Number of people requesting assisted dying in one year doubles since euthanasia law was introduced in Spain

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According to the latest Ministry of Health data, of the 905 requests received just 426 procedures were carried out - for a variety of reasons

Rocío Mendoza

Madrid

Wednesday, 31 December 2025, 12:04

Spain has had a euthanisia law in place since June 2021 that regulates the right to receive assistance within the public health system to die when a patient's wishes so dictate. There are strict legal guarantees for each case in place and the decision can only be taken by a responsible doctor. Now, three and a half years later and according to the data published recently by the Ministry of Health, this legislative change has come to respond to a real need in society.

Since the new regulations came into force the number of euthanasia requests in Spain has almost doubled. According to data from 2024, the most recent closed year available, 905 people requested assisted death. This is almost twice as many as in 2022, which stood at 500, when the law had been in force for a year and a half.

However, out of all these requests, only 426 assisted deaths took place. There are several reasons for this. The main one is that people die while waiting for the health authorities to approve or turn down their request. This happened to 33 per cent of patients during 2024.

82 days

is the current average time taken to process an application for euthanasia.

According to the organisation Derecho a Morir Dignamente (right to a dignified death), after the application and the assignment of a responsible doctor, the person must be examined by another doctor who acts as a consultant. Subsequently, their report is submitted to the Guarantee and Evaluation Commission, which verifies that all the requirements are met. If everything is favourable, the decision should come in about 30 days. The average time for the entire procedure, from the first application until it is finalised, is 82 days, the ministry explains.

It is "unacceptable for people in a terminal situation", according to the association, whose leaders are calling for the procedures to be speeded up in order to have a responsible doctor assigned within 48 or 72 hours and for the deadlines of the law to be respected and reduced to 20 days in the case of terminally ill patients.

The second reason why euthanasia isn't carried out is because the conditions required by law are not fulfilled. This happened in 15 per cent of the cases, 141 in total. Finally, in a smaller number of cases patients who requested it change their minds; 54 cases in total in 2024.

The figures, although it may come as a surprise given the short time that euthanasia has been legal in Spain, represent a tiny 0.10 per cent of the total number of deaths registered in the country, or in other words, one in every thousand.

In their assessment, the Ministry of Health says that "the Spanish mortality rate due to euthanasia is ten times lower" than in Australia, for example and forty times lower than in Belgium, without taking into account the gap that exists in countries with a tradition such as the Netherlands, where this practice is sixty times higher.

What is similar in all cases is the profile of those requesting it: patients over 60 years of age, 27% of whom were octogenarians and most of whom had a neurological illness (32.5% of cases) or cancer as an underlying disease. Almost all of them, except for 51 cases, requested it when they were in full capacity and aware of their decision.