The fine arrived late, or never arrived
Spanish traffic fines from abroad
The fine never reached you, and the clock ran anyway
An envelope in Spanish lands in an empty house in January, gets read in April, and by then it has lost the discount, gained a surcharge and is sometimes already with enforcement collection.
What you get
- The fine read and translated: what act is alleged, which article, what amount and how many licence points.
- The deadline you actually have left, counted from the valid notification and not from the day you opened the envelope.
- Whether the 50 % early-payment discount is still alive, and until exactly which day.
- Registration on the DGT's electronic road address, and a year of watching your notifications.
- Identifying the driver when it was not you, drafted in time — failing to do so is a separate and dearer offence.
Why this matters now
The DGT notifies vehicle keepers electronically through the Dirección Electrónica Vial, and when there is neither an electronic address nor a usable one, the notice ends up published on the traffic penalties public notice board. Published that way, the fine is legally notified even though you are in Manchester and the envelope is in a locked letterbox. The 50 % early-payment discount lasts twenty calendar days: most foreign owners lose it without ever knowing it existed.
What this service is NOT
We are not lawyers and we do not run court appeals. If your case has a defence we say so and put you with a lawyer, who charges separately; and if it has none, we say that too — paying with the 50 % discount is usually smarter than appealing on principle. Nor do we pay the fine with our money, take points back off your licence, or stop a disqualification where one applies.
Questions about this service
A fine from two years ago has arrived, with a surcharge. Is that legal?
Almost always yes, and that is the problem. If the notice was published on the public board, the law treats it as served. What can be looked at is whether the procedure has a defect, and that is a lawyer's work. We tell you whether it is worth looking.
I live abroad. Can they seize anything in Spain?
Yes: traffic debt is collected through enforcement, and in Spain you have a house and probably an account. That is exactly why an ignored fine is worse than an expensive one.
What is the Dirección Electrónica Vial?
It is an official, free electronic mailbox at the DGT where traffic notices are delivered. Registering is free; what we charge for is registering it properly and above all watching it, because a mailbox nobody opens is worth nothing.
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This page was last checked on 4 September 2026
Responsible for this content Sullivan Benedetto · Torrevieja (Alicante), España
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