ITV Expired – Am I Allowed to Drive?

No, you are not.
We would like to state with certainty that you are allowed to drive it on the day you have an appointment to renew it, fastest route from your home to the ITV station you booked the test for your vehicle, but in view of some recent research, we cannot.

Please read this ´test case´ that we posted on our facebook group and you will know why.

¨To let you know to what extent we try to interprete the laws for our members. My apologies for the long post. The law that regulates the ITV inspections, states that when you get a ´desfavorable´ test result, you can only drive your vehicle to the garage and back to ITV for re-testing.
The law says you cannot drive with expired ITV but doesn´t mention an exception for the drive to the ITV station to be tested.
But what if you have your car tested before its current ITV expires, it gets a ´desfavorable´ report, so you take it home, make an appointment with the garage to have it fixed, and another appointment to get it re-tested. As long as you do so within 2 months of your first test appointment, you´re good.
Somewhere in between, your car´s current ITV is bound to expire… according to your test report you can drive to ITV without risk of getting fined. But technically, your car is now without valid ITV as its validity is determined by having passed the ITV test, which it hasn´t as yet.
But what about a car with expired ITV, on its way to test station? It could very well pass the test with flying colours, so is not per se a ´danger on the road´ as the law justifies sanctions for driving with expired ITV…
Technically, they are in the same position – both with expired ITV.
Why would there not be an exception for that short drive as well?
The law just doesn´t provide for that, so in practice, it will depend on the ´goodwill´ of the officer in charge if you are stopped on that very day, and/or your luck on being able to avoid any radar equipment on the way to the ITV station.
There is a EU Decree in place, that would encourage individual countries to provide for a ´window´ of a couple of weeks, before sanctions are to be issued. But this decree is only to be implemented by individual countries by May 2017, to come into force in May 2018. And no way of telling whether Spain will follow up on this, naturally.¨

Link to the actual Law that regulates ITV inspections.

Please note: The information provided is based upon our understanding of current legislation. It is not legal advice but is provided freely to enable you to be properly informed. We recommend that if you are considering taking action, you should seek professional advice.