Ley 10/2025 on Customer Service, Specific Numeric Code for Commercial Calls and Blocking of Irregular Traffic (Article 16(3) and (4))

Article 2(1) applies the Act to companies that effectively carry out the listed basic services of general interest in Spain, namely water, gas and electricity supply and distribution, passenger transport by air, rail, sea and inland waterway and by bus or coach, postal services, electronic communications services and financial services.

Article 2(2) also applies the Act to other companies and groups that sell goods or provide services mainly to consumers and users in Spain and that, in the previous financial year, employed at least 250 people, exceeded 50 million euros of annual turnover or exceeded 43 million euros of balance. Article 2(6) makes the Act supplementary for the customer service of electronic communications services, which sectoral rules govern first.

Article 2(7) also applies the Act to the Administración General del Estado and its dependent bodies and companies. Article 16(3) requires that, where customer service is provided by telephone, the service have a specific numeric code, different from the code used to provide commercial services through the telephone channel, which is also specific to those services.

Article 16(4) requires the operator that receives the call to block voice calls from special-rate or smart-rate numbers assigned to services other than those in paragraph 3.

It also requires the operator that originates or receives a call to block, on its own initiative or at the request of the competent authority, any voice communication from a telephone number with indications of originating commercial calls without a specific numeric code or without complying with article 66(1) of Ley 11/2022.

Operators may use technical systems to identify such calls only after express authorization by reasoned resolution of the Secretaría de Estado de Telecomunicaciones e Infraestructuras Digitales. Operators must notify that Secretaría de Estado of the criteria they use to detect irregular traffic within one month of the Act's entry into force. Companies must adapt their customer service to the Act within twelve months of its entry into force.

For retail suppliers of electricity, gas and telephone services, article 16(2) to (4) does not apply as long as the company, or the group it belongs to, does not reach a 5 percent national market share and does not belong to the category of companies defined in article 2(2). A breach of the Act is sanctioned as a consumer infraction under the general consumer sanctions regime.