The envelope from the DGT (or the city council) arrives at your rent a car office. A fine. Speed camera, blue zone, bus lane, whatever it is. The car is yours, but on the date of the offence a customer was driving it. What do you do?
Many people aren't clear on this, and that's where the problem lies: if you don't identify the driver correctly and within the deadline, the law treats you as the person responsible. And you don't just pay the original fine: you pay a penalty for failing to identify the driver that can be double or triple the base offence.
Let's look at exactly what the law says, the mistake that ruins careless rent a car businesses, and how to have the statement of defence ready in two minutes with car-rent.es.
What the law requires of you, exactly
Article 11 of the Traffic Law (RDL 6/2015) requires the vehicle's owner to identify the driver responsible for an offence when the authorities ask for it. If you are a rental company, this is not optional: it is a legal obligation.
And the key is what happens if you don't: if the owner, duly required, fails to truthfully identify the driver, they commit a separate very serious offence (article 77.j), punished with a fine of double the original if it was minor, or triple if it was serious or very serious (article 80.2.b).
In other words: a €90 parking fine that you don't identify in time can become a €180 penalty that you pay, even if you were nowhere near the car.
The mistake careless rent a car businesses end up paying for
The typical failure isn't refusing to identify the driver. It's being late or getting it wrong:
- The envelope gets lost among the office mail.
- By the time someone opens it, only three days are left before the deadline.
- You have to dig through your records to find which contract that car was on on that specific day.
- Then you copy the driver's details by hand: name, ID number, address, driving licence number and date.
- And you have to draft the driver identification letter (the "pliego de descargo") to send it in.
When you're in a rush, mistakes happen: an ID number copied wrongly, an incomplete address, and the identification is deemed untruthful. The result: you still get the fine for failing to identify the driver.
What happens if the rent a car company doesn't identify the driver
This is the question we hear most often, so let's go point by point through what the law says (RDL 6/2015):
- What you must provide. The details of the person who was driving, including their driving licence number (article 11.1.a).
- Foreign tourists. If the driver is not in the DGT's Register of Drivers and Offenders, the vehicle owner must hold a copy of their licence to drive in Spain and hand it over if requested. A rent a car company can hand over a copy of the rental contract instead (article 11.1.a). That is why it is so important for the contract to record the licence details correctly.
- The deadline. Twenty calendar days from receiving the notification, when the vehicle was not stopped at the time (article 93.1). If the notification reached you through the Dirección Electrónica Vial (DEV), the identification is made electronically.
- If you don't identify the driver, or do it incorrectly. This is a very serious infraction (article 77.j), with a fine of double the original if that was minor, and triple if it was serious or very serious (article 80.2.b). And that fine falls on the company, not on the customer.
Why do you have to identify the driver as well as pay the fine?
Because they are two different things. The infraction (the speed camera, the blue zone) belongs to whoever was driving: the fine is theirs and, where the infraction carries them, so is the loss of points. Identifying them is an obligation of the vehicle owner, which carries its own penalty if it isn't met (the one in article 77.j).
Paying the fine is not identifying the driver: if the company pays and doesn't say who was driving, the obligation to identify is still unfulfilled.
Identification or pliego de descargo?
In practice they're used interchangeably, but they are not the same thing:
- The identification means stating who was driving. You do it with the form that comes with the notification, on the DGT's electronic office or, if you were notified through the DEV, electronically. If the fine is municipal, you do it with the town council that issued it.
- The pliego de descargo is the written statement with which you respond to the penalty notice. A rent a car company uses it to state, in writing and with full details, who had the car that day, and attaches a copy of the contract.
What matters, whatever you call it, is the same: correct driver details, including their licence, within the twenty days.
How car-rent.es solves it
We've added a fine management module designed for exactly this workflow:
- When a fine arrives, you register it: date and time of the infraction, licence plate, issuing authority, amount and reason.
- The system automatically finds which contract that vehicle was on at that date and time. You don't have to dig through anything: it links it for you.
- With the contract linked, you already have the driver identified with all their details verified (the ones you recorded when making the rental).
- You click "Generate pliego de descargo" and the driver identification letter is produced, ready to print or send, with the details of the owner, the driver, the vehicle and the infraction.
What used to be 20 minutes of digging and drafting, with the risk of errors, is now two minutes with correct data guaranteed.
Also: the police list of occupied vehicles
There's another side to this. Sometimes it isn't a fine: it's the police or the Guardia Civil calling you to ask who had a particular vehicle on a given date, or requesting the list of cars you had rented out on a certain day (investigations, checks, court orders).
That's what the Police List is for: you choose a date and the system pulls up all the vehicles on rent that day, with their contract, driver and details. Printable instantly. You can filter by make, model or colour when the request concerns a car with specific characteristics ("a white passenger car of make X").
It's the difference between answering the authorities in five minutes with a professional document, or spending the afternoon cross-checking paper contracts.
Why this matters even if you only have a few cars
You don't need a huge fleet for this to happen to you. With 10 cars in high season, you'll get blue zone, speed camera and loading/unloading fines. Every one you don't identify in time is your own money. The fines module pays for itself by helping you avoid a single penalty for failing to identify the driver.
Which plan includes it?
Fine management with appeal letters (pliego de descargo) and the police report listing are available as advanced features of the product. You can see them in detail on the fines and police listing page, and try them with your own data during the 14-day trial.
This article is for information purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. If you receive a specific fine, always check the deadlines and requirements stated in the notice you received.