Every few months a client raises this near the end of a first call, slightly awkwardly, as though it were an odd thing to ask a lawyer. It is not odd. Roughly a third of American households own a firearm, and a retirement move is not an ideological event — it is a logistics problem with a locked cabinet in the middle of it. What is odd is how little accurate information exists in English, and how much of what does exist is either forum folklore or a sales page.
So here is the position, plainly. Spanish firearms law is not hostile to foreigners. It is hostile to non-residents, indifferent to foreign permits, and unusually severe about a short list of items Americans do not think of as weapons at all. The single most useful thing on this page is the order of operations, because getting it backwards is what turns a paperwork question into a criminal one.
On this page
The short answer Rule one: the licence follows the residence card Why your guns cannot travel with your furniture Which licence you could actually hold The self-defence question, answered properly What the application actually involves The things Americans pack without thinking If the real plan is hunting Why this is an immigration page What is changing Options at a glance Frequently asked questions
“The clients who get into trouble here are never the ones who asked. They are the ones who assumed that because a thing is legal at home and small enough to fit in a suitcase, it is a customs question. In Spain a weapon is never a customs question. It is a licensing question first, and if the licence is missing it becomes a criminal one — and for a foreign resident, an immigration one after that.”
— Lola Jurado · Registered lawyer, Ilustre Colegio de Abogados de Málaga · colegiada nº 10907
The short answer
Sell, gift or lawfully store your firearms in the United States before you move. Do not put them in the container, do not put them in a suitcase, and do not put a defence spray, a stun gun or a spare thirty-round magazine in either. Once you hold a Spanish residence card you may apply for a Spanish licence in your own right, sit the tests, buy from a licensed dealer here, and enjoy shooting or hunting on essentially the same footing as a Spaniard. What you cannot do is carry a handgun for personal protection, because that licence exists but is restrictive by law and is not granted for a generalised wish to be armed.
Rule one: the licence follows the residence card
Article 102 of the Weapons Regulation, approved by Royal Decree 137/1993, is the gateway provision and it is short: licences for weapons of categories 1, 2 and 3 may be issued only to Spaniards and to foreigners resident in Spain who are of legal age. Article 129 repeats the same formula for the sport-shooting licence.
Read that carefully, because it cuts both ways. It means your American citizenship is not an obstacle at all. A retiree on a non-lucrative visa who holds a TIE card satisfies the nationality-or-residence limb exactly as a Spaniard does. But it also means that a snowbird spending five months a year in Andalucía on a Schengen stay, and anybody still at the visa stage, is outside the system entirely. There is no anticipatory application, no licence held in escrow pending arrival.
There is a narrow visitor route — articles 110 and 111 provide a special authorisation for non-residents bringing up to three weapons for temporary hunting, valid three months and processed through the Spanish consulate, or up to six weapons for a sporting competition. It is designed for a hunting trip. It is not a relocation route, and using it as one is a straightforward misdeclaration.
Why your guns cannot travel with your furniture
This is the single most common misunderstanding, and it comes from a genuinely reasonable place. If you have read our page on shipping your belongings to Spain, you know that the transfer-of-residence relief under Council Regulation 1186/2009 lets a genuine mover bring used personal property in free of duty and VAT, and that the exclusion list in article 6 is short: alcohol, tobacco, commercial means of transport, and articles used in a trade or profession. Firearms are not on that list. It is therefore perfectly true, and perfectly useless, to say that a firearm is not excluded from the customs relief.
The relief answers one question only: is tax payable? It says nothing whatever about whether the goods may lawfully cross the border. That is answered elsewhere, and the answer is restrictive.
Article 65 of the Weapons Regulation subjects the import of firearms of categories 1, 2 and 3 and their essential components to an authorisation granted through the foreign-trade control channel for defence material and dual-use goods, following an administrative procedure and a favourable report from the standing interministerial commission on weapons and explosives. The obligations in that article are framed around persons and companies engaged in the business of importing. Under Law 53/2007 and Royal Decree 679/2014, imports of controlled material require prior authorisation; the exemption for individuals carrying hunting or sporting weapons covers temporary exports and re-exports, not imports.
Then there is a second barrier that catches even people who navigate the first. Article 66 provides that customs release no consignment of weapons or essential parts without the Guardia Civil present, and that foreign weapons without a recognised proof mark are sent to a Spanish official proof house; if they are not marked there, they are returned to the customs office of origin and cannot be cleared. The United States is not a party to the international proof-mark convention, so a US-market firearm bearing only its maker's markings is, by default, in that category.
