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PADRON

What are the penalties for having a fake padrón in Spain?

Being registered at a town hall where you don't live in Spain is a punishable offence, and yet this doesn't prevent many people in the country from using an incorrect or fraudulent padrón for different means of 'cheating the system'.

Published: 15 December 2023 10:07 CET
Updated: 26 December 2023 07:48 CET
What are the penalties for having a fake padrón in Spain?
The beautiful town hall in Lorca, where you'll need to go to register and get your (real) padrón if you live in the municipality. Photo: Jacqueline Macou/Pixabay.

The padrón certificate is an essential document in Spain. It basically proves where you are living, and your town hall – or ayuntamiento – uses it to find how many people are living in the area and what their ages are. How much money your local town hall will receive from the government will depend on the number of people living in each area

If you are a foreign resident in Spain, you will need to renew your padrón registration every two or five years, but note that this is different from the padrón certificate you receive when you first register.

The certificate is only valid for three months, so if you need to show your certificate for any reason, you will need to ask for another one at your town hall if it’s older than three months.

If you have kids of school age, your children will be assigned a school district depending on where you live and where you are registered on the padrón, and it is necessary for things like for registering at your local health centre, getting a Spanish driving licence, voting in elections (if you’re eligible), applying for a local library card, and getting a pensioner’s card.

READ ALSO: Padrón: 16 things you should know about Spain’s town hall registration

Why would someone have a fake padrón?

So, you might be wondering why someone would bother having a falso padrón? Well, the answer is pretty simple: to gain a benefit or advantage.

It is not uncommon in Spain for people to register their living address as somewhere (say a cousin or friend’s house) in order to get their kids into a better school, for example.

Then there’s the fact that being empadronado in either the Canary Islands or the Balearic Islands can get you discounts of 70 percent on flights between mainland Spain and the islands.  

It is also quite common to hear of people having a padrón in another part of Spain for tax purposes as many taxes in Spain levied on a regional level, meaning there could theoretically be tax advantages of being registered as living in another region.

Furthermore, in 2022 Spanish national police investigated and arrested British citizens in the Canary Islands who allegedly forged padrón documents in order to gain residency status in Spain after Brexit.

READ ALSO: Britons investigated for using fake documents to stay in Spain after Brexit

It’s also sometimes done for administrative or legal purposes, particularly when trying to gain the residency or tax benefits that come with being in a domestic partnership, something known as pareja de hecho in Spanish. Often people will register themselves as living with someone (their fake boyfriend or girlfriend) in order to get the pareja de hecho and residency rights in Spain.

What are the penalties for having a fake padrón in Spain?

If you’re caught with a fake padrón, it will generally be considered an administrative offence rather than a criminal offence and you’ll be fined accordingly, depending on the size of the municipality where you are registered.

Doing something like this would only really become a proper criminal offence if it was done a large, organised scale (like the padrón criminal groups mentioned above) and contravening articles 390 and 392 of the Spanish penal code, which deals with things like falsifying public documents and if the person issuing the padrón (so the worker in the town hall) was also part of the scam.

READ ALSO: Can I get my padrón online in Spain?

How much is the fine for false registration?

If you are caught, you’ll be given a fine (multa in Spanish). According to Royal Decree 1690/1986, which outlines the fine structure, you’ll be fined:

€150 in municipalities with more than 500,000 inhabitants.

€90 in a municipality of 50,001 to 500,000 inhabitants.

€60 in municipalities of 20,001 to 50,000 inhabitants.

€3 in those from 5,001 to 20,000 people.

A non-specified fine of less than €3 in municipalities of less than 5,001 people.

However, where the fines really ramp up is in cases of registering in the padrón when you are living illegally in Spain, usually done in order to try and later regularise your immigration status in order to get residency.

For a more serious offence like this, the fine can be as much as €10,000.

What if I move between municipalities?

But what if you move frequently between different parts of Spain or are lucky to have different properties in different municipalities?
According to Article 63 of Royal Decree 1690/1986: “Whoever alternately lives in several municipalities must register in the one in which he or she lived for the longest time per year.”

