Do I need ITV if my car is not driven on the road?
In short no and yes. Spanish law states that any car that is “registered” or “put into circulation” must have a valid ITV, so essentially, yes, if you follow the letter of the law, you need to have an ITV even of the car is parked in a garage, street parked, abandoned etc etc.
HOWEVER, if your car is parked at the time of the fine, you can APPEAL the fine and usually it will be annulled, depending on how the judge inteprets the law.
The fine for no ITV is €200, but if you pay early its €100. Usually most people will pay the fine and move on.
If you are stopped on your way to the ITV, you may get fined, HOWEVER, you may appeal the fine, especially of you have a valid appointment.
During 2022 and 2023, the DGT has imposed more than one million fines for not passing the ITV within the due period, for an approximate amount of two hundred million euros.
However, not all of these fines are correct since a pioneering judicial resolution issued by a Madrid court in 2021 has fully accepted the appeal filed by the lawyers of the drivers’ defense organization, AUTOMOVILISTAS EUROPEOS ASOCIADOS (AEA), and annulled the fine of €200 imposed on the owner of a vehicle parked on the street that had not passed the ITV , considering that “the illegal act to be punished is constituted by the fact of driving, not by the failure to submit the vehicle to the ITV of periodically . ”
Only vehicles that circulate without ITV can be fined.
The case, resolved favourably for the sanctioned motorist, began with a complaint made by a local police officer to the owner of a vehicle that was temporarily parked on an urban road .
Given that infractions related to the technical conditions of vehicles and mandatory insurance are excluded from municipal jurisdiction, the sanction was imposed by the Provincial Traffic Chief by rejecting the argument that the vehicle was not circulating, which is what is sanctioned. the Road Safety Law.
Failure to pass the ITV, while the vehicle is parked, NOT IN CIRCULATION, is not classified as an infraction
The justice system has fully accepted the theses of the AEA lawyers and rejects those defended to the contrary by the State Attorney’s Office, because it considers that “ the illegal act to be punished is the one provided for in article 76 o) of the LSV and is constituted by the fact of circulation, not due to failure to submit the vehicle to the ITV periodically, since no violation defines article 10.1 of the General Vehicle Regulations, which really what it does is impose the obligation of its periodic inspection, which does not mean that is describing any offending conduct.”
For this reason, the ruling annuls the fine imposed and declares that “the appeal is upheld, declaring the nullity of the administrative resolution appealed in accordance with article 47.1 a) of the LPAC for violation of the principle of criminality.”
Important judicial precedent
This judicial resolution constitutes an important legal precedent. For the president of AEA, Mario Arnaldo , “this ruling admirably reflects the doctrine of the Constitutional Court in relation to the principle of legal reserve in matters of administrative sanctioning law and remembers that no administration can use the analogy to sanction acts that are not expressly contemplated in the law. Something that, unfortunately, happens too frequently in the fines imposed by city councils and the DGT. ”
