Guest registration and SES.Hospedajes: a guide for vacation rental managers in Spain
6 min read
If you manage vacation rentals in Spain, Royal Decree 933/2021 requires you to send two reports to SES.Hospedajes, each within 24 hours. The first covers the booking and goes out when it is made, changed or canceled. The second covers the guests (the "parte de viajeros") and goes out when the stay begins. If you are registered as a business, you also have to keep a record of that data for three years. As of October 2026 the rule is in force and unchanged, and it applies to bookings that come in through Airbnb or Booking.com too. In Catalonia and the Basque Country the reports go to the Mossos d'Esquadra and the Ertzaintza instead of SES.Hospedajes.
This guide walks through what the rule requires, which data the system actually demands, and what changed this year. It is not legal advice. For your specific situation, talk to your advisor.
Who has to comply
Royal Decree 933/2021 applies to anyone who provides lodging in Spain for a price, whether as a business or not, and to intermediaries and platforms as well. The consolidated text in the BOE, Spain's official gazette, has not been amended since it was published.
Whether you count as a business or a private host matters, because it changes what you have to do. According to the Ministry of the Interior's FAQ, you are a business if you are listed in the tax agency's register of businesses and professionals (Censo de Empresarios, Profesionales y Retenedores). A vacation rental manager almost always is.
| Business | Private host | |
|---|---|---|
| Register yourself and each property before you start | Yes | No |
| Report bookings and guests | Yes | Yes |
| Keep an electronic record of the data | Yes, for three years | No |
You register on the Ministry of the Interior's online portal. Registration gives you a host code and an establishment code for each property. Those codes identify every report you send.
The two reports for every stay
The rule says the data must be reported "immediately, and in any case within 24 hours" of two separate moments. In SES.Hospedajes each one is its own report type.
| Report | When it is due | What it contains |
|---|---|---|
| Booking report (RH) | Within 24 hours of the booking, of any change to its details, and of its cancellation | The contract and its holder, with a phone number or an email |
| Guest report (PV) | Within 24 hours of the start of the stay | Every guest, with the data listed in the next section |
Two details are easy to miss. First, cancellations have to be reported too. Second, any change to a booking requires a new report. You can't edit a report once it's sent. You cancel the previous one and send a new one.
What SES.Hospedajes actually requires
In late 2024, word got around that only 13 fields were mandatory and that birth date and sex were optional. Not so. If a report is missing a detail the system requires, it is rejected, and a rejected report counts as never sent. The system asks for quite a bit more than those famous 13 fields.
For each guest on the report, this is what the system requires:
| Field | When it is required |
|---|---|
| First name and first surname | Always |
| Second surname | When the document is a Spanish DNI |
| Date of birth | Always |
| Document type and number | For guests 18 and over |
| Support number | When the document is a Spanish DNI or NIE |
| Full home address | Always: street, postal code and country, plus the municipality with its INE code if the guest lives in Spain |
| Phone or email | At least one of the two |
| Relationship | When anyone in the group is under 18 |
Then there are the contract details, pulled from the booking: reference, contract date, check-in, check-out and number of guests. For payment, only the type is required (card, platform, bank transfer, cash and so on).
A few rules worth knowing when you design your form:
- Valid documents. A DNI for Spanish citizens, mandatory from age 14. A national ID card for EU citizens. A passport for everyone else.
- Support number. It is printed on the DNI, and the Ministry explains where to find it. The guest just has to type it in.
- Contact. If the guest has no email, a mobile number is enough.
- Sex. It is reported when it appears on the document or the guest provides it. Never guess it from a name.
- Groups with minors. If the adult is not their parent, you record the role that makes them responsible, such as guardian, teacher or coach.
- Spanish addresses. The municipality goes in as its five-digit INE code, not as free text.
Signatures, records and retention
Every guest over 14 signs the report. Younger children don't sign. The adult traveling with them provides their details. Order INT/1922/2003, as amended in 2021, accepts a signature on paper or in digital form, so it can be collected through online check-in.
If you are a business, you must keep an electronic record of all the data, children under 14 included, for three years from the end of each stay. It has to be available if the police ask for it.
There is one more practical reason to keep your own archive. Since August 2026, the Interior FAQ makes it clear that the Ministry does not produce or share listings of past reports, not even with the host who sent them. If you ever need to prove that you sent a guest report, all you'll have is what you kept yourself: the time it was sent, the code the system returned and the signed report.
What you must not ask for: ID copies
The Spanish Data Protection Agency (AEPD) was clear in its note of 17 June 2025: you may not ask for a copy or a photo of a guest's ID or passport for guest registration. A copy holds far more data than the rule requires (photo, expiry date, parents' names) and creates an identity-theft risk. The AEPD has already fined hotels for scanning documents.
What it does accept is a form with the data the rule requires, in person or online. The Ministry agrees in its FAQ: any system that lets you verify the data is accurate is valid, even without the guest being physically present, as long as it respects data protection law.
Platform bookings and managers with several owners
Airbnb and Booking.com bookings are still on you. The Interior Ministry says each party reports the information it holds and that, when intermediaries are involved, the party required to report is the one with the direct and final contractual relationship with the customer. In a vacation rental, that is whoever rents out the property. A booking arriving through a platform does not take the report off your plate, and the guest report is always yours to send.
If you report on behalf of your owners, you need their authorization. The Ministry allows a third party to send the reports, as long as the obligated party has authorized it "by any of the means accepted in law". Put it in writing in your management agreement. The same applies to software that sends the reports for you: responsibility stays with the obligated party, even when a tool does the sending.
Catalonia and the Basque Country have their own systems. In Catalonia the reports go to the Mossos d'Esquadra and in the Basque Country to the Ertzaintza, each through its own channel. Sending them to SES.Hospedajes does not count there. Navarre and the rest of Spain use SES.Hospedajes.
What changed in 2026, and what didn't
The Supreme Court struck down the Single Registry, not guest registration. Supreme Court ruling 620/2026, published in the BOE on 8 June 2026, annulled the Single Rental Registry created by Royal Decree 1312/2024. That is a different rule. Royal Decree 933/2021 and its reports to SES.Hospedajes are exactly as they were.
Brussels opened a case, but nothing is suspended. On 4 June 2026 the European Commission opened infringement proceedings INFR(2026)4005 against Spain over this registry. It questions the amount of data collected, such as payment details, and the three-year retention. Until the rule changes, the obligations and the fines stay the same.
According to the Ministry, those fines run from €100 to €600 for false or incorrect data, partial omissions or late reports, and from €601 to €30,000 for not being registered or not reporting the data at all.
How Karibai handles it
With Karibai's online check-in, every guest fills in their details from their phone before arriving. Each guest over 14 signs, and nobody has to photograph an ID. Karibai sends the booking report and the guest report to SES.Hospedajes automatically and keeps the record archived for three years.