The new Regulation merges your boat's documents into a single Registration and Navigation Certificate, valid for 5 years, with a simplified regime for boats up to 8 metres. Here's the essentials.

Spain's Ministry of Transport and Sustainable Mobility has drawn up a new Regulation that will completely overhaul the flagging and registration of ships and boats in the Spanish maritime registries. It replaces rules in force since 1989 and 2010, and brings changes that directly affect recreational boat owners in Lanzarote. Here's the essentials.

A new document: the Registration and Navigation Certificate

Until now, recreational boats had several different documents (Navigation Patent, Seaworthiness Certificate, Navigation Permit...). The new Regulation merges them into a single Registration and Navigation Certificate, which will bring together:

The registration data and the right to fly the Spanish flag.
The main technical characteristics.
The identity of the registered owner.
The applicable inspection regime.

This certificate will be valid for a maximum of 5 years, and its renewal must be requested within the three months before it expires. If the boat does not pass the mandatory inspections, the certificate is automatically suspended.

Transition from the current documents

If your boat already has a Navigation Patent or a Spanish Registration Certificate - Navigation Permit, you don't need to do anything right away: the switch to the new certificate will happen at your next renewal (or sooner, if you carry out any procedure involving a registry entry). That said, five years after the Regulation comes into force, the old documents will lose validity for good, so it pays to get ahead.

Simplified regime for small boats

One of the most practical changes: recreational boats of up to 8 metres in length, registered in List Seven (non-commercial) and CE-marked, may be registered through a simplified procedure, based on:

Electronic submission of the documentation.
A responsible declaration by the owner.

This will also apply to changes of ownership, changes of name and the move from List Six to List Seven for boats meeting these requirements. That said: the Administration may audit these files at any time, and if it finds essential inaccuracies it can review or cancel the registration.

Automatic coordination with the Registry of Movable Assets

The Regulation strengthens electronic communication between the maritime registry and the Registry of Movable Assets: charges, mortgages and changes of ownership will be communicated automatically between the two registries, reducing the need to provide the same documentation twice. Until the necessary IT tools are available, these procedures will still be done at the party's request (with the corresponding fee).

Inactivity and removal ex officio

Another relevant change: if a boat's Registration and Navigation Certificate is not renewed for 10 years, it will be declared inactive. After a further 2 years without regularising it, the Administration may start the deregistration procedure ex officio. This is worth keeping in mind if you have a boat you use little or haven't reviewed documentally in a while.

Jet skis: always CE-marked

The new Regulation is emphatic on this point: jet skis without CE marking may not be registered in any Spanish maritime registry, without the exceptions that do exist for other older recreational boats.

Do you own a recreational boat and aren't sure whether this change affects you? At Rumbo we review your current registration status and tell you exactly what you need to do before your current documents expire.

Boat flagging: what changes under the new Regulation