Despite the fact that routine formulas are relevant language phenomena in foreign language teaching and bilingual lexicography, apart from the extensive work of I. Sosa, contrastive studies in the German-Spanish pair of languages are almost non-existent. The purpose of this contribution is to revive the study in this field by contrastically analysing one of the types of routine formula that has not been found in the above-mentioned study: the assent formulae. To that end, and in accordance with the nature of these units, a tertium comparationis is established in which pragmalistic criteria predominate, but supplemented by other factors relating to the morphosintactic and lexical features of the formulae. This leads to the discovery of cross-lingual equivalences and differences both between groups of formulas and between isolated formulas.