The European Firearms Pass does not help either, and it is worth saying why, because it is frequently offered as a solution. Article 113 provides that the pass is issued by the Guardia Civil to residents in Spain who are already properly documented to hold the weapons in question, for a maximum of five years. It is a travel document for moving lawfully held guns between EU Member States. It is not an entry permit from a third country, and a US resident cannot obtain one. The causation runs residence → Spanish licence → registration of the weapon → then a European pass, if you ever want to shoot in Portugal.
Which licence you could actually hold
Spanish licences are lettered, and each letter is a different world. Licences A and C are for military, police and on-duty private security personnel and are irrelevant here. That leaves four, of which three are realistically available to a private foreign resident.
| Licence | What it covers | Validity | Realistic for an American resident? |
|---|---|---|---|
| B | Short firearms held by private individuals — personal defence | 5 years | Very unlikely. Granted by the central Guardia Civil directorate, restrictive by law, one weapon only |
| D | Rifled long guns for big-game hunting | 5 years | Yes. Granted provincially; covers up to five weapons, each beyond the first by separate authorisation |
| E | Shotguns and smoothbore, rimfire sporting rifles, high-power air weapons | 5 years | Yes, and the usual starting point. Limits on numbers apply |
| F | Competition weapons for members of a shooting federation | 5 years | Yes, but federation membership is a condition, and use is confined to authorised ranges |
Two structural points follow from that table. First, the licence authorises a class of weapon; each individual weapon is separately documented by a guía de pertenencia, an ownership certificate issued by the Guardia Civil weapons office that must accompany the weapon whenever it is used, deposited or transported. Licence and certificate are not alternatives; you need both.
Second, none of D, E or F permits carrying. Article 149 allows regulated weapons to be taken through public urban streets only dismantled or in their cases, and only for the journey between the place where they are habitually kept and the authorised place of use. Article 147 prohibits carrying or using a weapon without need, negligently, while wearing headphones connected to a sound device, or under the influence of alcohol or drugs. This is a range-and-field regime, not a lifestyle.
The self-defence question, answered properly
It deserves its own section, because the honest answer is neither “impossible” nor “of course”, and both are said confidently online.
Licence B exists. It is the private handgun licence and it is granted by the Director General of the Guardia Civil, not by the provincial command, which tells you something about how it is treated. The applicant files a reasoned memorandum. And the governing text says, in terms, that it may be issued only to those who need it, that its issue is restrictive in character, limited to situations of special risk and necessity, and — the decisive sentence — that the reason of defence of persons or property does not, on its own, justify granting the licence. No person may hold more than one B licence, and one licence covers one weapon. The weapon is kept at home, locked, separate from its ammunition.
In practice the holders are people with an individualised, documented threat: judges, prosecutors, certain elected officials, people who move cash or high-value goods, individuals with a specific credible danger on file. A general preference for being armed, a rural address, or a neighbourhood's burglary statistics do not meet the test.
And even a B licence is not an American carry permit. Article 146 prohibits carrying, displaying or using short firearms outside the home, the workplace or the corresponding sporting activity, and then adds that it is left to the prudent judgement of the authorities and their agents to assess whether the bearer needed to be carrying at all, especially in the case of weapons covered by a B licence. Article 148 lets officers seize a weapon temporarily — including a licensed one — and deposit it with the weapons office, to prevent an offence or safeguard persons or property.
What the application actually involves
Assume you are resident, you hold a TIE, and you want a shotgun for driven partridge or a rifle for big game. The route is bureaucratic but entirely navigable, and it is largely the same one a Spaniard walks.
- The file. Article 97 requires a current criminal-record certificate, a copy of your identity document — for a foreigner, expressly the residence authorisation card — and a psychophysical aptitude report. The application goes to the Guardia Civil weapons office for your registered address, which is one of several reasons the padrón matters more than newcomers expect.
- The aptitude report. Article 98 bars anyone whose physical or psychological condition means that holding a weapon would create a risk to themselves or others. Proof is a report from an authorised assessment centre — the same kind of centre that certifies drivers — and it is required both on grant and on renewal.
