Fines of up to one million for failing to provide customer service

Failure to comply with the new customer service obligations will be penalized as a consumer infringement, with fines that can reach one million euros in very serious cases. This is established by Law 10/2025, of 26 December, approved by the Cortes Generales and published in the Official State Gazette (Boletín Oficial del Estado) number 312, of 27 December 2025. In the financial sector, supervision of the regulation will correspond to the Bank of Spain, the National Securities Market Commission (CNMV) and the Directorate General for Insurance and Pension Funds.

The regulation, which for the first time comprehensively regulates companies’ customer service operations, was approved by the plenary session of the Congress of Deputies on 13 November 2025, received the amendments from the Senate and obtained final approval on 11 December 2025. Sanctioned by King Felipe VI and countersigned by the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez Pérez-Castejón, it entered into force on 28 December 2025, the day after its publication.

Its scope of application covers essential services of general interest — water, gas and electricity supply, transport, postal services, electronic communications and financial services — and large companies: those employing at least 250 workers, with annual turnover exceeding 50 million euros or a balance sheet total exceeding 43 million.

A sanctioning regime of up to one million euros

Article 23 of the law classifies failure to comply with its provisions as a consumer infringement, referring to the sanctioning regime set out in the first book of Title IV of the consolidated text of the General Law for the Protection of Consumers and Users, approved by Royal Legislative Decree 1/2007, of 16 November, and to the applicable regional regulations. The current scale of that consolidated text provides for:

• Minor infringements: fines from 150 to 10,000 euros.
• Serious infringements: from 10,001 to 100,000 euros.
• Very serious infringements: from 100,001 to 1,000,000 euros, which may be exceeded to reach between six and eight times the illicit profit obtained.

Repeat offending aggravates the penalty, while compensation for damage mitigates it. When the same act may also be classified under another sectoral sanctioning regulation, the sectoral regulation shall apply on a preferential basis.

What is now required of customer service operations

The law imposes mandatory minimum quality parameters: the service must be free of charge, effective, universally accessible, inclusive, non-discriminatory and assessable. The main obligations include:

• Prohibition of answering machines or bots as the exclusive means of customer service, guaranteeing that 95% of calls or requests for personalized service are answered, on average, in less than three minutes.
• Delivery of an identifying code and a receipt on a durable medium for each inquiry, complaint or claim.
• Resolution within a maximum of fifteen business days, within two hours for incidents affecting the continuity of basic services and within five days for billing issues.
• Response in the same language in which the communication is made, telephone at no higher cost than a standard line, and 24-hour permanent service for basic services provided on a continuous basis.
• Priority attention and personalized assistance for vulnerable consumers, persons with disabilities or elderly people.

Financial supervision and adaptation period

In the financial sector, the law operates on a supplementary basis with respect to Law 44/2002, of 22 November, on Reform Measures of the Financial System, which is reformed to raise the requirements for customer service departments and the customer ombudsman. Entities must resolve complaints within a maximum period of one month, while the complaint services of the supervisors will have 90 calendar days. The regulation repeals articles 6, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 and 16 of Order ECO/734/2004, of 11 March, and also reforms Law 3/1991, of 10 January, on Unfair Competition and Law 11/2022, of 28 June, General Telecommunications Law. Companies will have twelve months from entry into force to adapt their services, in accordance with the single transitional provision.

For citizens, the regulation turns an everyday experience into an enforceable and sanctionable obligation: that a complaint, an erroneous bill or a supply cut-off can be resolved without telephone mazes or added costs. With fines of up to one million euros for very serious infractions and reinforced supervision by financial regulators, the law seeks to ensure that customer service ceases to be the weak link in the consumer relationship and becomes consolidated as an effective channel for conflict resolution before reaching the courts.

Source: “Boletín Oficial del Estado”, No. 312, of 27 December 2025, section I. General provisions (official reference: Law 10/2025, of 26 December, regulating customer service).