What is SES.Hospedajes?
SES.Hospedajes is the Spanish government website where you report who is staying in your property. If you let a property to guests in most of Spain, you report the booking within 24 hours of it being made, and the guests within 24 hours of them arriving. Catalonia and the Basque Country run their own systems instead.
Who runs it
SES.Hospedajes belongs to the Ministry of the Interior — the department responsible for policing, not the one responsible for tourism.
That is worth knowing, because it explains a lot about the system. This is a security measure. It exists so the police can see who is staying where. It is not a tourism scheme, and it has nothing to do with tax.
It replaced the old arrangements: the paper forms you used to drop at the local police station, and two earlier computer systems called Hospederías and Webpol.
Why you have to do it
The rule comes from a piece of Spanish legislation called Royal Decree 933/2021. You will see it referred to constantly, so it is worth recognising the name.
The fines do not come from that decree. They come from a separate law, Ley Orgánica 4/2015 — the Public Safety Act. The amounts are set out under what the fines actually are, because the figures quoted online are usually wrong.
Three dates, and why they all get quoted
People will tell you the law started in 2022, or 2023, or December 2024. All three dates are real. They just mean different things.
| Date | What happened |
|---|---|
| April 2022 | The decree came into force |
| January 2023 | The duty to report legally began |
| December 2024 | The government actually started enforcing it |
Does it apply to you?
Almost certainly yes, if guests stay in your property and anything is paid or given in return.
It covers hotels, guest houses, campsites, rural properties, tourist apartments and holiday rentals of every kind — whether you let through Airbnb, Booking.com, Vrbo or directly to people who found you themselves.
There is no minimum size. There is no "I only do this occasionally" exemption. Someone letting one apartment for six weeks a year is covered on exactly the same terms as a hotel chain.
Being a small, non-professional host does change one thing. You do not have to keep your own internal register of guests, and you do not have to hold the records for three years. You still have to send the information.
Two places that do things differently
Two regions of Spain run their own systems and do not use SES.Hospedajes at all:
- Catalonia — you report to the Mossos d'Esquadra, the Catalan police.
- The Basque Country — you report to the Ertzaintza, the Basque police.
Everywhere else uses SES.Hospedajes. That includes Navarre and Galicia, which are often wrongly assumed to be exceptions. Galicia does have its own tourism system called TURESPAZO, but that is a separate thing and it does not replace the police report.
The three registrations people mix up
This is the single biggest source of confusion, and it is worth getting straight early. There are three different registrations. They are run by three different authorities. Having one does not mean you have dealt with the others.
| Who runs it | What it registers | |
|---|---|---|
| SES.Hospedajes | Ministry of the Interior | Your guests — every single stay |
| Your tourist licence | Your regional government | Your property — once |
| The rental registry | Ministry of Housing | Your property, for housing statistics |
If you have a licence number displayed on your Airbnb listing, that is the middle row. It does not cover the top row.
The bottom row — the national rental registry, or NRA — was cancelled by the Supreme Court in May 2026. That has caused a great deal of confusion, because many owners understandably took it to mean guest registration had been scrapped too. It has not. See the NRA is gone, guest registration is not.
What you actually have to do
In order:
- Get a Spanish digital ID. Usually a digital certificate. For owners who do not live in Spain this is reliably the hardest part, so start it first. See digital certificates.
- Register the property. A one-off job, done before you start letting.
- Report each booking within 24 hours of it being made — or cancelled.
- Report the guests within 24 hours of them arriving.
- Keep the records for three years, unless you are a small non-professional host.
Step 3 surprises almost everyone. Step 2 is where most people get stuck, because once you have registered the property there is no obvious place to then add a guest. We explain where the guest details actually go.
What happens if you get it wrong
Less than the internet suggests, but not nothing.
Sending the information late is a minor offence. The fine is €100 to €600.
Not sending it at all is a serious offence. That one runs from €601 to €30,000.