- The tests. For a first D or E licence you sit a theory paper on weapons and the Regulation itself, and then a practical handling test at an authorised range. The practical may only be taken after the theory is passed, a theory pass lapses after six months if not followed by a practical pass, and each application gives three sittings. Holders of a previous Spanish A, D, E or F licence are exempt.
- The background enquiry. The instructing office makes an enquiry into conduct and antecedents. For D and E licences it also examines whether you are genuinely dedicated to hunting or the corresponding sport, evidenced by a valid hunting licence or a federation card. This is not a formality; it is the reason the hunting licence and the weapons licence are usually pursued in parallel.
- Storage. A common online claim is that a certified gun safe is required from five or six weapons. That is wrong. The trigger is the weapon's category, not a headcount. A single big-game rifle must be kept in a safe or cabinet authorised by the Guardia Civil, to a certified resistance grade set by the December 2024 technical resolution, with ammunition stored separately or in a different locked compartment. Shotguns under an E licence require secure locked storage separated from their ammunition, but no certified safe. Where several categories share a cabinet, the highest standard applies.
- Renewal, and the age rule. Renewal requires the aptitude report again and physical production of the weapons for inspection. Licences held by people over 67 are subject to a review at three years with a fresh aptitude report — a detail worth planning around if you are moving in your sixties.
One point we cannot resolve for you in the abstract: whether a US state permit or a US hunter-education certificate is accepted as an equivalent foreign qualification. The March 2000 order recognises foreign licences obtained through procedures offering identical, equivalent or analogous guarantees to the Spanish ones, but that wording sits in the visitor-authorisation context and there is no published list of recognised foreign regimes. Treat it as a case-by-case administrative decision and assume you will sit the tests.
The things Americans pack without thinking
This is the section that actually prevents trouble, because none of these items feels like a weapon to the person packing it.
Defence sprays. Article 5 prohibits personal-defence sprays and gas-dispensing devices, except those approved by the Ministry of Health after a report from the interministerial commission, which may be sold in licensed gun shops to buyers of full age. The 1994 implementing order requires the maker or importer to be a licensed dealer, requires Spanish labelling with batch and expiry, and expressly forbids catalogue and distance selling. So: the approved product, bought in person in a Spanish gun shop, is lawful. The canister from an American pharmacy is a prohibited weapon. Percentage and volume caps quoted on retail sites are not in the order and should be ignored; the limits are set in each individual approval.
Stun guns and electric batons. Prohibited to private citizens under the same article. So are expandable and rubber batons and tonfas — the words “or extensible” were added expressly in the 2020 reform, closing the argument that a telescopic baton was not a defensa de goma.
Suppressors. Prohibited outright. There is no hunting or sport exception in Spain, which surprises Americans arriving from states where they are routine and marketed as hearing protection.
Magazines. Magazines for centre-fire semi-automatic or repeating firearms holding more than twenty rounds for short weapons or more than ten for long weapons are prohibited. This one has teeth: article 156 makes mere possession or use of a non-authorised magazine a serious infringement, punishable by a fine from about €300 to €6,010, seizure of the magazines, and withdrawal of all the person's firearms licences and acquisition authorisations. A box of thirty-round magazines packed among the reloading gear can cost you the entire licence, not just the magazines.
Ammunition. Hollow-point ammunition for pistols and revolvers is prohibited, as are armour-piercing, explosive and incendiary rounds. Purchase quotas exist and are set outside the Weapons Regulation, in the pyrotechnics and cartridge rules; the figures commonly repeated online could not be verified against the current consolidated text, and quotas can be increased by authorisation from the zone weapons office. Confirm the current figure with your local office rather than with a forum.
Blades. Double-edged pointed daggers under 11 cm, automatic knives, sword canes, knuckledusters and similar items are absolutely prohibited, and non-automatic folding knives with a blade over 11 cm may in general be held only at home as ornament or collection.
An AR-pattern rifle is a nuance, not a ban. Spain has no “looks like a military rifle” prohibition. A civilian semi-automatic centre-fire rifle is simply a rifled long gun requiring a D licence, or an F licence for competition. What is prohibited is a converted fully automatic weapon, a configuration exceeding eleven rounds including the chamber for a long gun, a long gun reducible below 60 cm by a folding, telescopic or removable stock, and, again, the magazines. The 2020 reform deleted the old five-round cap and replaced it with these thresholds. Whether that remains the position after the reform now in consultation is a separate question — see below.
