Time Limits on Criminal Investigations in Spain: Article 324 LECrim Explained

Few questions come up at the firm as often as this one: "I have been under investigation for over a year and nothing seems to move — can this go on forever?". The answer lies in Article 324 of the Spanish Criminal Procedure Act (Ley de Enjuiciamiento Criminal, LECrim), which subjects the judicial investigation to a maximum period: twelve months from the opening of the case, extendable for successive periods of up to six months. It is one of the most invoked — and most misunderstood — rules of Spanish criminal procedure: the clock does not close cases on its own, but its expiry is far from irrelevant. As criminal defence lawyers, we explain in plain terms what the provision actually says, what happens to investigative steps ordered out of time and how we use it in the defence strategy.

The Maximum Period: Twelve Months from the Opening of the Case

Article 324.1 LECrim is blunt: the judicial investigation shall be conducted within a maximum period of twelve months from the opening of the case (incoación). Two clarifications prevent most miscalculations:

• The period covers the judicial investigation. Neither the prior police inquiry nor the time a complaint spends waiting to be assigned counts: the clock starts with the judicial decision that formally opens the case (the order opening the preliminary proceedings or the sumario).
• The starting point is not the date of the offence. An incident from 2023 whose case is judicially opened in 2026 has its investigation period counted from 2026. The earlier time matters for a different institution, the statute of limitations, which must not be confused with the Article 324 time limit.

The current wording stems from the reform enacted by Law 2/2020, which replaced the previous system of "simple" and "complex" cases with this single twelve-month model plus extensions. Organic Law 1/2025 on the efficiency of the Justice system, despite the depth of its procedural reform, left these time limits untouched.

Extensions: Successive, Up to Six Months, Always Reasoned

If, before the period expires, it becomes clear that the investigation cannot be completed, the judge — of their own motion or at a party's request, and after hearing the parties — may grant successive extensions for periods equal to or shorter than six months. The provision imposes three requirements worth taking seriously:

• A reasoned order: the extension is adopted by a court order (auto) that must set out the causes that prevented the investigation from being completed in time.
• Specific steps: the order must identify the concrete investigative steps still to be carried out and their relevance to the investigation. A generic formula such as "steps remain pending" is not enough.
• An express decision also when refusing: if the extension is rejected, the refusal must likewise be adopted by a reasoned decision.

The statute sets no overall cap on extensions: a large economic-crime case may chain several together and run for years. The counterweight is twofold: each extension demands reinforced reasoning and is granted after hearing the parties, which turns every renewal into a genuine opportunity for the defence to be heard. And there is a golden rule of timing: the extension must be granted before the previous period expires. A late extension does not revive a period that has already lapsed.

Investigative Steps Out of Time: What Counts and What Does Not

This is the real cutting edge of Article 324, and the provision settles the question with two complementary rules:

• Validity rule (Article 324.2): investigative steps ordered before the period or its extensions expire are valid even if their results are received after expiry. The expert report commissioned in month eleven is validly incorporated even if it arrives in month fourteen.
• Invalidity rule (Article 324.3): if the period expires without an extension order having been issued, or if the extension is revoked on appeal, the steps ordered from that date onwards are not valid.

The decisive criterion is therefore the date on which the step is ordered, not the date on which it is carried out or its results arrive. In table form:

Situation	Is the step valid?
Ordered and carried out within the period or an extension	Yes
Ordered within the period, results received after expiry	Yes (Article 324.2)
Ordered after expiry, with no extension granted in time	No (Article 324.3)
Ordered under an extension later revoked on appeal	No (Article 324.3)

The practical consequence matters: a witness statement, a phone-data extraction or an expert report ordered after expiry without a valid extension cannot support the prosecution, and the defence should move to have them disregarded for those purposes.

Can My Case Be Dismissed Because the Time Limit Ran Out?

This is the star question, and the answer requires precision: the expiry of the period does not close the case by itself. Article 324.4 LECrim provides that, once the maximum period or its extensions have elapsed, the investigating judge shall issue the order concluding the sumario or, in the abbreviated procedure (procedimiento abreviado), the appropriate ruling. In other words: expiry forces the investigation phase to close and a decision to be made — it does not force a dismissal.

The Spanish Supreme Court confirmed this in a judgment of 25 February 2026 (appeal 5183/2023): exceeding the maximum period of Article 324 LECrim neither voids the investigative steps already taken nor requires the automatic dismissal of the case. The expiry of the period only restricts the possibility of continuing the investigation; what was done in time keeps its validity for trial.

That said, the absence of an automatic dismissal does not mean that exhausting the period has no real effects. It has them, and they are considerable:

• The investigation tap is turned off: the prosecution can no longer request new steps to shore up weak evidence. The evidentiary material is frozen as it stands.
• The judge must decide with what there is: if the material gathered in time supports solid indicia, the case moves towards trial; if not, the proper outcome is final dismissal (sobreseimiento libre, Article 637 LECrim, where the facts are not an offence or there are no rational indicia that they occurred) or provisional dismissal (sobreseimiento provisional, Article 641 LECrim, where the commission of the offence is not duly established or there are insufficient grounds to accuse a specific person).

That is why, in practice, dismissals linked to the time limit do exist: not because the clock extinguishes the offence — that is the statute of limitations — but because, once the investigation is closed, the available indicia are not enough to prosecute. The nuance matters: a provisional dismissal can be reopened if new elements emerge, whereas a final dismissal is the equivalent of an early acquittal.

How We Use Article 324 in the Defence

Handled well, Article 324 LECrim is one of the most effective control tools available to the defence during the investigation phase. Our working method includes:

1. Audit of the procedural calendar. We establish the exact date the case was opened, identify every extension order and reconstruct the full computation. It is common to find extensions granted out of time or uncovered gaps between one extension and the next.
2. Adversarial scrutiny of every extension. The law requires the parties to be heard before extending: we file written submissions against unjustified extensions and appeal orders that rely on generic formulas without identifying specific steps and their relevance. An extension revoked on appeal drags down the validity of everything ordered under it.
3. A census of out-of-time steps. We cross-check the date of every decision ordering an investigative step against the period in force at that moment, and we move to have the steps ordered out of time disregarded and excluded as a basis for the indictment or the order moving the case to trial.
4. Requesting the appropriate ruling. Once the period has expired, we formally request that the investigation be closed and, where the indicia gathered in time do not support a prosecution, we seek dismissal under Articles 637 or 641 LECrim.
5. Managing the total length of the proceedings. We document delays not attributable to the suspect: beyond their relevance to the investigation period, extraordinarily protracted proceedings can support the mitigating circumstance of undue delay under Article 21.6 of the Spanish Criminal Code (CP) in the event of a conviction.

If you are under investigation and the case is dragging on, the file should be reviewed as soon as possible: objections to an extension must be raised at the right procedural moment, not at the end. You may also find useful our guide on what to do if you are summoned as a suspect.