Fines for not filing the traveller report: what the law says
RD 933/2021 sets no fines itself: it defers to Spain’s public safety act. Which conduct is serious (€601–30,000), which is minor (€100–600), and where the line sits.
· 7 min read
The question always arrives in the same shape: “and if I don’t file it, what happens?” The answer is split across two pieces of legislation, which is precisely why almost nobody finds it. Royal Decree 933/2021 creates the obligation but sets no fines at all: its article 8 defers to chapter V of Organic Law 4/2015 on the protection of public safety. The numbers live there.
What follows is the full map of that deferral, with the specific article behind each conduct. It is public, verifiable information; the sources are at the end.
The four behaviours, and what each one costs
Article 8 of RD 933/2021 does something unusual and genuinely useful: instead of leaving the classification to the case officer, it states outright which paragraph of Organic Law 4/2015 applies to each breach. There are four, and they split into two very uneven halves.
| Conduct | Classification | Fine |
|---|---|---|
| Absence of the required documentary records | Serious · art. 36.20 | €601 – 30,000 |
| Failure to file the mandatory communications | Serious · art. 36.20 | €601 – 30,000 |
| Irregularities or deficiencies in completing the records | Minor · art. 37.9 | €100 – 600 |
| Filing outside the established deadline | Minor · art. 37.9 | €100 – 600 |
The articles cited belong to Organic Law 4/2015; the amounts come from its article 39.1. There are two orders of magnitude between one row and another, so it pays to understand exactly where the boundary sits.
Filing late and not filing are different offences
This is the distinction that moves the most money and is explained worst almost everywhere. Filing outside the deadline is a minor offence: the filing exists, it arrived at the wrong time. Not filing is a serious offence: there is no filing at all.
In euros, the floor of the serious offence (€601) starts exactly where the ceiling of the minor one ends (€600). And because serious offences are graded, the real range opens up considerably:
| Grade of the serious offence | Fine |
|---|---|
| Minimum | €601 – 10,400 |
| Medium | €10,401 – 20,200 |
| Maximum | €20,201 – 30,000 |
Put another way: a report filed two days late and a report never filed have nothing in common in the eyes of a case file. Which is why, when something breaks technically, waiting for it to fix itself is almost never the right reaction.
What “on time” means, exactly
Article 6 of RD 933/2021 does not talk about calendar days or month ends. It requires filing immediately and, in any case, within no more than 24 hours, counted from each of these two moments:
- On making the booking, formalising the contract or, where applicable, cancelling it.
- On the start of the contracted services.
Those are two separate clocks on the same booking, not one. A booking that comes in today for a stay three months away already has its first deadline running from today.
On top of that sits an obligation that is not about filing but about keeping: the data in the computerised record must be held for three years from the end of the contracted service (article 5.3). A system that files correctly but purges after six months is still in breach, just through the other door.
Who is liable: not who you think
Paragraph 4 of article 8 says it without hedging: liability falls directly on the obliged parties who committed the act. The obliged party is whoever holds the accommodation activity — you, or your client if you manage for third parties — not the software vendor that transmits.
That has a practical consequence worth being clear about before signing with anyone: no tool, ours included, can take on that liability, because the law does not let it move. What an integration can do is drive the three usual routes into the serious-offence row close to zero:
- Forgetting. The report does not depend on someone remembering as they close the front desk.
- Silent rejections. A submission that is accepted and later comes back rejected has to raise its hand, not sit in a log.
- Retries. When the Ministry’s service does not respond — it happens — the submission is retried inside the window instead of being lost.
What about Catalonia and the Basque Country?
RD 933/2021 applies across the whole country, so the obligation and its penalty regime are the same. What changes is who receives the filing: in those two regions it is not SES Hospedajes but their own regional police, with their own channels. It is covered in traveller registration in Catalonia.
Sources
All of the above comes from two consolidated texts on the Spanish official gazette. If you are going to make a decision on this, read them: they are short and the cross-reference between the two is clear on first reading.
- Royal Decree 933/2021 — articles
5.3(retention),6(deadlines) and8(offences and penalties). - Organic Law 4/2015 on the protection of public safety — articles
36.20,37.9and39.
Kinapi files the report for you
The guest registers from their phone with the data already validated, signs the contract, and Kinapi transmits the report to SES Hospedajes. €0.50 per booking filed, no subscription.