Body armour sits in a genuine gap. It is not listed as a regulated or prohibited weapon, and we have not found a Spanish provision that either permits or conditions private ownership. It is not something to assume about; if it matters to you, ask the central weapons office directly before shipping.
If the real plan is hunting
For most of the clients who raise this, the underlying question is not self-defence at all. It is whether they can shoot driven partridge in Castilla or stalk in the Sierra. The answer is yes, and enthusiastically, but there are three separate documents rather than one.
Hunting is a competence of the autonomous communities, so there is no national hunting licence. Each region issues its own, valid in its territory, for one to five years, with fees typically in the tens of euros and, in several regions, exemptions or indefinite validity for over-65s. Ten regions have signed an inter-regional licence valid across all of them at a single harmonised price, which is the sensible option if you intend to travel to shoot; note that it is issued against a NIE, not a passport, which is one more reason the residence card comes first.
A first licence in a region normally requires the regional hunter's examination, theory and practical, regulated by regional decree and organised through the regional hunting federation. Exemptions turn mainly on having held a licence before a regional cut-off date, or on reciprocal recognition. Some regions provide that foreigners from countries with no equivalent requirement may hunt only when accompanied by someone who has passed the examination — whether a US state hunter-education card is treated as equivalent is decided case by case, and we have found no published criteria.
Third-party liability insurance is compulsory and it is a condition of the licence itself: the 1970 Hunting Act and Royal Decree 63/1994 provide that no hunting licence may be obtained without evidence of the contract. The statutory minimum cover is €90,151.82 per victim — a straight conversion of a 1994 peseta figure that has never been uprated, and covers bodily injury only. Crop damage, damage to third parties' animals and property damage generally are outside the compulsory layer. Buy the top-up cover; the compulsory figure was designed for a different decade.
Why this is an immigration page
Everything above could sit on a shooting-sports website. It sits here because for a foreign resident the consequences are not confined to the firearm.
Start with the criminal layer. Article 564 of the Criminal Code punishes possession of a regulated firearm without the necessary licence with one to two years for a short firearm and six months to one year for a long firearm, aggravated to two to three and one to two years respectively where the weapon lacks factory marks or serial number, where those have been altered, or where it has been introduced illegally into Spanish territory. Article 563 punishes possession of prohibited weapons with one to three years. And article 567 defines a depósito de armas — a weapons cache, with penalties from two to four years for those who assemble it — as the gathering of five or more regulated firearms, even dismantled. A collection that is entirely ordinary in the United States can meet that definition here without a licence to cover it.
Now the immigration layer. Article 57.2 of the Immigration Act makes it a cause of expulsion, following the appropriate proceedings, that a foreigner has been convicted, inside or outside Spain, of an intentional offence which in Spain constitutes an offence punishable by a custodial penalty of more than one year, unless the criminal record has been cancelled. Two features matter. The threshold is the penalty in the abstract for the equivalent Spanish offence, not the sentence actually imposed, so a suspended sentence does not take a case outside it. And it expressly reaches foreign convictions. Every firearms offence listed in the previous paragraph clears one year in the abstract.
Then the renewal layer. Article 31.5 of the Act requires an applicant for temporary residence to have no criminal record in Spain or in previous countries of residence for offences existing under Spanish law, and article 31.7 makes criminal records a matter to be weighed on renewal. Under the current Immigration Regulation, Royal Decree 1155/2024, the initial file is assessed with a police report and the regulation expressly provides that the existence of antecedents in that report is not automatically a ground for refusal — but the flip side is that it must then be assessed case by case, which is exactly the situation nobody wants to be in three weeks before a card expires. Our page on criminal records and the non-lucrative visa covers that assessment in detail, and the FBI identity history summary you already filed is the document that puts your American history in front of a Spanish official in the first place.
Add the administrative layer on top: the public security act classes carrying, displaying or using prohibited weapons, or using weapons negligently or outside authorised places even with a licence, as a serious infringement, with fines from €601 to €30,000, and accessory sanctions that include withdrawal of the weapons and of the licences and suspension of authorisations. Four separate systems, all reaching the same conduct, and only one of them is about the gun.
What is changing
Royal Decree 137/1993, as amended — principally by Royal Decree 726/2020, which transposed the 2017 EU firearms directive — is the instrument in force as this page is written, and its consolidated text was last revised in 2025 on technical annexes rather than the licensing regime. No reform has been approved.
