Renewing your Spanish Driving Licence – all you need to know

As a general rule, a Spanish driving licence is valid for 10 years from the date of issue although there are some circumstances where the renewal date will be a lot earlier than that, and we’ll go into more details about those later in this article.

This page on the DGT website has full details of how to renew your driving licence.

Find out when your licence is due to expire
Line 4b on the front of your licence will give the main expiry date but if you look on the reverse, you’ll find that some categories (e.g. C1, C1E) might have only five years validity.

As well as the category of licence, your age has a bearing on how long the licence will be valid for:

Categories AM, A1, A2 A + B
To age 65 – renew every 10 years
65 and older – renew every 5 years

Categories C, C1, D, D1 EC EC1
To age 65 – renew every 5 years
65 and older – renew every 3 years

Sometimes, the DGT (Dirección General de Tráfico) will send out a reminder letter but rather than relying on this, it’s best to start the renewal process yourself 3 months prior to the expiry date.

What documents do you need to renew your Spanish driving licence?
This information leaflet in PDF can be downloaded from the DGT website and these are the documents you’ll need:

• Valid passport
• Residency document
• Padron Certificate if your address has changed
• Solicitud (application form)
• Medical
• New photos (32x26mm, plain background etc)
• Fee paid with receipt (max €24.34, range of costs depending on age etc)

How to get a Medical – Informe de Aptitud Psicofisica
You need to arrange a ‘medical for driving licence renewal’ at your most convenient ‘Centro de Reconocimiento de Conductores’ – registered driving licence medical assessment centre.

This is a link to the page on the DGT website where you can search a map with all the available Centres. The Medical has to be dated within 90 days of the submission of the request to renew your licence.

Where you can submit your application to renew your licence:

1. Tráfico – make an appointment online, take all the documents and pay the fee at the appointment by card (cash not allowed).
2. At the Medical Assessment Centre –  you can do the full application to renew the licence at the Medical Assessment Centre. They will do the medical, take payment for the fee, send the documents off to Tráfico and give you a receipt as a temporary licence to dive while you wait for your new licence.
3. Use an authorised representative – your gestor can do this for you, just handover the documents, medical etc and wait for your licence to drop through your letterbox.

Good to know
If you have changed address, you can update this on the renewal, just take an up to date padron certificate with you as well.

There’s an app for that!
The DGT are one of the more digitally savvy of the Spanish governmental departments and their free app, MiDGT, is a great way of keeping track of everything to do with your vehicle and driving in Spain. 

The MiDGT app is more than just your digital driving licence (the app version has the same validity as the physical document). As well as your driving licence details, the app will tell you when your ITV or driving licence is about to expire, store the technical data (e.g. ficha tecnica, environmental badge etc) plus insurance details. You can check if you’ve had a fine (multa), update your address details, check if a vehicle you’re thinking of buying has all the paperwork in order and pay some charges too.
You’ll need a digital certificate or Cl@ve to get full functionality – if you haven’t already done so, it’s well worth getting your Digital Certificate as it helps enormously with many administrative tasks in Spain.