DGT Fines in Spain: Amounts, the 50% Discount and How to Appeal (2026)

A DGT fine arrives with a decision already embedded in it: pay half within twenty days and end the matter, or keep your right to fight and risk the full amount. Everything else, the amounts, the appeal ladder and the expiry clocks, hangs off that first fork. This page sets out the real numbers from the statute and the procedure step by step.

Information last verified on 23 July 2026. This page provides general legal information about Spanish law and does not constitute legal advice in an individual case.

The amounts: three bands plus the exceptions

Art. 80.1 TRLTSV sets the base scale: leves up to 100 €, graves 200 €, muy graves 500 €. Speeding is the big exception: the same article routes speed fines to Anexo IV's own table, banded by how far over the limit you were, so a modest excess costs far less than the muy-grave flat figure and a huge one costs more.

On top of the bands sit special amounts (art. 80.2). Drug driving and refusing the test carry a flat 1.000 €; for alcohol, the 1.000 € figure applies only to a driver already sanctioned for alcohol in the previous year or one caught above double the permitted rate, while a first-time excess below that takes the base 500 €. Driving with a radar jammer installed costs 6.000 €, and 3.000 € a 20.000 € covers a short list of offences that are mostly not ordinary driving at all: unauthorised roadworks, tampering with signage, installing jammers, and a cluster of centre and operator compliance offences. Fines can also be raised up to 30 percent for severity or repetition (art. 81).

Point deductions are a separate, parallel consequence of specific offences, on top of the money.

The fork: pronto pago at 50 percent

From notification of the denuncia you have 20 días naturales to pay voluntarily with a 50 percent reduction (art. 93). Read what the trade actually is before celebrating (art. 94):

• Any alegaciones you filed are treated as not presented: paying is renouncing the administrative fight.
• The sanction becomes firme the day you pay, and the procedure ends without a formal resolution.
• The only door left open is the contencioso-administrativo court, within two months from the day after payment, a route that needs lawyers and rarely makes sense for 100 €.
• One silver lining written into the statute: a grave fine paid early does not count as an antecedent in the DGT's registry, provided it carried no point loss.

A short statutory list is excluded from the discount entirely (art. 93.2): the jammer offences, falsifying the identification of the driver, and the roadworks and signage-tampering group. Speeding, alcohol, phone and seatbelt fines all keep the discount.

DGT's own guidance adds the operational tail: after the voluntary phase, the ordinary period gives 45 days to pay the full amount, and an unpaid fine is passed to the tax agency for collection with a 20 percent surcharge.

The fight: alegaciones, reposición, contencioso

If you do not pay, the ordinary procedure runs (arts. 95 y 96). You have 20 días naturales to file alegaciones, free and without a lawyer, pointing at whatever is wrong: the facts, the identification, the notification, the signage, the margin of the measuring device. If you file nothing, the denuncia itself becomes the resolution for most cases, executable after 30 days.

Against the sanctioning resolution, the ladder has two rungs:

1. Recurso de reposición, optional, within one month, before the same body. It does not suspend enforcement, and administrative silence for a month means rejected.
2. Recurso contencioso-administrativo, before the courts, within two months from an express rejection (art. 46 LJCA); where the reposición is rejected only by silence, the more generous deadline rules for presumed acts apply, but acting within two months is always safe.

Realistically, the administrative alegaciones phase is where fines die: identification defects, late notifications and prescription kill more multas than courtroom drama ever does.

The clocks that kill fines

Art. 112 TRLTSV gives every file an expiry problem. The infraction prescribes in 3 months (leves) or 6 months (graves y muy graves) counted from the facts, so a first notification arriving later than that is attackable.

A procedure that starts but reaches no resolution within one year caduca. A firm fine that nobody collects prescribes in four years. And the annotation in the DGT's registry clears three years after compliance (art. 113.4).

Keep the systems apart: these DGT annotations are administrative history, not a criminal record. Only conduct that crosses into the Código Penal, like extreme alcohol levels or reckless driving, creates antecedentes penales, with their own, longer cancellation clocks.

This page is general legal information about Spanish law and does not constitute legal advice in an individual case. The controlling texts are the current versions in the BOE and the DGT's official pages.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much is a speeding fine in Spain?

Speeding is not priced at the flat band figures: art. 80.1 TRLTSV routes speed fines to their own table in Anexo IV, banded by how far over the limit you were, with point deductions attached to the higher bands. Other infractions follow the base scale: up to 100 € leves, 200 € graves, 500 € muy graves.

Should I pay a DGT fine early for the 50% discount?

The 20-day pronto pago halves the fine, but it is a trade: you renounce alegaciones, the sanction becomes final on payment, and only the contentious-administrative court route remains. If the fine looks defective (wrong driver, late notification, bad signage), the discount is the price of surrendering exactly those arguments. If the fine is simply correct, paying early is usually the rational choice.

How do I appeal a traffic fine in Spain?

Within 20 días naturales of notification, file free alegaciones. Against the later resolution, you can file an optional recurso de reposición within one month (silence for a month means rejected), and after that the recurso contencioso-administrativo before the courts within two months. Paying with the 50% discount closes the administrative routes entirely.

What happens if I do not pay a traffic fine in Spain?

After the voluntary phase, the ordinary period gives 45 days to pay the full amount, per the DGT, and an unpaid fine is referred to the tax agency for enforced collection with a 20 percent surcharge. Separately, a firm fine that is never collected prescribes at four years (art. 112 TRLTSV).

Do all DGT fines get the 50% discount?

Almost all, including speeding, alcohol, phone and seatbelt fines. The statutory exclusions (art. 93.2 TRLTSV) are a short list of special offences: driving with or installing radar jammers, falsely identifying the responsible driver, the unauthorised-roadworks and signage-tampering group, and a few other centre and operator compliance offences.