Receiving an electronic notification from a public authority and failing to open it does not mean that the notification has no legal effect.
Where a person is required to receive electronic notifications, or has expressly chosen this method, Spanish Law 39/2015 provides that if the recipient does not access the notification, it is deemed rejected once the statutory period of ten calendar days has elapsed.
But when exactly do those ten days begin? Does the day on which the authority makes the notification available count? And when does the subsequent deadline for filing an appeal begin?
The Spanish Supreme Court Judgment 740/2026 of 12 June has clarified this issue: the ten-calendar-day period begins on the day following the date on which the notification is made available to the recipient.
A seemingly minor difference that may determine whether an appeal is filed within or outside the applicable deadline.
What happens if I do not open an electronic notification?
Article 43.2 of Law 39/2015 of 1 October on the Common Administrative Procedure of Public Administrations distinguishes between two situations.
If the recipient accesses the notification, it is deemed served at the moment the content is accessed.
If the recipient does not access it, and electronic notification is mandatory or has been expressly chosen, the notification is deemed rejected once ten calendar days have elapsed from the date on which it was made available, without the recipient accessing its content.
The rejection does not make the administrative act disappear.
On the contrary, once rejection is deemed to have occurred, the notification procedure is considered completed and the administrative proceedings may continue. From that point onwards, the decision may begin to produce legal effects and, where applicable, the time limits for submitting observations or filing appeals may start to run.
For this reason, ignoring an electronic notification does not prevent it from producing legal consequences.
Are the 10 days for electronic notifications calendar days or working days?
They are ten calendar days.
This means that Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays are included.
This rule differs from the general rule applicable to administrative time limits expressed in days, which are generally understood to refer to working days unless legislation provides otherwise.
In this case, Article 43.2 expressly refers to “ten calendar days”, so every day on the calendar must be counted.
When does the 10-day period begin?
This is precisely the question clarified by the Supreme Court.
Supreme Court Judgment 740/2026 of 12 June establishes that the day on which the authority makes the notification available to the recipient must not be counted as the first day of the period.
The calculation begins on the following day.
In other words:
date on which the notification is made available → not counted
following day → day 1 of the ten-calendar-day period
This distinction is particularly important because a different interpretation could bring forward by one day the date on which the notification is deemed rejected and, consequently, the expiry of any subsequent appeal period.
What exactly did the Supreme Court decide?
The case before the Supreme Court arose from proceedings concerning the recovery of a subsidy granted to Granada Club de Fútbol.
The administrative decision had been made electronically available on 24 October 2019.
The lower courts had considered that 24 October itself should be included within the ten-day period, which led them to conclude that a subsequent administrative appeal had been filed out of time.
The Supreme Court rejected that approach.
It held that the ten-day period should begin on 25 October, the day after the notification was made available.
The ten calendar days therefore ran from 25 October to 3 November.
Only after that period had fully elapsed could the notification be deemed rejected and legally served. The Supreme Court concluded that the appeal filed on 4 December 2019 had been submitted within the applicable one-month time limit.
The judgment therefore overturned the previous decisions that had dismissed the appeal as being out of time and ordered the proceedings to be reopened so that the substantive issues could be examined.
When does the deadline for appealing an unopened electronic notification begin?
Two separate time periods must be distinguished.
The first is the ten-calendar-day period for accessing the electronic notification.
The second is the specific period for appealing the administrative act once the notification is deemed to have been served.
Supreme Court Judgment 740/2026 confirms that, where the notification is not accessed, the ten-calendar-day period must first expire in full. Once the notification is deemed rejected and served, the relevant appeal period must then be calculated in accordance with the rules governing that particular type of appeal.
If the appeal period is expressed in days, Article 30 of Law 39/2015 generally provides that the period starts on the day following service of the notification.
If the period is expressed in months or years, it also starts on the following day, although the expiry date is determined by reference to the equivalent date in the relevant month or year.
For this reason, correctly calculating a deadline requires more than simply adding days to the calendar. It is necessary to determine whether the relevant period is expressed in days, months or years.
Practical example: how to calculate an unopened electronic notification
Suppose a public authority makes a decision electronically available to a company on 1 October.
1 October is not included in the calculation.
The ten calendar days are therefore:
- 2 October: day 1.
- 3 October: day 2.
- 4 October: day 3.
- 5 October: day 4.
- 6 October: day 5.
- 7 October: day 6.
- 8 October: day 7.
- 9 October: day 8.
- 10 October: day 9.
- 11 October: day 10.
Even if Saturdays, Sundays or public holidays fall within this period, they are still counted because these are calendar days.
