What the DGT Holds on You, and How to Check It Before It Costs You

Spain’s traffic authority keeps two files on you: a Registro de Conductores e Infractores — drivers and offenders register, and a Registro Nacional de Vehículos — national vehicle register. Between them they hold your address, your licence and points balance, every vehicle in your name, whether the state believes those vehicles are insured, and their inspection status. Everything downstream runs off what those registers say rather than off what is true.

The field that causes the most expensive trouble is the plainest. Your address on file is where fine notifications go. You move along the coast, re-register on the padrón — municipal residence roll, and assume Tráfico now knows. It may not: article 60.1 of Real Decreto Legislativo 6/2015 says town halls and the tax agency podrán — may pass on addresses they hold. When the letter then fails twice it is published instead, deemed served twenty days later, and your discount window closes without you having seen it.

Last verified: 21 August 2026.

What the two registers hold

Article 77 of Real Decreto 818/2009 lists the driver register field by field: name, nationality and domicilio — address of record, DNI or NIE, licence classes and their validity, medical fitness reports, restrictions, firm sanctions for grave and very grave infractions, and your saldo de puntos — points balance. It is not public, and article 79.1 gives you rights of access and rectification. The vehicle register, under article 2 of Real Decreto 2822/1998 in its 2026 wording, identifies owners, annotates ITV results and the defects found, logs recalls and total-loss declarations, and verifies compulsory liability insurance. That one is open, under article 2.3, to interested parties and to third parties with a legitimate and direct interest.

Reading the record: miDGT and the sede

miDGT is the DGT’s own free app, and the DGT states the digital documentation it shows is valid for traffic purposes within Spain, while still advising you to carry the paper. Three ways in: Cl@ve; your data plus an SMS code to the mobile number the DGT already holds, which has to be registered first; or a DNIe 3.0 over NFC, Android only. The vehicle view shows the technical data, the environmental sticker, the last ITV data, the current insurer and cover dates, the fiscal municipality, and the conductor habitual — habitual driver if you declared one.

Two reports go deeper. The informe de conductor — driver report is free at the sede, covering the licences you hold, your points balance, whether the licence has been withdrawn, and any limitation, adaptation or restriction on it. The reduced vehicle report is free; the full one, and the report listing vehicles in your name, cost the 8.67 euro fee 4.1. Confirmed August 2026.

The address of record, and the fifteen days

Article 10 of Real Decreto 818/2009 gives you fifteen days to notify a change to your licence data or address; article 30.2 of Real Decreto 2822/1998 sets the same fifteen days for vehicle data. Two addresses exist and changing one does not change the other: the notification address is where letters go, and the domicilio fiscal — tax address of each vehicle decides which town charges you road tax. Both run off the same free service, and nobody publishes how long a change takes to show up in the register.

• Online at the DGT sede electrónica with Cl@ve, a certificate or DNIe, or through the Punto de Acceso General, which updates several bodies at once including the tax agency and Seguridad Social.
• In the app, under Ajustes, then Datos personales, then Domicilio de notificación.
• By phone on 060. The DGT checks the new address against the INE padrón first, so if you have moved but not yet re-registered, expect this route to bounce.
• In person at a Jefatura de Tráfico with cita previa — a pre-booked appointment, or at a town hall that holds an agreement with the DGT, which covers the notification address and the vehicle fiscal address. The DGT publishes that list and it changes, so check yours before going. The documents the DGT names are a DNI, a Spanish driving licence, a residence card, or a passport together with an NIE. The green EU registration certificate is not on that list, and the DGT does not publish whether counters accept it.

How a fine actually reaches you

Article 90.1 of Real Decreto Legislativo 6/2015 sets the order: first the Dirección Electrónica Vial — road electronic address if you have one, then any address you gave expressly for the procedure, then the address in the registers. Post can be accepted by anyone present who identifies themselves; if nobody does, a second attempt follows within three days, and if that fails the notice goes to the Boletín Oficial del Estado, where article 91 deems it served twenty calendar days after publication.