But one is being prepared. In February 2026 the Ministry of the Interior opened a preliminary public consultation on a draft decree amending the Weapons Regulation, prompted by a European Commission objection on the marking of certain historical and small-calibre weapons. Three of the announced lines would matter to an incoming American: a compulsory prior training course for all licences permitting self-defence, hunting, sport shooting and private security use; the merger of the D and E hunting licences into one, which the consultation document itself says will require introducing a cap on the number of weapons a private individual may acquire, with acquired rights preserved for existing holders; and tighter restrictions on weapons of military and police appearance, popularly known as tactical weapons — wording that plainly has AR-pattern rifles in view, though the document does not say whether the intention is prohibition or heavier control.
Nothing there is law. A draft decree has not been published for public hearing, let alone approved. But if you are planning a purchase in Spain in the next couple of years, the sensible reading is that the direction of travel is towards more training, fewer weapons per person and more scrutiny of semi-automatic rifles, and to time decisions accordingly.
Options at a glance
| What you want to do | Possible in Spain? | What it actually requires |
|---|---|---|
| Ship your US guns over with the household goods | No | Import authorisation through the defence-trade channel, designed for traders; plus Spanish proof-house marking. No private relocation route |
| Keep a handgun at home for defence | Only exceptionally | Licence B, granted centrally, restrictive by law, one weapon, documented special risk and necessity |
| Carry concealed | No | No Spanish licence functions as a carry permit; carrying outside home, work or sport is prohibited |
| Hunt with a shotgun | Yes | Residence card → licence E (tests, aptitude report, record certificate) + regional hunting licence + compulsory insurance |
| Hunt big game with a rifle | Yes | As above, but licence D; certified safe required for the rifle |
| Shoot competitively | Yes | Licence F plus federation membership; use confined to authorised ranges |
| Bring US pepper spray | No | Prohibited unless it is a Spanish-approved product bought in person in a licensed shop |
| Bring a stun gun, baton or suppressor | No | Prohibited to private citizens outright |
| Bring spare high-capacity magazines | No | Serious infringement: fine, seizure, and withdrawal of all your firearms licences |
| Travel to shoot elsewhere in the EU | Yes, later | European Firearms Pass, issued to Spanish residents already documented for the weapons |
Frequently asked questions
Can I ship my guns to Spain with the rest of my household goods?
No. The transfer-of-residence customs relief and the authorisation to import a firearm are two different questions, and people conflate them constantly. Council Regulation 1186/2009 excludes only alcohol, tobacco, commercial means of transport and professional equipment from the relief, so a firearm is not excluded from duty relief as such. But duty relief answers whether tax is payable, not whether the goods may lawfully cross the border. Article 65 of the Weapons Regulation makes the import of firearms of categories 1, 2 and 3 subject to an authorisation granted through the foreign-trade control channel for defence and dual-use material, after an interministerial report. That regime is built around traders, and there is no private relocation route through it. A removal company will not accept firearms in a household consignment, and a container found to contain undeclared guns is not a customs argument, it is a criminal one.
Can an American get a gun licence in Spain?
Yes, once you are legally resident. Article 102 of the Weapons Regulation provides that licences for weapons of categories 1, 2 and 3 may only be issued to Spaniards and to foreigners resident in Spain who are of legal age. A non-lucrative visa holder with a TIE card meets that condition; a visitor on a 90-day Schengen stay does not. Nationality is not the barrier, residence is. Once resident you apply at the Guardia Civil weapons office for your address with a current criminal-record certificate, a copy of your residence card and a psychophysical aptitude report from an authorised assessment centre, and for a first hunting or shotgun licence you sit a written and a practical test.
Can I carry a handgun for self-defence in Spain?
In practice, no. The handgun licence for private individuals, licence B, is granted by the central Guardia Civil directorate and its own governing text says the licence is restrictive in character, limited to cases of special risk and need, and that the reason of defence of persons or property does not on its own justify granting it. No person may hold more than one B licence and each licence covers one weapon only. In the ordinary case it is issued to people with a documented, individualised threat. Separately, article 146 prohibits carrying, displaying or using short firearms outside the home, the workplace or the corresponding sporting activity, and leaves it to the officer in front of you to assess whether you needed to be carrying at all. An American retiree who simply prefers to be armed does not meet the statutory test.
Is pepper spray legal in Spain?