Once the full ten-day period has elapsed without access, the notification is deemed rejected and begins to produce the corresponding legal effects.
From that point onwards, the specific deadline for filing observations, submitting an appeal or taking any other required action must be calculated separately.
What happens if I open the notification before the 10 days have expired?
The situation is different.
If the recipient accesses the content before the end of the ten-day period, the notification is deemed served at the exact date and time of access.
For example, if the notification is made available on 1 October and the recipient opens the document on 4 October, 4 October becomes the relevant date.
There is no need to wait for the ten-day period to expire.
For this reason, it is particularly important to retain electronic proof of access and to check the date and time recorded by the system.
Is the email or text message informing me of a notification the notification itself?
No.
One of the most common sources of confusion is treating the email or text message received from the authority as the formal notification itself.
The message is only an alert informing the recipient that a notification is available.
The formal notification is generally located on the relevant electronic government portal or through systems such as the Dirección Electrónica Habilitada Única (DEHú).
Law 39/2015 expressly distinguishes between these concepts: the email address or telephone number is used to receive alerts, not to serve the formal administrative notification.
What happens if I do not receive the email alert?
As a general rule, the absence of an email or text message alert does not in itself invalidate the notification.
Article 41.6 of Law 39/2015 expressly provides that failure to send the alert does not prevent the notification from being legally valid.
This is one of the reasons why companies and other persons required to communicate electronically with public authorities should not rely exclusively on email alerts.
It is advisable to review electronic government portals and the DEHú regularly.
However, notification issues should always be assessed on a case-by-case basis. In certain circumstances, other defects combined with a genuine situation of lack of defence may be legally relevant, so the absence of an alert should not always be considered in isolation.
Who is required to receive electronic notifications from public authorities?
Article 14 of Law 39/2015 identifies several categories of persons required to communicate electronically with public authorities.
These include:
- Legal entities, including companies.
- Entities without legal personality.
- Professionals who are required to belong to a professional association, when dealing with the Administration in the exercise of their professional activity.
- Persons representing someone who is required to communicate electronically.
- Certain public employees in relation to procedures connected with their status as public employees.
Public authorities may also establish electronic communication requirements for certain procedures and categories of individuals where the statutory conditions are met.
For individuals who are not legally required to use electronic communications, the general rule is different: they may choose whether to communicate electronically with the Administration and, under certain conditions, may later change that choice.
For this reason, the automatic rejection rule after ten days should not be applied indiscriminately to every individual who is simply able to view a document online.
What is DEHú and where can I check my electronic notifications?
The Dirección Electrónica Habilitada Única (DEHú) is one of the systems through which users can access electronic notifications and communications issued by different Spanish public authorities.
Notifications may also be available through the specific electronic portal of the authority concerned.
In practice, it is important to distinguish between:
- a notification pending access;
- a notification that has already been accessed;
- a communication that is merely informative;
- and a notification deemed rejected because the statutory period has elapsed.
Each situation may have different legal consequences.
What happens if the notification appears as “rejected” or “expired”?
A notification appearing as rejected does not necessarily mean that the administrative act has ceased to exist.
Where rejection occurs because the statutory period has elapsed without access, the administrative procedure continues.
The key issue is then to determine when the notification was made available, when rejection legally occurred and which subsequent deadline began to run.
This is precisely why the doctrine established by the Supreme Court in 2026 is so important: the ten-day period begins on the day following the date on which the notification is made available, not on the same day.
An error of a single day may affect whether an appeal is considered timely or out of time.
What happens if there was a technical problem and I could not access the notification?
Technical difficulties must be distinguished from a simple failure to review the relevant electronic portal.
Spanish legislation provides mechanisms for situations in which a technical incident prevents the normal operation of electronic systems. Article 32.4 of Law 39/2015 allows the Administration to extend unexpired deadlines where a technical incident has prevented the system from functioning properly, and requires publication of both the incident and the corresponding extension.
For this reason, it is advisable to retain evidence of any access problem, including screenshots, error messages, incident reports or communications with technical support.
The existence and legal consequences of a technical problem must be assessed in light of the specific circumstances.
What happens if I receive the same notification through several channels?
Where a person is validly notified through several channels, Law 39/2015 provides that the relevant date is generally the date on which the first valid notification took place.
A similar approach applies where the same electronic notification is made available through several electronic systems: for the purposes of calculating deadlines and determining legal effects, the first access or rejection is normally the relevant event.
Receiving a subsequent copy through another channel does not therefore necessarily restart the deadline.
Can my representative access the notification?
