An ITV is the equivalent to an MOT in England and is required by Law, ITV stands for “Inspeccion Tecnica de Vehicles”.  A number of checks are carried out on your vehicle to check that it is safe to drive and road worthy.  Once your car is 4 years old, you will need an ITV done every two years.  Once it is over 10 years old an ITV will be needed annually.   For Motorcycles over 5 years old, an ITV is needed every 2 years and for a caravans over 6 years old, an ITV is needed every two years.

There are more than 50 ITV Inspection Service Centers around Andalucia alone, so there must be many hundreds throughout Spain. You can just go straight there, no need for an appointment.  They are normally based on a Poligono (Industrial Estate). To find an ITV point in your area click here.  If you do not have time to do this yourself, you can take your car to a garage where they will do it for you, but you will obviously be charged extra for this service.

We took our car to ITV Inspection in Estepona which is near Marbella where we live.    We handed in all our car documentation at the office in the center and paid 35.54 euros.  They only accept cash.  We were then given some paperwork to pass onto the ITV Mechanics who were waiting in the building next door. Then we drove our car as directed, through several different checks.

The first check was for the indicators, wipers, lights, hazards, seat belts etc.  The second check was for the wheel alignment, third point was for brakes and hand brake, and the fourth point was for omissions, oil etc.  We were then be told to park our car and come back to collect our paperwork.  As we had passed our ITV, we were given an ITV Certificate and also an ITV sticker which must be placed in the windscreen of your car.  If you do not put this sticker in your window and you are stopped by the police you may be fined between 90 and 150 euros, and will be given 10 days to produce proof of passing the ITV.

If for any reason your car fails an ITV then you will be given 2 months to make any repairs needed and return to the ITV Centre.  If you make the necessary repairs and return to the ITV Centre within 15 days you may receive a 70% discount on the second ITV fee.

It is important that you do return to the ITV Centre if you fail, otherwise the ITV Centre will send a copy of your paperwork which they retained, to the Department of Traffic and inform them that this car is on the road without an ITV.

When we arrived at the ITV Centre there was no queue and all in all the whole procedure took about 15 mins.  As with many official procedures in Spain, we usually dread doing these kind of chores, however, it was very organized, quick and efficient.  The people were quite friendly and when we were stuck with some of the vocabulary, they helped us out either speaking very slowly or in English with no problem.

Useful Vocabulary

• Headlights – Los Faros
• Las Luces Traseras- Back Lights
• Las Luces de los Frenos – Break lights
• Izquerda – Left
• Derecha – Right
• El Freno de Mano – Hand Brake
• El Volante – Steering Wheel
• Las Escobillas –Windscreen Wipers