registro público concursal) for 5 years or the shorter period set by the plan.

There is one final piece that is not drafted: the power of attorney granted to the procurador (a licensed court procedural representative in Spain). The application is filed by a procurador bearing their signature and that of a lawyer, and the power of attorney must specifically authorise filing for insolvency. A general power of attorney for litigation is not sufficient.

The law does not provide a closed list of supporting documents. It requires the petition to prove your insolvency and requires you to provide the information needed to assess your good faith. The Supreme Court made this clear in February 2026: that burden lies on the debtor, including explaining the origin of debts that were disproportionate to your income at the time, and the judge verifies this ex officio even if no creditor objects.

That is why it is not about collecting paperwork for the sake of it, but ensuring that every statement in your memoria is backed by a document. Income is proven with payslips, pensions or benefits; account activity with bank statements; each debt with its contract, collection letters or any lawsuit served on you; and real estate assets with certificates from the Land Registry (Registro de la Propiedad).

The table in this guide sets out, document by document, what each one is for, where to request it and whether you can get it without a digital certificate or Cl@ve (Spain's online identification system for public services). Not all of them are needed in every case: if you do not own property, you do not need land registry certificates, and if you have never had employees, you do not submit a list of workers. We decide this with you during the initial review, so we ask for neither one document too many nor one too few.

If you are a working autónomo (self-employed person in Spain) and your business qualifies as a micro-enterprise (fewer than 10 employees on average in the previous year and annual turnover below €700,000 or liabilities below €350,000), the mandatory route is the special procedure for micro-enterprises, which operates via free official electronic forms. We explain this in our guide to the Second Chance Law for self-employed workers.

The Bank of Spain's Central Credit Register (Central de Información de Riesgos del Banco de España, or CIRBE) is a public service that records the credit risks reported by financial institutions. It is not a defaulter blacklist like ASNEF or Experian, but it gives a reliable snapshot of what you owe to banks and financial lenders, and we use it to cross-check your list of creditors.

The report is free for the account holder and the Bank of Spain delivers it within a maximum of 10 working days. Without a digital certificate or Cl@ve, you can request it in 2 ways: in person by prior appointment, or by post sent to calle Alcalá 48, 28014 Madrid, enclosing form FDU-031 signed by hand and a copy of your DNI (Spanish national ID card) or NIE (Foreigner Identification Number, the tax and admin ID for foreigners in Spain). With an electronic certificate or advanced Cl@ve, you can also request it via their online portal.

You must request this report yourself. A representative can only do so with a notarised power of attorney in a public deed that expressly authorises it; a private authorisation or a general litigation power of attorney will not be accepted. Because requesting it by post is simple and free, we ask you to send it off on day 1 so that it arrives in time to draft your creditor list.

It is important to know its limits. The report only details loans and credit lines with institutions where your accumulated risk exceeds €1,000; for others, it only gives the lender's name. For individuals, it covers reports from the last 5 years. Furthermore, debts owed to Hacienda (the Spanish Tax Agency, also known as the AEAT), the Seguridad Social (Spain's Social Security system), your local council or private individuals are not risks reported by financial institutions. The CIRBE is a starting point, never the complete list.

Your employment history report (informe de vida laboral) proves what work you have done over the last 3 years, which is required for the personal statement. Without a digital certificate or Cl@ve, you can request to have it posted to your home address, provided it matches the address on file with the General Treasury of the Seguridad Social (Tesorería General de la Seguridad Social). With a digital certificate or Cl@ve, you can download it online.

The certificate of tax compliance from the Agencia Tributaria (AEAT, Spain's tax authority) shows whether you have outstanding debts or unfiled returns. We request this on your behalf as authorised social collaborators of the Agencia Tributaria, using the mandate you sign when engaging our services. One practical detail: the certificate is not sent to us, but to your electronic mailbox or your registered tax address, and you forward it to us. To calculate the exact figure for each debt on the creditor list, we also use any enforcement notices (providencias de apremio), official demands and payment letters you have received.

The Seguridad Social certificate is obtained via its Importass portal. If you are in arrears, the portal also lets you download a document detailing the periods and amounts of the debt, which is exactly what is needed for the list of creditors. In addition to Cl@ve or a digital certificate, the portal allows identification via SMS if your mobile number is registered with the Seguridad Social.

Your IRPF tax returns for the last 3 years are filed with the discharge application rather than the initial insolvency petition, but it is advisable to have them from the start: they prove your income, and the law requires them whether they were filed or should have been filed. If you have not kept copies or are missing any, let us know during the initial review and we will examine the situation before filing anything.

The criminal record certificate (certificado de antecedentes penales) is used to prove good faith. Discharge is denied to anyone who, in the preceding 10 years, has received a final prison sentence for offences against property and the socio-economic order, document forgery, offences against the Public Treasury and Social Security, or offences against workers' rights, carrying a maximum statutory sentence of 3 years or more, unless criminal liability has been extinguished and paid. The Ministry of Justice also issues this certificate in person and by post, upon payment of the official tasa (official fee) using form modelo 790.