Only the Spanish-approved kind, and only bought in Spain. Article 5 of the Weapons Regulation prohibits personal-defence sprays and gas-dispensing devices, with an exception for sprays approved by the Ministry of Health after a report from the interministerial weapons and explosives commission, which may then be sold in licensed gun shops to buyers who show they are of full age. The 1994 implementing order requires the manufacturer or importer to be a licensed dealer, requires Spanish labelling with batch and expiry, and expressly prohibits distance selling, so a canister ordered online is outside the approved channel by definition. The practical rule: a canister you bought in the United States and packed is a prohibited weapon in Spain. Buy the approved product here, in person, or carry nothing.
What happens to my Spanish residence if I get a weapons conviction?
It becomes an immigration problem, which is why this page sits on an immigration website. Possession of a regulated firearm without the necessary licence carries one to two years for a short firearm and six months to one year for a long firearm under article 564 of the Criminal Code, aggravated where the weapon was illegally introduced into Spanish territory. Possession of a prohibited weapon carries one to three years under article 563. Article 57.2 of the Immigration Act makes it a cause of expulsion that a foreigner has been convicted, in Spain or abroad, of an intentional offence which in Spain carries a custodial penalty of more than one year in the abstract, unless the criminal record has been cancelled. Those firearms offences clear that threshold on their abstract penalty, whatever sentence is actually imposed. On top of that, a serious administrative infringement can carry withdrawal of every licence you hold, and your renewal file will be assessed with the conviction in it.
What should I do with my guns before I leave the United States?
Deal with them deliberately, and early, rather than at the end. The realistic options are selling through a licensed dealer, transferring lawfully to a family member in accordance with your state's rules, or arranging long-term storage with an entity permitted to hold them, and each of those takes longer than people expect once you are also selling a house. What you should not do is leave them in a friend's garage with a vague understanding, because the arrangement will still exist in five years when someone needs to prove who owns what. If you intend to shoot in Spain, treat the two questions as unconnected: dispose of the American collection properly, and build a Spanish one later, from a Spanish dealer, under a Spanish licence.
Useful next reads
If you are still assembling the move: shipping your belongings and the transfer-of-residence relief, importing your US car, and what the non-lucrative visa file must contain. If the record question is the live one: criminal records, DUIs and the visa and the FBI background check and its apostille. If you have already arrived: the first ninety days checklist, empadronamiento and renewing the non-lucrative visa.
Law as at August 2026. Sources reviewed: the Weapons Regulation approved by Royal Decree 137/1993 of 29 January, as amended, in particular articles 3 to 6 on categories and prohibited weapons, articles 65 and 66 on import and proof marking, articles 96 to 104 on licences and their conditions, article 97 on documentation and article 98 on physical and psychological aptitude, articles 110 to 113 on special authorisations for non-residents and the European firearms pass, articles 129 and following on the sport-shooting licence, articles 144 to 149 on custody, carrying and transport, and article 156 on infringements; Royal Decree 726/2020 of 4 August transposing Directive (EU) 2017/853; the Orders of 18 March 1998 and 7 March 2000 on capability tests for weapons licences; Order of 3 October 1994 on the approval of personal-defence sprays; the Resolution of the Directorate-General of the Guardia Civil of 4 December 2024 on security measures for the custody of weapons; Council Regulation (EC) No 1186/2009 on reliefs from customs duty, articles 3 to 11; Law 53/2007 of 28 December and Royal Decree 679/2014 on the control of external trade in defence material; the Hunting Act 1/1970 and Royal Decree 63/1994 on compulsory hunting liability insurance; Organic Law 4/2015 of 30 March on the protection of public security, articles 35 to 39; the Criminal Code, articles 563 to 570; Organic Law 4/2000 on the rights and freedoms of foreigners, articles 31 and 57; Royal Decree 1155/2024 of 19 November approving the Immigration Regulation; and the Ministry of the Interior preliminary public consultation of February 2026 on a draft decree amending the Weapons Regulation. Ammunition purchase quotas sit outside the Weapons Regulation and the figures circulating online could not be verified against the current consolidated text; confirm them with your local Guardia Civil weapons office. The status of body armour, and the recognition of US permits or hunter-education certificates as equivalent foreign qualifications, are not settled by any published Spanish criteria we have located. Regional hunting rules, fees and examination exemptions differ between autonomous communities and change without notice. This page is general information, not legal advice on any individual file, and it is not advice on the use of any weapon.