The traditional Spanish deck or baraja española in Spanish is a direct descendant of the Tarot deck. However, like most other card decks derived from it, the Spanish deck kept only the minor arcana (with the exception of the tens and the queen of each suit, which were dropped), while all of the major arcana from the Tarot deck were also dropped.

The Spanish deck consists of 40 cards in four suits. The four Latin suits are swords, cups, batons and coins. In each suit there are normally 3 picture cards - a king, a horseman and a jack or maid - and some numeral cards. Cards with Latin suits are widely used in Spain and in parts of Italy, South America and North Africa and are also found in several other places.

In each suit the rank is 1 (high), 3, 12, 11, 10, 7, 6, 5, 4, 2 (low). There are no eights or nines in the Spanish Deck.

Card games played using the Spanish deck include: el mus (a very popular and highly regarded vying game of Basque origin), la brisca, el tute (with many variations), el guiñote, la escoba (a trick-taking game), el julepe, el cinquillo, las siete y media, la mona, el truc (or truco), and el cuajo (a matching game from the Philippines).