Because debt discharge only covers what you declared. In its judgments of 18 February 2026, the Supreme Court established that discharge applies to the debts listed by the debtor and identified in the court order. A debt left off the list is not cancelled, even if it would otherwise have been eligible for discharge.

You must include all of them: banks and financial companies, revolving credit cards, payday loans and microcredits, hire-purchase agreements, debts owed to private individuals, unpaid bills and all public-law debts. Public debts are not just Hacienda and the Seguridad Social: your local council (ayuntamiento) and regional government (comunidad autónoma) are separate creditors, and the Supreme Court has ruled that the cap on discharging public debt applies to each public creditor separately. Debts that cannot be cancelled, such as maintenance payments (pensiones de alimentos), must also be listed.

For each debt, we need the creditor's name and address, the amount and due date, whether it is backed by security (a mortgage or personal guarantee) and whether there is an ongoing lawsuit or attachment order (embargo), along with the court case number. If a debt was sold to a fund, any assignment or collection letters you have received help identify who owns it today.

Also note down anyone who acted as your guarantor. Debt discharge does not release guarantors, sureties or joint and several co-debtors, who remain liable, and if they pay on your behalf, their claim against you is affected in the same way as the main debt. The list must state which debts have personal guarantees and who provided them.

Keep any notices of attachment or garnishment (embargos) as well. Once insolvency is declared, no new enforcement proceedings or administrative attachments may be started against your assets, and those already underway are suspended, subject to statutory exceptions. Suspending is not cancelling, and in order to notify each court or authority and each payer, we need to know which attachment orders are in place.

The inventory includes everything you own, even if it is worth very little or has an embargo on it: real estate, vehicles, bank accounts, balances and payment rights. For real estate, we request the land registry extract (nota simple) from the Property Registry ourselves, which provides the registration details and encumbrances required by law. For everything else, the paperwork you already hold, such as vehicle registration documents or bank statements, plus a reasonable estimate of market value, is sufficient.

If you wish to keep your mortgaged home under a payment plan, an official valuation (tasación) is also required: the value of the security is 90% of its fair value, determined by an appraisal company approved by the Bank of Spain, unless you already have one carried out within the 6 months prior to the insolvency. This is a third-party cost not included in our fixed fee. We cover this in detail in our guide on your home, mortgage and the payment plan.

For your marital status, the personal statement requires your spouse's identity, the marriage date and your matrimonial property regime. You can use the marriage certificate from the Registro Civil (the Spanish Civil Registry, which records births, marriages and deaths) and, if you agreed on a regime different from the default statutory one, the notarial deed of marriage settlement (escritura de capitulaciones). If you have a registered partner, provide the certificate from the civil partnership register.

Your matrimonial regime is not a minor formality. If you are married under the community property regime (gananciales), the discharge of joint marital debts does not extend to your spouse unless they also apply for and obtain discharge themselves, and under a payment plan you must also submit the IRPF tax returns of your entire household unit. It is important to know this before getting started.

Using a lawyer and a procurador is mandatory in insolvency proceedings, and at Managora we provide both as part of our team. The only step you need to do yourself is grant the power of attorney to the procurador, which must specifically authorise filing for insolvency.

The simplest method is an apud acta power of attorney: you appear in person before the court clerk (letrado de la Administración de Justicia) at any court office, not necessarily the one that will hear your insolvency case, and grant the power. It is free of charge, requires neither a digital certificate nor Cl@ve, and the procurador does not need to be present. We give you our procurador's details and the exact wording, expressly mentioning the insolvency petition, so you can take it with you ready to sign.

It can also be granted online via the Electronic Judicial Portal (Sede Judicial Electrónica) using an electronic DNI or digital certificate. When done online, the powers are selected from a drop-down list, and you must verify that it includes the specific power to file for insolvency; for that reason, we usually recommend appearing in person. Under no circumstances will we ever ask you for your digital certificate or your Cl@ve password.

We handle your Second Chance Law application from start to finish, with our own in-house lawyer and procurador. You upload your documents through our website; we review them, tell you what is missing and why, and request the ones we can obtain on your behalf: your tax certificate as authorised social collaborators of the Agencia Tributaria and the extracts from the Property Registry.

Using all this information, we draft the personal statement, the asset inventory and the list of creditors, which you review before anything is filed. Our procurador files the petition before the Commercial Section of the Court of First Instance (Sección de lo Mercantil del Tribunal de Instancia) in your provincial capital, corresponding to the place where you have your centre of main interests, and we manage the entire proceeding through to the debt discharge application, attaching your IRPF returns and your declaration that no legal bar applies. You do not have to file anything at court yourself.

We do not promise a guaranteed outcome: discharge is granted by the judge, who checks all legal requirements ex officio even if nobody objects. What we do ensure is that your file reaches the court complete, with every debt properly listed and your good faith documented. You can check our current fixed fee, which includes the procurador, on our Second Chance Law service page. How to remove your name from ASNEF, Experian and the CIRBE once discharge is granted (or final discharge, if under a payment plan) has its own service page.