SES.Hospedajes: complete guide for Spanish vacation rentals

What is SES.Hospedajes?

The system was established by Real Decreto 933/2021 of 26 October. After several postponements due to technical complexity and resistance from the hospitality and tourism sector, effective application to lodging and vacation rentals was deferred until 2 December 2024.

SES.Hospedajes replaces and extends the older paper "Libro Registro de Viajeros". Data is no longer kept locally: each host transmits encrypted data to the Ministry's portal (hospedajes.ses.mir.es) and the database is national, accessible to the Guardia Civil, Policía Nacional, intelligence service CNI and counter-terrorism units.

Who must register?

RD 933/2021 art. 2 defines as obligated "natural or legal persons who carry out accommodation activities, whether professionally or not". The crucial phrase is "professionally or not": you are not exempt because you rent occasionally or because you are not registered as a tourism self-employed worker.

Only excluded are long-term primary-residence rentals (LAU art. 2) and non-housing rentals with a term exceeding one year (LAU art. 3 over 12 months). Seasonal rentals shorter than a year fall under SES.

• Hotels, hostels, pensions, casas rurales, tourist apartments.
• Vacation rentals registered as VV/VFT/VTAR depending on the autonomous region.
• Seasonal rentals (LAU art. 3) shorter than a year — without a formal tourist license but with a short stay.
• Digital platforms: the obligation rests on the property owner, not on Airbnb/Booking. These platforms transmit data separately under the same RD.

Which data must be submitted?

The current technical specification from the Ministerio del Interior details the fields by block: establishment identification (entered once at signup), booking data, and guest data. Below are the fields required since the fourth quarter of 2024.

When must the data be submitted?

The deadline runs from the "effective arrival" of the guest, not from the booking date. If check-in is at 6 PM on Friday, transmission must be completed before 6 PM on Saturday.

In practice, hosts collect data during pre-check-in (digital online form in the days before arrival) and send it to the SES portal at check-in or immediately after. Waiting the full 24 hours is risky: any technical issue can leave you out of time.

How do you submit in practice?

For a host with two or three properties, the manual route is viable but inefficient: each arrival takes about 15-25 minutes copying data into 14 fields. From five properties onwards, API integration becomes practically mandatory.

The initial portal signup requires a digital certificate from the responsible person (individual or company) — or Cl@ve PIN, the simplified alternative for natural persons — and the assignment of a unique 10-character "arrendador" code. Without an arrendador code, transmission is not possible.

What about Catalonia? Double obligation with Mossos

Mossos d'Esquadra has operated its own Catalan traveller-registration system since before RD 933, based on a Generalitat order. The Generalitat's argument is that public security in Catalonia is a regional competence and that information must reach Mossos first.

The Ministerio del Interior, conversely, maintains that RD 933 applies throughout the national territory and that transmission to SES is mandatory regardless of regional transmission.

In practice, hosts in Barcelona, Girona, Lleida or Tarragona transmit the data twice: once to the Mossos system and once to the national SES. The jurisdictional conflict has not yet been judicially settled — meanwhile, dual compliance is the prudent path.

What are the penalties for non-compliance?

In practice, SES non-compliance inspections are still rare, but sanction files have already been opened against hotels and tourist apartments in saturated tourist zones (Mallorca, Costa del Sol). Administration prioritizes by repetition: a first omission usually leads to a notice, a second to a file.

Can this all be automated?

For hosts with one property and low rotation, manual entry is viable. From three or four properties onwards, the math adds up: 15 minutes per traveller × 4 travellers per booking × 10 bookings per month = 10 hours per month on SES alone.

PropertyHost.app is one example of software that integrates the SES API and allows automated submission on pre-check-in validation. The specific choice is secondary — what matters is that automation is legal, explicitly provided for by the system itself, and reduces the risk of delay-based sanctions.