READ ALSO: Everything you have to update when you change address in Spain

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SPANISH TRADITIONS

Everything you need to know about Mother’s Day in Spain

Here's how and when in May Mother's Day is celebrated in Spain, and why it owes its roots to religion and a Valencian poet.

Published: 3 May 2024 13:37 CEST
Everything you need to know about Mother's Day in Spain

This year, Mother’s Day (El Día de la Madre) is celebrated in Spain on Sunday May 5th. It’s always celebrated on the first Sunday of the month of May.

On this day, young children in Spain give their mothers manualidades (crafts) they’ve made at school as a token of their love.

Husbands and older sons and daughters may buy their wives/mothers a present to say thanks for all that they do as matriarchs, which usually takes the form of a detalle (smaller present than for a birthday or Christmas), and will come accompanied by a message such as te quiero, mamá (I love you, mum).

According to experiences website Aladinia, the average Spaniards spends €65 on gifts on Mother’s Day. 

Other mums may send out text messages to wish each other ¡Feliz Día de la Madre! (Happy Mother’s Day!).

As it’s always celebrated on a Sunday, many shops will be closed but you can expect plenty of restaurants to be open for lunch and perhaps dinner. 

Depending where you’re from, the first Sunday of May may or may not be when you’re used to celebrating Mother’s Day in your home country.

Around the world over 100 countries celebrate Mother’s Day (or Mothering Sunday, more on the difference below) – 77 in May, 13 in March, and 14 at other times during the year.

Some countries, like the UK, celebrate Mothering Sunday on the fourth Sunday during Lent, meaning that the date changes each year. This is because Mothering Sunday was originally a Christian holiday in some European countries.

READ ALSO: How a female teacher campaigned for Spain to have a Father’s Day

Spain, however, celebrates Mother’s Day on the first Sunday in May each year, meaning that it doesn’t have a fixed date either. But it wasn’t always like that.

The history of Mother’s Day in Spain

The first Mother’s Day in Spain was celebrated in Madrid all the way back on October 4th, 1926. Much of the impetus for establishing a day to celebrate mothers came, rather fittingly, from a poet.

Julio Menéndez García, a Valencian poet and public servant, pushed for a special day to celebrate mothers. Spanish newspaper La Libertad published a short section on Garcìa’s efforts in October 1925:

“A Levantine poet, Julio Menéndez García, has had the happy initiative that in Spain and in the Spanish-speaking nations a day should be consecrated to extol the love of mothers. The establishment of Mother’s Day is something tender and sympathetic, which deserves to be welcomed by governments, the press and public opinion, as it involves the highest tribute to women in their most august representation.”

After the Civil War, the church moved the date to December 8th to coincide with the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, a key holiday among Catholics. 

Civil War-era poster urging Madrid mothers to leave the Spanish capital with their children before the arrival of Franco’s troops. (Photo by AFP)

But it wasn’t until 1965 that Mother’s Day was celebrated in May in Spain. The reason for this change of date was to separate the celebrations (both were considered important enough to have their own day) but also the influence of other countries, namely the United States.

The campaign for a Mother’s Day was originally started by Anna Jarvis, an American wanting to honour her mother, in 1908. By 1914, US President Woodrow Wilson officially signed it into law, establishing a May date. 

However, for many years in Spain department store El Corte Inglés maintained the date of 8th December, meaning that Spain Mother’s Day was celebrated twice a year for a while, commercially speaking at least.

In 1936 a local council in Breña Baja, on the Canary island of La Palma, became the first in Spain to move Mother’s Day to May.

However, in 1965 the church authorities officially decided to move Mother’s Day to May, a month consecrated to the Virgin Mary. May is also the month of female gods in the classical world, and in Catholicism is dedicated to the Virgin Mary.

Interestingly, Jarvis herself later campaigned against the day, arguing it had become overly commercialised, something Spaniards often bemoan about other imported American customs like Halloween and Valentine’s Day. 

READ ALSO: How a female teacher campaigned for Spain to have a Father’s Day

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