A hotel reports each guest within 24 hours and goes through inspections with no minimum size

Read in the BOE and the BOCM (Madrid's official gazette) on 19 October 2026. Classification, the self-protection plan and the defibrillator change with the region; the rest is national law.

The short answer

What is specific to a hotel is the guest register of Real Decreto 933/2021 and the classification under its region's tourism act. The rest are the inspections of any building open to the public, but without the relief other businesses get for being small: the electrical installation and the lift of a ten-room hotel are inspected as often as those of a three-hundred-room one, and the ten-year fire inspection does not excuse it on floor area.

The guest register of Real Decreto 933/2021

It applies to anyone who provides accommodation for a price, on a professional basis or not. Article 2(1) names hotels, hostels, guesthouses, boarding houses and rural tourism establishments, and also campsites, tourist flats, tour operators acting as intermediaries and digital platforms offering services in Spain.

The establishment keeps a computer register with the data in Annex I (Art. 5(1)). For each guest: first name and surnames, sex, document number and type with its support number, nationality, date of birth, usual residence, phone numbers, email, number of travellers and relationship if a minor is travelling. For the stay: contract reference number, date and time of arrival and departure, number of rooms, whether there is an internet connection and the payment method. Everyone over fourteen signs the entry form; the details of younger children are given by the adult accompanying them (Art. 4(2)), and the hotel is responsible for making sure they match the document shown (Art. 4(3)).

So there are two reports per guest: one on booking (or cancelling) and another on arrival, electronically if the activity is professional (Art. 6(4)). Before opening, the establishment reports its own details, no later than ten days after completing the formalities to operate and always before starting; if any of them change, it reports again (Art. 6(1) and 6(2)). The register is kept for three years from the end of the stay (Art. 5(3)).

The royal decree came into force on 27 April 2022, and its third final provision gives effect to the reporting obligations from 2 January 2023. Until the Ministry issues the implementing rules, Order INT/1922/2003 on register books and entry forms remains in force insofar as it does not conflict (sole transitional provision).

Not having the register or failing to report is a serious infringement; reporting late or with errors is a minor one (Art. 8). Organic Act 4/2015, Art. 39(1) sets a fine of 100 to 600 euros for minor infringements and a fine of 601 to 30,000 euros for serious ones.

Classification: each region's tourism act

What counts as a hotel, a hostel or a guesthouse, their categories and their technical requirements are decided by each region. Three examples read:

• Madrid, Act 1/1999, Art. 26: the hotel occupies a building or a self-contained part of one, with entrances, lifts and stairs for its exclusive use; a guesthouse with more than 20 beds and at least 10 rooms may call itself a hostel.
• Catalonia, Act 13/2002, Arts. 40 and 41: two groups, hotels and hostels or guesthouses; joining the right one is compulsory; hotels are open twenty-four hours, and the service includes daily cleaning of every unit.
• Andalusia, Act 13/2011, Art. 43: four groups (hotels, aparthotels, hostels and guesthouses), and only hostels and guesthouses may occupy non-independent parts of a building.

All three acts leave the specific requirements to regional regulations, and the other regions each have their own act with a different arrangement.

Why a hotel is not let off for being small

The Spanish low-voltage electrical regulation (REBT) lists hotels and hostels among public-assembly venues "cualquiera que sea su ocupación" (whatever their occupancy) (ITC-BT-28). That means an initial inspection and another every five years by an inspection body: the page on the low-voltage inspection has the details.

The same happens with the lift: the lift technical instruction (Real Decreto 355/2024) requires lifts in public-assembly venues to be inspected every two years, and it uses the same list. The lift company visits every month, with 20 to 45 days between visits; if the lift stops with nobody inside, it sends staff within 24 hours at most, and it can never be the one that commissions the periodic inspection (Art. 4(5)). More in lift inspection.

And for fire, Article 22 of the RIPCI exempts certain uses below a floor area (offices, education, retail…) from the ten-year inspection, but public residential use is not on that list. Only a hotel whose installation consists solely of extinguishers, fire blankets, evacuation plans or emergency lighting escapes it. The rest is in fire protection.

Water: Legionella in the rooms and the pool

A hotel is not a "priority" Legionella installation unless the health authority decides so, but the royal decree applies to it in full. Every day, the temperature of the final hot-water tanks (60 °C) and of the return (50 °C); every month, a rotating sample of taps and showers; every week, running for a few minutes those in rooms that are little used; every three months, a Legionella test. When counting sampling points, all those in one room may be counted as one. A spa adds daily recirculation before opening and a monthly test. See Legionella.

A hotel pool is type 2, for public use, and the whole of Real Decreto 742/2013 applies: a self-monitoring protocol, a routine check every morning before opening, a full monthly laboratory analysis, a notice with the latest results and with whether or not there is a lifeguard, and the year's data entered in SILOE (the national pool information system) before 30 April. How many lifeguards are needed is decided by each region. More in swimming pools.

Kitchen, breakfasts and heating and cooling

If the hotel prepares or serves food, even just breakfast, hospitality falls under Real Decreto 1021/2022: it needs a permanent procedure based on the principles of HACCP (APPCC in Spanish), kept up to date and with a person responsible for applying it, which may be simplified (Art. 20). See APPCC.

For heating, cooling and hot water, power decides, not the sector: above 70 kW there is a maintenance contract, an annual certificate and an efficiency inspection every four years. The 21 and 26 °C limits of instruction IT 3.8 do not name hotels. More in RITE.

Self-protection, defibrillator and complaint forms: what each region sets

Since 11 October 2026 the Basic Directive on self-protection no longer has a national heading for hotels; under the previous rule they were included from 28 metres of evacuation height or 2,000 people. The regions keep their own catalogues: the Catalan one (Decret 30/2015) includes public residential use with that height or that occupancy. More in self-protection plan.

The defibrillator is not required by the State: Real Decreto 365/2009 only requires whoever installs one to notify and maintain it. In the Region of Madrid, Decree 78/2017 requires one in hotels with more than 100 beds; in Andalusia and the Basque Country hotels are not on the list. And complaint forms are also regional: Madrid, Catalonia and Andalusia require them, with their notice.

What the rule does not say