The Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) under Felipe González achieved the largest number of votes and seats for the fourth consecutive time, though it lost the absolute majority it had held in both chambers of the Cortes since 1982.

The pact with CiU would end in the fall of 1995, forcing González to call early elections 15 months before their scheduled date, which would see the opposition PP win for the first time.

[1][2] Voting for the Cortes Generales was on the basis of universal suffrage, which comprised all nationals over 18 years of age and in full enjoyment of their political rights.

[3][4] For the Congress of Deputies, 348 seats were elected using the D'Hondt method and a closed list proportional representation, with an electoral threshold of three percent of valid votes—which included blank ballots—being applied in each constituency.

[13] The prime minister had the prerogative to propose the monarch to dissolve both chambers at any given time—either jointly or separately—and call a snap election, provided that no motion of no confidence was in process, no state of emergency was in force and that dissolution did not occur before one year had elapsed since the previous one.

Spanish citizens of age and with the legal capacity to vote could run for election, provided that they were not sentenced to imprisonment by a final court's decision nor convicted by a judgement, even if not yet final, which imposed a penalty of forfeiture of eligibility or of specific disqualification or suspension from public office under specific offences: rebellion and terrorism when involving crimes against life, physical integrity or freedom of persons.

Other general causes of ineligibility were imposed on members of the Spanish royal family; the president and members of the Constitutional Court, the General Council of the Judiciary, the Supreme Court, the Council of State, the Court of Auditors and the Economic and Social Council; the Ombudsman; the State's Attorney General; high-ranking members—undersecretaries, secretaries-general, directors-general and chiefs of staff—of Spanish government departments, the Prime Minister's Office, government delegations, the Social Security and other government agencies; heads of diplomatic missions in foreign states or international organizations; judges and public prosecutors in active service; Armed Forces and police corps personnel in active service; members of electoral commissions; the chair of RTVE; the director of the Electoral Register Office; the governor and deputy governor of the Bank of Spain; the chairs of the Official Credit Institute and other official credit institutions; and members of the Nuclear Safety Council; as well as a number of territorial-level officers in the aforementioned government bodies and institutions being barred from running, during their tenure of office, in constituencies within the whole or part of their respective area of jurisdiction.

[20][21] Disqualification provisions for the Cortes Generales extended to any employee of a foreign state and to members of regional governments, as well as the impossibility of running simultaneously as candidate for both the Congress and Senate.