Child maintenance in Spain in 2026: how it is set, updated and collected — even from abroad

Ask ten separated parents in Costa Adeje or Corralejo what their child maintenance is based on and you will hear ten different answers — a percentage, a table, "what the judge felt like", "what we agreed in 2019 and never touched again". The truth is more structured than that, and in 2026 it matters more than ever: the guideline tables Spanish courts lean on are being revised, the Supreme Court has just clarified when a maintenance debt starts to run, and the tools for collecting unpaid instalments — in Spain or across a border — are sharper than most parents realise.

This is the companion to our piece on back-to-school costs between separated parents, which dealt with who pays for what. Here the question is the pension itself: how the figure is set, how it is kept alive over the years, and what happens when it stops arriving.

How Spanish courts set the figure

The Civil Code gives the court the job and the yardstick, not a formula. The judge must fix each parent's contribution to the children's maintenance and take the measures needed to keep that contribution matched to the family's economic circumstances and the children's needs "at every moment" (art. 93). The amount is proportionate to the means of the one who pays and the needs of the one who receives (art. 146). Everything else — the tables, the percentages you read online — is a tool for applying those two sentences.

The tool everybody uses is the set of guideline tables of the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ): first published in 2013, updated by its Permanent Commission in May 2019, built from national household-spending statistics. They cross the paying parent's net income with the number of children and produce a monthly figure for the cost of maintaining them — a figure that, by design, excludes housing and education, which are settled separately. Three things about them are routinely misunderstood:

• They are guidance, not law. A court can and does depart from them when a child has medical needs, when the payer supports other children, when custody is shared with very different incomes, or simply when the figure would be unrealistic on the islands.
• They are old money. The 2019 figures are brought to today's prices with the national consumer-price index before anyone quotes them — and at the time of writing the CGPJ's own online calculator has been taken down "for revision and updating", a sign that a new edition is in the works. Until it lands, the 2019 tables, indexed, remain the reference.
• There is a floor. Even with a very low income, courts commonly refuse to set a pension below roughly €150–200 per child per month — the so-called mínimo vital — unless the payer has genuinely no means at all. Shared custody does not switch maintenance off either: the Supreme Court has said repeatedly that when the parents' incomes are very unequal, the better-off parent still pays a contribution.

For an international family, one more rule shapes everything: in a maintenance claim, the court of the child's habitual residence is normally competent, and the applicable law is normally that of the same place. A child who lives in Fuerteventura or the south of Tenerife is, for these purposes, a Spanish case — whatever the parents' passports say.

Updating: the clause most families forget to use

A pension fixed in 2019 and still paid at the 2019 figure has lost real value every year since. Spanish judgments and approved agreements therefore carry an annual update clause, almost always tied to the consumer-price index published by the National Statistics Institute. Two practical truths about that clause:

• It is not automatic. Nobody at the court recalculates the figure each January. The receiving parent applies the index, notifies the new amount, and — if it is not honoured — claims the difference. Years of unapplied updates are a quiet, very common loss.
• The difference can be claimed backwards. The action to collect maintenance instalments prescribes in five years (Civil Code, art. 1966), so unapplied updates, like unpaid months, do not vanish overnight — but they do vanish eventually.

Circumstances change too. When incomes, needs or the custody arrangement move substantially, either parent can apply to modify the measures — and since April 2025 that application, like a first claim, must be preceded by an attempt at negotiation or mediation, the pre-suit step we explained in our guide to suing in Spain.

The Supreme Court added a point of real practical weight this year. In a January 2026 judgment it held that when custody changes in fact — a child moves in with the other parent — the duty to pay maintenance to the new custodial parent runs from the real change, not from the date of the later judgment that records it. The court's decision is declarative, not constitutive: the child's needs began when the living arrangement did, and the money follows the child.

What the pension covers — and the expenses outside it

The monthly figure is meant to cover ordinary needs: food, clothing, housing share, everyday schooling, the predictable costs of a child's life. Truly extraordinary expenses — the orthodontist, the operation, the sudden need for a specialist — sit outside it and are shared, typically half each, either because the judgment lists them or because a court declares them extraordinary in a short prior incident, with five days for the other parent to object (Civil Procedure Act, art. 776.4).

The line between the two is where most disputes live, and the case law is settled on the recurring one: the September school bill — books, uniforms, materials — is ordinary, inside the pension, not an extra. We covered that ground, ruling by ruling, in the back-to-school article linked above; this piece will not repeat it.

