Guest registration with the police (SES.HOSPEDAJES)

Who has to register holiday guests with the Spanish police, what to collect, the 24 hour deadline, the three ways to submit including the free web service, the three year retention and the fines.

If you let a property for holidays or tourism in Spain, you have to send your guests' details to the authorities. This page explains who has to do it, what has to be sent, by when, and what happens if it is not done. It is general guidance, not legal advice.

Who this applies to

The duty comes from Real Decreto 933/2021 and has been mandatory nationwide through the SES.HOSPEDAJES system since 2 December 2024. It applies to anyone providing hospedaje: hotels, tourist apartments, holiday lets (VFT, VUT), campsites, and also to the agencies and platforms that arrange the stay.

• Holiday and tourist lets: yes. Every stay, whatever its length.
• Ordinary long-term tenancies under the LAU: no. A tenant living in the property as their home is not a viajero, and the duty does not apply.
• Temporada, the seasonal contract: it depends on purpose. A stay for tourism or leisure is inside the duty. A genuine temporary-housing contract, for work, study or medical treatment, is arguably outside it, and many operators file anyway to be safe. Record why the contract is seasonal, because the purpose is what decides this and several other obligations.

What you have to collect

Around 17 to 21 fields for every traveller aged 14 or over, plus data about the stay itself:

• Full name, ID or passport number and type, nationality, date of birth, sex.
• Home address, telephone number and email address.
• Relationship for any accompanying minor.
• The property, the dates, the number of travellers.
• Contract and payment data, including the payment method and card or account identifiers.

Everyone signs. The signed register is what you keep.

When it has to be sent

Within 24 hours, and at two moments: when the booking is formalised, modified or cancelled, and again at check-in. Late is a breach in itself, so this is the part that hurts agencies handling several arrivals a day in high season.

How to send it

There are three channels, and the third is the one most agencies do not know about.

• Manual portal. Type each guest into hospedajes.ses.mir.es. Reliable enough for one property, punishing at volume, and the portal has a reputation for going down at the wrong moment.
• Batch upload. An XML file (alta masiva) against the published schema.
• Web service. A SOAP interface your software can submit to directly, machine to machine. It is free. You enable it in your own SES account by ticking the option to communicate by web service, which issues web-service credentials for your NIF. Products that charge per property for guest registration are, for the most part, wrappers around this.

Keep the register for three years

The signed register has to be retained for three years. That is the artefact an inspection asks for, not the submission receipt, so keep both.

What it costs to get wrong

Under Ley Orgánica 4/2015, failing to keep the register or to communicate the data is a grave infringement: 601 to 30,000 euros. Lesser breaches run 100 to 600 euros. The fine falls on the person providing the accommodation.

Where SES does not reach

SES.HOSPEDAJES covers most of Spain, including Andalucía and the whole Costa del Sol. Two regions run their own systems and are not covered by it: Catalonia, through the Mossos d'Esquadra, and the Basque Country, through the Ertzaintza. If you let in those regions you file there instead.

The other duty people confuse this with

Guest registration is not the same thing as your registration number. Since 1 July 2025, under Real Decreto 1312/2024, short-term and seasonal units need a rental registration number (NRA) to be advertised on platforms at all, and in Andalucía you also need the tourism registry entry (RTA, commonly the VFT). Those get you listed. Guest registration is what you do for every stay afterwards.

Coming soon in PropertyList. PropertyList does not send anything to the police on your behalf today. It is being built as part of the holiday side of the Rentals Module, and it will work like this: your guest gets a link before arrival, photographs their ID and signs on their phone; the signed register is stored for the three years the law asks for; the submission goes to SES automatically, with retries, receipts and an alert if it fails; and a dashboard shows every stay as sent, pending or failed, per property. Holiday lets only. Long-term tenancies will never trigger it.

What to do in the meantime

Register through the portal or a batch upload, and build the guest data collection into your booking confirmation so you are not chasing passport photographs at midnight. Doing it by hand takes most agencies 15 to 25 minutes per booking, which is worth knowing when you compare it against the cost of software that does it for you.

Related: short-term and holiday letting requirements, and the Rentals Module.