Yes, provided that valid representation exists and the electronic system allows the representative to act.
Article 43 of Law 39/2015 expressly contemplates access by the interested party or by a duly identified representative.
This issue is particularly relevant for companies that delegate the management of notifications to advisers, lawyers, administrative agents or internal departments.
Having a clear internal system for monitoring and forwarding notifications can help prevent important documents from remaining unattended for several days.
Do electronic court notifications work in the same way?
Not necessarily.
The rules discussed in this article primarily concern administrative notifications governed by Law 39/2015.
Notifications issued in court proceedings are subject to their own procedural rules.
The ten-calendar-day rule under Article 43.2 of Law 39/2015 should therefore not automatically be applied to notifications issued by courts or tribunals.
The first step must always be to identify which authority issued the communication and which legal framework governs the procedure.
Can I still appeal if the 10 days have already passed and I did not open the notification?
The fact that ten days have elapsed does not automatically mean that no appeal can be filed.
It means that, where Article 43.2 applies, the notification may be deemed rejected and served and may begin to produce legal effects.
It is then necessary to verify:
- the type of decision served;
- which appeal is available;
- the applicable appeal period;
- when the notification was correctly made available;
- when the ten-day period began;
- when rejection occurred;
- and whether there is any defect in the notification that may be legally relevant.
Supreme Court Judgment 740/2026 itself illustrates the importance of carrying out this analysis.
In that case, the lower courts had considered an appeal to be out of time because of a difference of just one day. The Supreme Court corrected the calculation and concluded that the appeal had in fact been filed within the applicable period.
How to avoid missing a deadline because of an electronic notification
Companies and professionals required to communicate electronically with public authorities should establish an internal monitoring system.
Among other measures, it is advisable to review the DEHú and the relevant electronic portals regularly, keep contact details for alerts up to date, appoint specific persons responsible for monitoring notifications and retain proof of when notifications were made available and accessed.
Above all, where a notification may trigger a deadline for observations or appeal, it is essential to calculate each relevant date separately.
The date on which a notification is made available, the date of access, the date of rejection and the date on which an appeal period begins are not the same thing.
A single day can determine whether an appeal is admissible
The doctrine established by the Supreme Court provides greater legal certainty on an apparently simple issue with significant practical consequences.
The rule can be summarised as follows:
where a mandatory or expressly chosen electronic notification is not opened, the ten-calendar-day period before it is deemed rejected begins on the day following the date on which the notification was made available.
Only after that period has fully elapsed can the notification be deemed rejected and legally served.
From that point onwards, the rules applicable to the relevant observations or appeal period must be applied.
In administrative, tax, sanctioning, subsidy or other public law proceedings, an incorrect calculation can result in the loss of an opportunity to challenge an administrative decision.
At Solium Legal, we advise companies and individuals on administrative and judicial review proceedings, including the analysis of electronic notifications, calculation of procedural deadlines and appeals against decisions of public authorities.
Frequently asked questions about electronic notifications
How many days do I have to open an electronic notification?
Where electronic notification is mandatory or has been expressly chosen, there is a ten-calendar-day period before the notification may be deemed rejected because it has not been accessed.
Does the day I receive the notification count as day one?
No. According to the doctrine established by the Supreme Court in Judgment 740/2026, the ten-calendar-day period begins on the day following the date on which the notification is made available.
Do weekends count?
Yes. Article 43.2 expressly refers to ten calendar days, so Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays are included.
What happens if I open the notification on day 9?
The notification is deemed served at the exact moment when you access its content.
What happens if I do not open it within ten days?
Where Article 43.2 applies, the notification is deemed rejected once the full statutory period has elapsed, and the administrative procedure may continue.
Is the notification invalid if I do not receive an email alert?
As a general rule, no. Law 39/2015 expressly provides that the absence of the alert does not, by itself, invalidate the notification.
Is the email I receive the actual notification?
No. It is normally only an alert informing you that a notification is available on the relevant electronic portal or through the DEHú.
When does the appeal period begin?
It depends on when the notification is legally deemed served and on the type of appeal available. Where rejection occurs because the notification was not accessed, the ten-calendar-day period must first expire in full, after which the relevant rules for calculating the appeal period apply.
Can I appeal a notification that appears as rejected?
It may still be possible if the appeal period has not yet expired or if there are legal circumstances affecting the validity or effectiveness of the notification. The dates and the specific administrative file must be reviewed.
Does the ten-day rule also apply to court notifications?
Not as a general rule. Article 43.2 of Law 39/2015 concerns administrative notifications. Court notifications are governed by their own procedural rules.
