500 judge positions and 200 prosecutor positions for 2027: the Government approves the new judicial and fiscal expansion

Spain's Council of Ministers approved on 13 October the urgent processing of two royal decrees creating 700 new judicial and fiscal positions for 2027: 500 judge and magistrate positions, expanding the judicial workforce by 7.8%, and 200 prosecutor positions, increasing the prosecution service's staff by 6.6%, according to the official note from the Ministry of the Presidency, Justice and Relations with the Cortes.

The measure continues the expansion of the judicial and fiscal workforce of recent years and is framed, according to the Ministry, in the transformation of the justice system combining procedural, organisational and digital reforms.

The breakdown of the 500 judge positions

• 172 positions for the civil jurisdiction: 102 for the Tribunales de Instancia and 70 for the Provincial Courts.
• 109 positions for the social (labour) jurisdiction.
• 69 positions for the criminal jurisdiction.
• 87 positions for mixed bodies (Provincial Courts and Tribunales de Instancia) in smaller provinces and towns.
• 42 territorial-assignment positions, attached to a territory but movable according to workload changes.
• 11 positions for the Violence against Women sections and 6 more for the Violence against Children and Adolescents sections. The Ministry highlights that violence-against-women positions have gone from 121 to 188 this term, a 55.4% increase.
• 8 positions for new full-time Presidencies of Tribunales de Instancia in Murcia, Almería, Córdoba, Granada, A Coruña, Vigo, Santander and Valladolid, a role dedicated exclusively to unifying criteria, coordination and organisation that until now existed only in the largest cities.
• 4 positions at the Audiencia Nacional.

By territory, the regions benefiting most are Andalusia (94 positions), Catalonia (94), Madrid (74) and the Valencian Community (53).

The 200 prosecutor positions

The 200 new positions in the prosecution service are distributed among all autonomous communities and the central bodies. The territories benefiting most are Catalonia, with 47 new positions (+9.9%), Andalusia, with 31 (+5.6%), and Madrid, with 26 (+6.9%). In percentage terms, the fastest-growing workforce is the Canary Islands, with 13 new prosecutors (+8.9%).

According to the Ministry, the distribution follows objective criteria of workload, litigation rates and population, and will be sent to the General Council of the Judiciary, the prosecution service, the autonomous communities with transferred powers and the High Courts of Justice to hear their proposals.

Urgent processing and consultation with the institutions

The two royal decrees are being processed urgently, with the aim of having the positions created before the end of the legislature, as Cadena SER reported on the day of the approval. According to the official note, the Ministry will send the distribution to the CGPJ, the prosecution service, the autonomous communities with transferred powers and the High Courts to hear their proposals and contributions before final approval.

What it means for candidates

More positions created do not automatically equal more positions called: the workforce expansion is the ceiling that allows larger public employment offers in the judicial and fiscal entrance examinations. The trend, however, is clear: on top of the 500 positions of 2026 comes a new expansion for 2027, in a chain of record calls that is changing the expectations of those preparing for the justice examinations.

For the lawyer hesitating between independent practice and a public career, the context adds arguments for the examinations: more positions, new courts and growing specialisation. And for the jurist with more than 15 years of practice, there is also the direct route to the Supreme Court through the jurists' track, whose latest call we analyse in The Supreme Court opens the jurists' track for lawyers.

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