THE WAYPOINT SUR
Be careful while passing.
What the law protects, and what it doesn't
Spain wrote its compulsory motor insurance so that the person you hit gets paid, whatever your own paperwork says. That is worth knowing this week for two reasons. On 1 October the Reglamento General de Circulación — the general traffic regulations changes what counts as a safe overtake on every road on the Costa. And in March, on this exact subject, we told you something about your own cover that was not right.
We are going to refine what we told you first.
The part we overstated
On 20 March we published Still have your native licence? Your Insurance is void. The headline claim was that once your six-month exchange window closes, your motor policy is void for every drive.
That is not quite what the law says. Not a number we mistyped, and the distinction it flattened is the one that matters.
Under Article 10(c) of Real Decreto Legislativo 8/2004, the compulsory third-party cover responds to the injured party first, even when the driver holds no licence valid in Spain. Their medical bills and their car get paid. The insurer then has a derecho de repetición — right of recovery against the policyholder, where the policy provides for it, and one year from the date it paid out to come and collect. Confirmed against the BOE consolidated text, August 2026.
So the stranger is protected by design. You are the one exposed. Your own damage cover, the part that repairs your car, can be refused outright.
We had the mechanism right in one paragraph of the March piece and then overstated it in the summary. The practical advice has not changed by a euro. What changed is the shape of the risk, and we would rather you carried the accurate version of it.
What happens on 1 October
Real Decreto 518/2026 takes effect that day. It is not a licence rule, and it does not touch your exchange deadline. It rewrites how you pass anyone unprotected on the road.
Passing a cyclist or an electric scooter now requires 1.5 metres of lateral clearance. On any road with more than one lane in your direction, you must move fully into the next lane, not drift within your own. Outside built-up areas you must also drop 20 km/h below the limit while you do it. In town, leave five metres behind a cyclist rather than sitting on their wheel.
Each of those is a grave — serious infraction: €200, reduced to €100 if you pay inside 20 days, plus four points. Confirmed August 2026.
Cyclists face their own new obligations, helmets become mandatory on interurban roads, and electric scooters get a minimum age of 15 and a pavement ban. Our full breakdown of the October changes sits in the new traffic rules guide.
None of this changes your licence position. What it changes is how many ordinary Monday errands now contain a way to be the driver at fault, on the roads between Fuengirola and Marbella where cyclists ride in numbers most mornings of the year.
Which situation you are actually in
A licence issued in the UK. You have a direct exchange, no test, under the bilateral agreement in force since 2023. The psicotécnico — medical and psychological fitness assessment runs €35 to €50 and stays valid 90 days. The DGT fee is €28.30. The constraint is the appointment: the Jefatura Provincial de Tráfico de Málaga on Avenida de la Aurora has been running months, not weeks. Book the medical this week and the appointment will be the thing you wait on, not the paperwork.
A licence issued in the US, Canada or Australia. There is no exchange route, because Spain holds no bilateral agreement with any of them, and no individual state or province has one either. It is the full Spanish theory and practical test from scratch, three to nine months realistically. This is the group October catches hardest, because there is no fast remedy available to you. If you are past six months and driving, the honest position is that you are carrying the recovery exposure above until you hold a Spanish licence, and the only thing that shortens it is starting.
An EU or EEA licence. Valid as it stands. Exchange becomes necessary when it expires while you are resident, and then it is a renewal through the DGT with the medical only.
If you are not sure which of these you are in, or what your insurer's policy wording actually says about recovery, that is what our foreign licence and insurance guide is for. It was rewritten this weekend around the sharper version above.
Spanish-lite
¿Mi póliza cubre a terceros si mi permiso no es válido en España? — Does my policy cover third parties if my licence is not valid in Spain? The question to put to your insurer in writing, so the answer exists on paper.
Quiero pedir cita para el canje de mi permiso de conducir. — I want to book an appointment to exchange my driving licence. The opener at the Jefatura or with a gestor — administrative agent.
The bottom line
Spain protects the person you hit whether or not you filed, and prices your non-compliance onto you alone, with a year for your insurer to come and collect it. That is a smaller fear than the one we printed in March and a more precise one, and it points at the same action it always did. From 1 October there are simply more ways to end up in the conversation.
Not bad for a Monday — A. and the WaypointSur team, keeping 1.5 metres from cyclists and rather more than that from our own back catalogue.