The BOE runs this as the Tablón Edictal Único — single edictal board. The search is free and needs no login: put in a NIF, an NIE, a passport number or a plate, and narrow it with the subject filter for traffic, circulation and road safety. Announcements stay openly searchable for three months, after which they can only be reached through a one-off verification code. TESTRA, the older sanctions board created by Orden INT/3022/2010, still exists, but article 92 makes publication there prior and optional. The BOE is the one that counts, and that cuts in your favour: article 44 of Ley 39/2015 makes BOE publication compulsory for every administration, state, regional or municipal, and treats a notice in a provincial bulletin or on a town hall board as an optional extra that never replaces it. So a Marbella or Fuengirola parking fine belongs on the same board as a DGT speeding fine. The gap that catches people is earlier in the chain: a letter someone at your old address signed for was validly served under article 90.3 and never reaches the board at all.

What being unreachable costs: article 93.1 gives twenty calendar days from notification to pay, object, or identify the driver, and article 94 sets the reduction for paying inside that window at 50 per cent. Failing to identify the driver is a very grave infraction under article 77.j, fined at double the original if that was minor and triple if it was grave or very grave, and article 93.2 excludes it from the reduced procedure. So you never see the letter, never identify the driver, and the follow-on penalty exceeds the fine that caused it, with no discount. Four unpaid firm sanctions of that weight also freeze every vehicle procedure, under article 107, with temporary or definitive deregistration the only exception.

The DEV, and whether to switch it on

The DEV is an electronic letterbox with the same legal effect as paper, mandatory for legal persons since 1 November 2022 and voluntary for individuals, who are assigned one only on request under article 60.5. It is free, but the DGT asks for a certificate or DNIe to register or read notifications and does not list Cl@ve alone as sufficient. Once you hold one, an address you give expressly for a procedure is ignored under article 87.3.f, ten days without opening a notification counts as rejection, and bodies that have not joined keep posting to your address anyway.

Who actually has a points balance

The starting credit is twelve points, or eight for a licence of no more than three years’ standing or one obtained again after losing the whole allocation. Clean driving adds up to three more over six years, to a ceiling of fifteen. Points go the moment the infraction is annotated, and lapse if it is not annotated within a year of the sanction becoming firm. Four free ways to check: at the sede with a certificate, DNIe or Cl@ve, which also produces a downloadable movement history; in the app; on 060, after some identity questions; and in person with cita previa.

Two caveats the DGT states itself: your licence has to be in force, and what it shows are the points on your Spanish licence. That matters on this coast. A resident holding an EU or EEA licence is subject to Spanish rules on validity, medical checks and points under article 15.4 of Real Decreto 818/2009, but annotation in the driver register is voluntary under article 16.1, on request at any Jefatura Provincial. Without it there is no Spanish record to display, and the two articles do not resolve where points from Spanish sanctions land meanwhile. Expect nothing back, and do not read that as a clean record.

Insurance status, and how the feed goes wrong

The state’s view of whether your car is insured lives in FIVA, the Fichero Informativo de Vehículos Asegurados — information file of insured vehicles, under articles 23 to 28 of Real Decreto 1507/2008. Your insurer does not report to the DGT. It reports to the Consorcio de Compensación de Seguros, which holds the file for the ministry and exchanges it with the DGT under article 28. What travels is thinner than a policy: the plate, a make and model code, the cover dates and the contract type, then daily registrations and cancellations keyed on the plate. The policy number is not in the routine feed at all. What that design leaves open is a plate-level timing gap: a cancellation sent in error, or a renewal not yet fed through, and the file reads uninsured.

Article 23.3 is why that is a roadside problem rather than a clerical one. The information in the file enjoys a presumption of truth unless proved otherwise, so the burden sits on you. Article 14.2 gives you the way to discharge it: officers verify cover through FIVA, and failing that, by the receipt for the current premium, provided it names the insurer, the plate, the cover period and the compulsory cover. Keep that receipt in the glovebox precisely because the file can be wrong. Appearing uninsured is no ordinary traffic penalty: article 3.1 of Real Decreto Legislativo 8/2004 sets a prohibition on circulating, impoundment at the owner’s cost for one month and longer on repetition, and a fine of 601 to 3,005 euros. Confirmed August 2026.

