Franchise activity: Definitive suspension of the Spanish National Franchisors Register

According to Spanish Retail Act (article 62.2) all franchisors that intend to develop in Spain the franchise activity must communicate to the Franchisors’ Register the starting of their activity within three months.

Such Register is regulated by Royal Decree 201/2010 (February 26) which also foresees the information to disclose, the obligation to update it within three months of any modification and inform, during each month of January, about any closing or opening of premises in the previous year. The information should be disclosed electronically.

This said, during 2018 there have been some technical difficulties at the Register provoking the provisional suspension of such disclosure obligations. During that period, the Register did not admit any notification regarding franchisors.

From June 2018, nevertheless, the Minister of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness has decided to definitively suspend the activity of the Franchisors’ Register. This decision has been adopted with the intention of supporting companies in the franchise sector and to cancel as many obstacles as possible in the development of the commercial activity. Therefore, franchisors are no longer able to disclose such information to the Register and information on Franchisors is not longer available.

The decision does not affect, however, other mandatory obligations such as the disclosure information to the potential franchisees at least 20 days before the signature of the agreement, the pre-agreement or before any payment made.

Official information (in Spanish) can be found at the website: https://sede.micinn.gob.es/solicitudFranquiciadores/