Do I need an energy certificate to sell a property in Spain?
Yes. Every home offered for sale needs a registered certificate, and the rating must appear in the advert. The duty falls on whoever publishes it: RD 390/2021 names estate agencies and property portals explicitly, not only the owner.
Who answers for a missing rating
Whoever publishes the advert. Art. 17.3 of RD 390/2021 is not addressed to the owner but to anyone who publishes or allows publication, and it names estate agencies and property portals in the text itself.
Toda persona física o jurídica que publique o permita la publicación de información sobre la venta o alquiler de un edificio o unidad del mismo, ya sea en agencias inmobiliarias, vallas publicitarias, páginas web, portales inmobiliarios, catálogos, prensa o similares, estará obligada a incluir la información relativa a su calificación de eficiencia energética. RD 390/2021, art. 17.3
"I didn't know" is not a defence
RDLeg 7/2015 DA 12ª.6 makes the obliged parties liable "aún a título de simple inobservancia" - simple failure to observe, with no need to show intent or benefit. That is the practical reason this is an agency problem rather than a seller's. You publish the advert.
What if the property has been sold before?
It makes no difference how many times it has changed hands. The certificate attaches to the dwelling, not to the transaction, and what the rule requires is that a registered, in-force one exists when the property is marketed. On a second or later sale a copy of the registered certificate is also annexed to the sale contract, together with the label (art. 17.2).
What the advert has to show
The rating. Worth knowing there are two of them, not one: primary non-renewable energy consumption in kWh/m² year, and CO₂e emissions in kgCO₂e/m² year, each with its own A-G letter. An advert showing a single letter is giving half the answer.
Only print advertising may reduce it to a bare letter without the figures. On a portal, or in the window, the label appears with its scales and its values.
The expensive mistake, and it is a common one
Publishing a letter that no registered, in-force certificate backs is a very serious infringement (RDLeg 7/2015, DA 12ª.3.d) - a worse position than showing no rating at all. The typical case is not bad faith: it is the advert reading "certificate pending, class B" because somebody estimated the letter while the paperwork was in progress.
"Pending" is not a rating. Until the certificate is registered there is no letter to publish.
How to check a whole book at once
By cadastral reference, against the regional registers we mirror. Paste your list - your own reference beside each cadastral reference - and you get one dated file back, a column per fact, ready to load into a CRM or a feed.
As of September 2026 we mirror the energy registers of Andalusia, Castilla y León and the Valencian Community: the Costa del Sol and Costa Blanca are in; Madrid, Catalonia, Murcia, the Balearics and the Canaries are not. For those we will tell you it is not in the registers we read, with the date - which is not the same as saying no certificate exists.
What we do not decide
We record and date; we never certify. A rating column is filled only where a certificate is registered against that exact dwelling and is still in force. A certificate covering the whole building, an expired one, or two records that disagree go into a note for a person to read - never offered as the flat's rating. That file gets copied into adverts, and publishing a letter nothing backs is precisely the infringement to avoid.
Check a licence number
Free, no sign-up, nothing stored. Try VUT/MA/102186.
Sources
- Real Decreto 390/2021, energy performance certification of buildings (consolidated) — art. 17.3 (advertising), 17.2 (the contract), 13.1 (validity)
- Real Decreto Legislativo 7/2015, Ley de Suelo y Rehabilitación Urbana, DA 12ª — 3.d very serious infringement, 5.f minor, 6 liability for simple failure to observe
Verified against the sources above on 2026-09-20. LicenceDesk is operational guidance, not legal advice.
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