Spanish Passport control/Entering Spain with a debt

la531983

Couple of things...

a) you wouldnt have the same passport now as you did in 2011 anyway
b) this happened 13 years ago.

I would suggest nobody on here can give you an answer, opinions are clearly nothing will happen but thats up to you to find out.

As an aside, I have never heard of people being stopped at the UK border regarding a debt racked up in the UK over ten years ago (happy to be proven wrong here with a link), so dont see why the same would happen in Spain.

jimi_man

Hi

As has been said, unless someone works for Spanish Border control, then no-one is really going to know. 

But if it was reversed then UK Border control is not going to know in a similar situation. The only thing they look for is NHS debts and a few serious offences - non payment of a traffic fine is never going to register. 

The passport is immaterial by the way, the name and dob is enough to flag it up - passports change all the time. 

My personal opinion (having a fair amount of knowledge around Border Control) is that it's extremely unlikely to be an issue. 

eDicky

In the early 90s, perhaps even before, the Dutch government IT systems were joined-up sufficiently that anyone departing from Schiphol airport with an outstanding traffic or parking penalty would have to pay it before being allowed to take their flight.

The Dutch were always leading the field in that kind of thing, being 30+ years ago I'm sure the Spanish authorities would be capable of such a thing by now. However I can't venture any meaningful answer to the OP's basic question - perhaps there's a forum for expats in Spain with concrete experience available.

Hinders21

deaneo4 said:

I have just discovered that I have accrued a Spanish Traffico car road tax debt (equivalent to that of the UK DVLA road tax) 
Although I followed the procedure and de-registered the car as soon as I got back in to the UK in 2011 and have all of the documentation to prove I carried this out. However, what I really need to know is would I get stopped at Spanish Passport control if I choose to go back to Spain for a visit ?

Hi Deano
we are in exact same predicament, we left Spain in 2020 and did same as you. 

We’ve tried to pay over phone to local authority but can only pay in person. 

We were thinking of a holiday in Spain but worried about airport as in would it trigger 

sheramber

pregnant woman jailed in Spain over unpaid fine

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-63430280#:~:text=A pregnant woman who faced,altercation in Malaga in 2021.

NoodleDoodleMan

That's a bit more serious than not paying a road tax debt.

heatherw_01

We don't know.
Only border control or the Spanish government department would know.
We would just be guessing, especially as it is a UK forum so most of us won't have any idea about this.