Royal Decree 933/2021, in plain English

Please read this first. What follows is our own summary, written in everyday English to help owners understand what the law asks of them. It is not an official translation and it has no legal standing. The only authentic text is the Spanish one. Where anything matters to a decision you are making, read the original or take proper advice.

The full Spanish text is here: Real Decreto 933/2021, de 26 de octubre — published in the Boletín Oficial del Estado, Spain's official gazette. It is free to read and there is no login.

The decree is far shorter than its reputation suggests. Eight articles, a handful of closing provisions, and two annexes listing the information you have to collect. Most of the confusion around it comes from summaries rather than from the text.

Article 1 — What this law is for

It sets out the record-keeping and reporting duties of anyone who provides accommodation or hires out vehicles without a driver — whether or not they do it as a business.

That last phrase matters. "Whether or not they do it as a business" is what pulls ordinary holiday-let owners in alongside hotels.

Article 2 — What the words mean

This is the article that decides whether the law applies to you, so it is worth reading slowly.

So two things have to be true. Someone sleeps there, and something is given in return. Money is the obvious form, but "payment or compensation" is broader than cash.

The article then says that certain things are included in any event, and lists:

• hotels, guest houses, boarding houses and rural accommodation
• campsites, motorhome sites, apartments, bungalows and similar tourist accommodation
• tour operators who act as go-betweens
• online platforms that arrange these stays — whether they charge for it or not, and whether or not they provide the accommodation themselves, so long as they operate in Spain

That last one is why Airbnb and Booking.com have duties of their own. It does not transfer yours to them.

Finally, the article defines the people the law applies to — in Spanish, sujetos obligados. It means anyone who carries out these activities or acts as a go-between. You will see this phrase everywhere. It simply means "the person who has to do this".

Article 3 — Where it applies

Everywhere in Spain, whatever form the business takes, whoever owns it, and however it is organised.

There is no small-operator exemption in this article, and no regional variation written into it. (Two regions do run their own systems in practice — see what is SES.Hospedajes.)

Article 4 — The entry form, and who signs it

Every guest's details must be collected so they can be recorded and reported.

Read that carefully, because it is the single most misquoted line in the whole subject. Fourteen is the age at which someone signs. It is not an age below which children stop being recorded.

The article also makes you responsible for the details being accurate and matching the documents the guest shows you. You are not simply passing on whatever they type.

Article 5 — Keeping your own records

You must keep a computer record containing the information in the annexes, including the details of children under fourteen.

You must keep it for three years from the end of the stay.

Then the exception that many owners miss:

So if you are a small, non-professional host: you still report, but you are not required to maintain the three-year archive.

Article 6 — Reporting to the authorities

This article contains three separate obligations, and most guidance only describes one of them.

First, your property. Before you start letting, you report your business details and your property details. If any of them change, you report again. This must be done within ten days of finishing the relevant paperwork, and in any case before you actually start.

Then, two rolling deadlines.

Two clocks, each with its own 24 hours. Cancellations count. And the standard is immediately — 24 hours is the outside limit. There is more on this on the two deadlines.

Finally, how you send it. Reports are made electronically. There is one exception: non-professional hosts are allowed to use non-electronic means, by a procedure to be specified. In practice, everything now runs through the website.

Article 7 — What happens to your guests' information

This article is rarely discussed and it is the one that answers the question guests actually ask you: why does the Spanish government want all this?

The information goes into two files held by the State Secretariat for Security. It can be used only by the police forces, in preventing, detecting and investigating crime. Judges and public prosecutors can also access it.

The article then says something notably direct: particular importance is to be given to the ability to cross-reference these files with other police databases, in order to improve the prevention and investigation of terrorism and serious organised crime.

That is the honest answer. This is a counter-terrorism and organised-crime measure. It is not about tax, and it is not about tourism statistics.

Handling of the data is governed by a separate law — Organic Law 7/2021 — which covers personal data used for policing and criminal justice.

Article 8 — Breaches and fines

The decree itself sets no fines. It sorts conduct into two categories and hands the penalties over to the Public Safety Act of 2015.

Serious breaches:

• not having the records this decree requires
• failing to make the required reports at all

Minor breaches:

• mistakes or gaps in completing the records
• making the required reports late

Under the Public Safety Act, minor breaches carry €100 to €600 and serious ones €601 to €30,000.

Responsibility falls directly on the person who had the duty. You cannot pass it to a guest who gave you the wrong details, though Article 4 does expect you to check against their documents.

The closing provisions — and the dates

The decree came into force six months after publication, which is April 2022.

But there is a separate line saying the reporting duties would take effect from 2 January 2023.

Neither of those is the date you will usually see quoted. That is because enforcement was repeatedly postponed by the Ministry and only began in December 2024 — through announcements rather than through any change to this text. The law itself has never been amended.

The decree also allows the Minister of the Interior to change the annexes — the lists of information — by ministerial order, without a new decree. Worth knowing, because it means the data you are asked for can change more easily than the rest of the rules.

The annexes — the information itself

Two annexes: one for accommodation, one for vehicle hire. The accommodation annex is split in two, depending on whether you let professionally or not.

Between them they cover your business, your property, each traveller, and the transaction itself — including how it was paid for.

There is no official count of the fields, despite the confident numbers you will see quoted. The annex is a lettered list, and some entries contain several parts.

We go through what is actually required, and what you are merely often asked for, separately — including the two fields that cause most rejections.