Spain is no different than other countries whereby your activity in regards to finance is monitored by credit rating agencies and decisions related to your credit profile are checked against such records.

If you need any kind of loan ranging from a car, boat, home or consumer product, then your personal profile will be checked against a credit rating agency.

In Spain, the main credit rating agency is called ASNEF (Asociación Nacional de Establecimientos Financieros/National Association of Established Financiers) and they hold files of bad payers in Spain.

The files stored by ASNEF are managed by Equifax Servicios Sobre Solvencia y Crédito S.L. which is the Spanish subsidiary of the UK and US equivalents.

There are two types of checks that you can make and its easiest to do it through a third party site called “Einforma” who are connected directly to Equifax which means that you can easily execute your credit report query online in the comfort of your own home.

Check 1: Check if you are on a list of bad debtors
Check 2: Request Full credit report

NOTE: In order to check if you are on any bad debtors list, you will need your NIE/DNI. NIE/DNI is the “fiscal identification number” for Spain which is used to track all your financial activity in Spain. You may notice that when you buy a big ticket item like a TV or a car, the shop will ask for your Spanish ID. That data is then fed back to the Spanish authorities.

In addition, all the sites for credit checks are in Spanish, so you need a good handle of Spanish in order to use the credit checking web sites.

Check if you are on a list of bad debtors in Spain
This is a simple affair and will simply say yes or no if you are listed with ASNEF. Einforma charges a fee of €9.99 and you get instant response. You can execute the query for yourself or someone else. So if you wanted to check the status of someone else, then you only need their DNI/NIE, type it in, pay your fee and you can tell within seconds if the person is listed or not.

Request Full Credit Report in Spain (example below)
This is a credit/solvency report which is a little more in depth. Cost to request this report is €24.50 and you need a copy of your DNI/NIE and if you are foreigner, then you need a copy of your passport both of which are uploaded to Einforma. You will be asked a few simple questions for example “why are you requesting this credit report” and once you have uploaded the ID documents, you will receive a confirmation by SMS and email telling you that they will come back to you within 24 hours.

How do I Request a Personal Credit Report?
1. Go to www.einforma.com
2. Select “Informaciòn de Personas” from the navigation menu
3. Select “Informe de Impagos de Personas” or “Informe de Solvencia de Personas”
4. Create your account, pay for your report and follow the instructions.