What it costs not to report a guest

Article 203 is headed «Failure to report accommodation» and covers two distinct courses of conduct: omitting the electronic registration of foreign citizens under article 15, no. 4, or not filing the accommodation bulletin under article 16, no. 1 or no. 2, constitutes an administrative offence.

The first is not being registered as a user of the system. The second is not filing the bulletin.

Note the cross-reference in the second: «under no. 1 or no. 2 of article 16». No. 2 is the departure report. Missing the departure is punishable exactly as missing the arrival — which doubles the exposure of anyone who only reports check-ins.

Since article 16 sets the period at three working days, non-filing only comes into being once that period has run out.

Under article 203 of Law 23/2007 the fine is banded by how many bulletins are missing: €100–500 (1 to 10), €200–900 (11 to 50) and €400–2,000 (more than 51); merely negligent lateness cuts both limits to a quarter.

Each band is a range, not a fixed figure. Within the range, the actual amount is set in the administrative-offence proceedings, weighing the circumstances of the case.

The unit of account is the bulletin, or the citizen whose registration is missing. A property turning over weekly accumulates bulletins fast: six months without reporting arrivals and departures crosses all three bands without the business having changed size at all.

It is worth stating what article 203 does not do, because that is where the information in circulation parts company with the law.

The article does not distinguish someone operating in their own name from someone operating through a company. It does not grade the fine by turnover, by number of properties, or by the establishment’s category.

The only variable in the scale is how many bulletins went unfiled, or how many citizens went unregistered.

• There is no separate band for legal persons.
• There is no uplift for the number of properties.
• There is no distinction between a hotel establishment and a short let, for the purposes of this scale.

No. 2 is the most useful part of the article for someone who reported late rather than never: where the period for reporting the accommodation, or the foreign citizen’s departure, is missed negligently, the minimum and maximum limits of the applicable fine are reduced to a quarter.

The reduction applies to both limits of the applicable range — the floor and the ceiling — and not to the amount actually set.

The scope is precise: negligent failure to meet the period. It covers someone who reported out of time, not someone who simply never reported.

Negligence is always punishable in these offences (article 204, no. 1). Article 203, no. 2, is the special rule for lateness in reporting accommodation, and it is that rule which fixes the reduction to a quarter.

Article 204, no. 3, provides a further reduction: in the case of voluntary payment, the minimum and maximum amounts of the fine are reduced to half of the amounts fixed for each fine.

These are distinct rules with distinct premises — one goes to fault, the other to the moment of payment. How they interact in a given case is decided in the proceedings, which is one reason not to treat these sums as automatic.

On procedure, article 203-A provides that voluntary payment at the moment the offence is detected may be made by any legally admitted means, with the available electronic payment methods to be preferred. The same article deals with repeat offending: a person is sanctioned as a repeat offender where they commit an offence with intent after having been notified for another breach of the same legal provision.

Competence to impose the fines and ancillary sanctions in this chapter belongs, under article 207, no. 1, to the board of AIMA, I. P., which may delegate it. No. 2 adds that this body keeps an individual register, without prejudice to the applicable personal data protection rules.

Do not confuse this with the reporting system: user registration for the Accommodation Bulletin Information System is with the UCFE (article 15, no. 4), and the bulletin is reported to the GNR or the PSP (article 16, no. 1). Who receives the report and who imposes the fine are different things.

Where the proceeds go is set by article 206: 30% to the State, 50% to AIMA, I. P., and 20% to the body that recorded the offence.

Some widely repeated figures in commercial articles about SIBA correspond to no provision of the law in force. The commonest presents the penalty split between natural and legal persons, with an upper limit in the thousands — sometimes attributing it to article 198, which is not the applicable provision: failure to report accommodation is article 203.

Article 198 of Law 23/2007 has a different subject. Failure to report accommodation is article 203, and its scale is the one set out above.

If you meet a different figure, the test is simple: open article 203 at the link below and read no. 1. It is one paragraph and three sub-paragraphs.

Amounts printed on older versions of the paper form also circulate. A form does not change the law: where they diverge, it is the text of article 203 in force that governs.