When the money stops: the enforcement toolbox

An unpaid pension is not a private quarrel; it is an unpaid court order, and Spanish law treats it with unusual severity. From the moment an instalment is missed, the receiving parent can ask the court that issued the judgment (or approved the agreement) to enforce it. The toolbox is wider than people expect:

• Seizure without the usual floor. For ordinary debts, a large slice of a salary is protected from seizure. For maintenance ordered in a family judgment, that protection does not apply: the court itself fixes how much of the payer's income can be taken (Civil Procedure Act, art. 608). Bank balances and tax refunds are reached the same way.
• Coercive fines. A parent who repeatedly fails to pay can be hit with monthly fines on top of the debt, calculated under the general rule that allows up to 20 % of the unpaid value per month (arts. 776.1 and 711).
• The criminal route. Missing two consecutive or four non-consecutive months of a court-ordered pension is a crime punished with three months to a year in prison or a fine of six to twenty-four months (Penal Code, art. 227) — and any conviction "always" carries the obligation to pay what is owed. The crime requires that the parent could pay and chose not to; but the Supreme Court has been explicit that hiding or dissipating assets to look insolvent is exactly what the offence is for, describing unpaid child maintenance as a form of economic violence.
• The State's advance. When enforcement fails — no income found, nothing to seize — the Maintenance Guarantee Fund can advance the pension to the children: up to €100 per child per month, for at most eighteen months, provided the family's income is below a ceiling (one and a half times the public income index for one child, a quarter more for each further child). The State then recovers the money from the debtor. Modest, never updated since 2008, but real.

None of these tools works without an enforceable title — a judgment or a court-approved agreement. A private arrangement scribbled between parents, however sensible, gives you none of them. That is the strongest argument for regularising an informal arrangement while relations are good.

Collecting across a border — in either direction

Island families are international by nature, and the parent who owes maintenance is often in Manchester, Düsseldorf or Milan. The law has an answer for each geography:

• Within the EU the Maintenance Regulation (in force since 2011) makes a Spanish maintenance order enforceable in almost every member state without any exequatur — no new trial, no re-examination of the merits. Each state has a Central Authority (in Spain, the Ministry of Justice) that helps locate the debtor, transmit the application and pursue enforcement; for child maintenance that assistance is free of charge.
• The United Kingdom left that regulation with Brexit, but became a party in its own right to the 2007 Hague Convention on the international recovery of child support, in force for the UK since 1 January 2021 — so a Spanish order is still recognised and enforced there through the Central Authorities, and a British order is enforced here.
• Beyond Europe the same 2007 Convention binds a growing list of states, and older conventions cover others; the route exists, it simply takes longer.

The mechanism works in both directions. A parent who stayed on the islands with the children can normally sue here, in the court of the children's residence, even if the other parent has never lived in Spain — and a foreign order can be enforced against a parent living in Fuerteventura or Tenerife with the same tools described above.

A parent's checklist

• Find your title. Locate the judgment or approved agreement and check the exact wording of the update clause and the list of extraordinary expenses.
• Apply the index every year and keep the notifications — they are your proof if you have to claim arrears.
• Keep a payment ledger: dates, amounts, bank references. Enforcement and, if it comes to that, a criminal complaint are built on it.
• Act early on arrears — two missed months already have legal meaning, and five years is the outer limit for claiming.
• Regularise informal arrangements through a court-approved agreement; without a title there is nothing to enforce.
• Going cross-border? Gather the order, a certified translation where needed and the debtor's last known address before contacting the Central Authority.

A pension is only as good as the paper behind it — and the paper is only as good as the last time someone read it.

Our family team handles maintenance from the first claim to cross-border enforcement — setting realistic figures, modifying old ones, recovering arrears at home and abroad — across Tenerife and Fuerteventura, in twelve working languages. Read how we work in family law, or tell us about your situation at our Costa Adeje or Corralejo offices.

Common questions

Is there an official table for child maintenance in Spain?

There are guideline tables from the General Council of the Judiciary, first published in 2013 and updated in 2019, which courts use as a starting point after adjusting them for inflation. They are not binding, they exclude housing and education, and the CGPJ's online calculator is currently offline for revision. The judge always has the last word under the proportionality rule of the Civil Code.

Does the pension go up automatically every year?

No. Almost every judgment contains an annual update clause tied to the consumer-price index, but applying it is up to the receiving parent, who notifies the new figure. Unapplied updates can be claimed, but the action to collect maintenance instalments prescribes after five years.

My ex has not paid for three months. Is that already a crime?

Two consecutive or four non-consecutive unpaid months of a court-ordered pension meet the definition of the offence, which carries three months to a year in prison or a fine of six to twenty-four months, plus the duty to pay what is owed. The offence requires the ability to pay; a genuine inability is a defence, hiding assets is not. In parallel, civil enforcement — seizure without the usual protection floor, coercive fines — is usually the faster route to the money.

The other parent lives in the UK. Can I still enforce a Spanish order?

Yes. Since Brexit the route is the 2007 Hague Convention, to which the UK has been a party in its own right since January 2021. Your order travels through the Spanish Central Authority to its British counterpart, which pursues enforcement there. Within the EU the Maintenance Regulation makes the order directly enforceable without exequatur.

We never went to court — we just agreed a figure. What are my options if payments stop?

A private agreement is not enforceable as such. The usual path is to turn it into a court-approved agreement, or to file a maintenance claim, which since 2025 must be preceded by a negotiation or mediation attempt. From then on every enforcement tool becomes available, and the Guarantee Fund can step in if enforcement finds nothing to seize.

This article is general information about Spanish family law as it stands at the date of publication, not legal advice for your specific situation. Guideline tables, thresholds and court practice change — have your case reviewed with current figures before you act.