RIPCI: your own staff check every three months, the maintenance company every year and an inspection body every ten

The short answer

If your premises have fire extinguishers, equipped fire hose reels (BIE, "bocas de incendio equipadas"), detection and alarm or sprinklers, the RIPCI requires you to maintain them within maximum intervals. Every three months someone looks at the extinguisher in the corridor: that it is in its place, visible, with the seal intact and the pressure gauge needle in the operating zone. You can do that check yourselves. Every year, and every five years, an authorised maintenance company has to come in. Everything goes in writing, and the paperwork is kept for at least five years.

And every ten years the owner has to ask an inspection body to inspect the installation, unless it falls under one of the exemptions in Article 22. Since 2025 there is a new and very practical one: if all you have is fire extinguishers, fire blankets, evacuation plans or emergency lighting, that inspection does not apply to you.

What the rule says

The RIPCI sets out how active fire protection equipment is designed, installed, maintained and inspected. Its Article 21 requires the equipment to undergo the checks in Annex II, which sets for each item "el tiempo máximo que podrá transcurrir entre dos mantenimientos consecutivos" (the maximum time that may pass between two consecutive maintenance visits): an interval, not a calendar date.

Annex II itself splits the work. The tasks in table I (every three and six months) and table III (signage) can be done by "personal especializado del fabricante, de una empresa mantenedora, o bien, por el personal del usuario o titular de la instalación" (specialist staff of the manufacturer or of a maintenance company, or the staff of the user or owner of the installation). Those in table II (every year and every five years) only by the manufacturer or the maintenance company.

A maintenance company becomes authorised by filing a responsible declaration with the regional government, which is valid indefinitely and across Spain (Art. 16). It has duties of its own (Art. 17): telling you the dates that are due, fixing the faults you ask it to fix, giving you a report on what does not work, keeping its paperwork for five years and putting a label on every extinguisher it services with its number, the date of the check and the date of the next one. An owner with the technical means, staff and liability insurance can register as a maintainer itself (Art. 14(2)).

Who it binds, and from what threshold

The RIPCI has been in force since 12 December 2017 and applies to any active fire protection installation, whether in a bar, an office or the car park of a residents' association. What it does not say is what equipment each building needs: for that it refers to the Código Técnico de la Edificación (Spanish Building Code) for buildings (Art. 19(2)) and to the industrial fire safety regulation for industrial units (Art. 19(1)).

Two thresholds are in the text. Fire extinguishers and fire blankets can be put up by the user if the premises are no larger than 100 m² or are a detached family home, and evacuation plans always can (Art. 9(2)). An installation with only that equipment needs no commissioning procedure (Art. 20(2)); the rest need the installer's certificate and a maintenance contract with an authorised maintenance company (Art. 20(1)), something that since 2025 is also required in buildings covered by the Building Code.

What is checked, how often and by whom

The tables also set three service lives. A detector lasts what its manufacturer says and, if it says nothing, 10 years from commissioning; after that it is replaced or a sample is verified every five years (table II). Fire hose reel hoses are replaced at least every 20 years, unless the manufacturer certifies longer. And photoluminescent signs are replaced 20 years after manufacture, unless measuring a sample gives values of no less than 80 per cent of the factory values under table III of Annex II; that measurement is repeated every ten years.

The fire extinguisher and its twenty years

The five-yearly check on an extinguisher is a level C pressure test, the "timbrado", and the RIPCI allows it to be repeated, the "retimbrado", "por tres veces" (three times) from the date of the first test (Annex II, table II). The twenty-year limit is not written in the RIPCI: it is in the Reglamento de equipos a presión (the Spanish pressure equipment regulation).

The twenty years run from manufacture, not from when you bought it or hung it on the kitchen wall. The extinguisher's inspection plate shows the date of manufacture first and then the date of each level C test (pressure equipment regulation, Annex III, section 5).

The ten-yearly inspection (Article 22)

Where no specific rule governs inspection, the owner must ask, at least every ten years, for an accredited inspection body (OCA, "organismo de control") to inspect its fire protection installations. A report is drawn up and signed by the body's technician and by the owner, and both keep a copy. If there are breaches, the body sets deadlines to put them right and, if they are very serious or are not fixed, it reports them to the regional industry authority.

It does not apply to premises in residential housing use, nor to those in administrative or educational use under 2,000 m² built, nor to those in retail, public assembly or car park use under 500 m², provided they have no high special-risk areas or rooms and no storage-use areas. Outside that list of six uses, the article gives no exemption by floor area.

The equipment in Article 20(2) is that of Article 9(2): fire extinguishers, fire blankets, evacuation plans and systems that form part of a machine. A 700 m² shop with extinguishers and emergency lighting, and nothing else, does not have the ten-yearly inspection; if it also has a fire hose reel network, it does, because it exceeds the 500 m² of retail use. For installations already in place in 2017, the first inspection fell due ten years after commissioning (fourth transitional provision).

What paperwork is kept

• Maintenance records for each task, signed by whoever did it and by the owner's representative; the maintenance company's records carry its certificate and the checklists (Annex II(5)).
• Those done by your own staff (tables I and III) need not follow the UNE 23580 formats: the minimum content of Annex II(5) and the details of the last maintenance are enough.
• Evidence of the maintenance programme: the owner and the company keep it for at least five years, up to date and available to the industry authority (Annex II(6)).
• Report of the ten-yearly inspection, signed by the inspection body and by the owner, who both keep a copy (Art. 22(3)).
• Label on every extinguisher with the company's number, the date of the check and the date of the next one (Art. 17(g)).

What the rule does not say

If it is an industrial unit

In an industrial establishment the inspection is not the one in Article 22: it is governed by the industrial fire safety regulation, which since 10 May 2025 is the one in Royal Decree 164/2025 (the one in Royal Decree 2267/2004 has been repealed). Its Article 13 requires the owner to ask an inspection body for an inspection at least every five years, whatever the intrinsic risk level; under the previous regulation it was five, three or two years depending on whether the risk was low, medium or high.

Units that were already operating hold their next inspection within the deadline set in their last report and then move to five years (fifth transitional provision); equipment maintenance is still that of the RIPCI (Art. 12(2)). You have the full picture, with the exemptions for small units, in regulations for industrial units.

Does it depend on the region?

The regulation is national and basic, but the regional governments apply it: companies' declarations and installation certificates are filed with their industry department, and their inspection services are the ones who ask for the records. The ten-yearly inspection can follow standard UNE 192005-2 "o bien, el protocolo equivalente que cada comunidad autónoma tenga establecido" (or the equivalent protocol each region has set up) (Art. 22(1)). If your building also needs a self-protection plan, that is decided by a different rule altogether.