Correcting it is where the published record thins out. General consultation of FIVA under article 27 is reserved to injured parties in an accident, so your practical window on your own status is the insurer panel in miDGT, and the DGT’s instruction when anything there is wrong is to call 060. Which party moves first, the insurer who owns the feed or the DGT who displays it, is not published, and neither is how long it takes. One backstop comes round with the ITV: article 78.2 of Real Decreto Legislativo 6/2015 makes stations demand proof of insurance at every inspection, ordinary or extraordinary, and bars a favourable result until they have it.

Correcting a wrong ITV result

The station transmits your result electronically to the vehicle register on the day of the inspection, under article 10.7 of Real Decreto 920/2017, and article 12.2 has officers check that register first, falling back on the inspection report or the ITV card. If the recorded result is manifestly incorrect, article 10.5 obliges every autonomous community to have a procedure to change it and expressly allows an interested party to start it. The resolution has to spell out what the station got wrong, and the station has to put it right and issue a new inspection report. In Andalucía the stations are run by VEIASA, under the Consejería de Industria, Energía y Minas. The national right is clear; Andalucía publishes no plainly labelled citizen procedure for it. Address the request to the Delegación Territorial de Economía, Hacienda, Fondos Europeos y de Industria, Energía y Minas for your province, and expect to cite the article yourself.

Vehicles still in your name

A car you sold years ago can still be yours on paper. Article 32.1 of Real Decreto 2822/1998 gives the seller ten days from the transfer to notify Tráfico; the buyer has thirty days to request the new circulation permit and cannot legally drive it until they hold one, and the seller’s duty does not depend on the buyer’s. Where an owner has died, whoever holds the vehicle pending adjudication to an heir must notify the Jefatura within ninety days. And it is not only paperwork: article 111.1 of Real Decreto Legislativo 6/2015 makes the registered owner subsidiarily liable when the driver does not pay the fine, unless the vehicle was taken against your will, or a long-term lessee or a declared conductor habitual was on record at the time.

What this check does not do

• It does not catch a letter that was delivered. If someone at an address you have left signed for the notice, it was served, and it never reaches the edictal board for you to find.
• It does not clear you. An empty BOE result covers three months, and it only ever holds the notices that failed to reach you by post in the first place.
• It does not fix the insurance feed. Reading your status is not correcting it, and no official source publishes the correction route or how long it takes.

The five-minute version

• Check the address the DGT holds, in miDGT under Ajustes or in the sede‘s change-of-address service. Fifteen days to notify a move, and your town hall passing it on is permitted, not required.
• Change the vehicle fiscal address at the same time. Separate field, and it decides which town bills the road tax.
• Search the BOE edictal board with your NIE or plate, free and no login, but a clean result only covers the last three months.
• Read your points balance free at the sede, in the app or on 060. An EU licence never annotated under article 16 of Real Decreto 818/2009 shows nothing, which is not a clean record.
• Check the insurer and cover dates in the app against your policy. FIVA data is presumed true, and the roadside fallback is the premium receipt.
• Pull the free reduced vehicle report, and pay the 8.67 euro fee for the vehicles-in-my-name report if you have ever sold a car privately.

Related guides

• Cl@ve PIN Spain: Register, Use + When You Need the Full Digital Certificate
• Traffic Fines in Spain: Check, Pay and Keep the 50% Discount
• Car Insurance in Spain: What Expats Need to Know (2026)
• ITV Test in Spain: The Expat’s MOT Guide (2026)
• Selling a Car in Spain: Process, Taxes, and Paperwork
• The Padrón in Spain: The Form That Unlocks Everything

General information, not legal advice, current as of 21 August 2026. Primary sources: Real Decreto Legislativo 6/2015, Ley 39/2015, Real Decreto 818/2009, Real Decreto 2822/1998, Real Decreto 920/2017, Real Decreto 1507/2008, Real Decreto Legislativo 8/2004, Orden INT/3022/2010, the DGT sede electrónica and miDGT pages, the BOE Tablón Edictal Único and its search help, and the Junta de Andalucía’s industry pages. No official source publishes how long a DGT record correction takes, or the procedure for correcting an insurance-status entry.