Spain has no single rule saying "you must flag advertising". It has three, with different scopes, and knowing which one applies decides who answers when the disclosure is missing.
That is the short answer, and it is also why discussions on this subject go nowhere: two people cite different rules and neither of them is wrong.
The three anchors, one per scope
They are worth seeing together before entering any of them, because what separates them is not severity but what switches them on.
| Rule | What it requires | What switches it on |
|---|---|---|
| Art. 20.1 LSSI | that an electronic commercial communication be clearly identifiable as such, and so be the person on whose behalf it is made | no payment condition |
| Art. 26.1 LCD | that the content be clearly specified as advertising | that the trader pays for that promotion |
| Art. 94 LGCA | that the creator meet obligations proper to an audiovisual media service provider | being a "user of special relevance", five simultaneous requirements |
The LSSI does not ask whether money changed hands
Its article 20.1 covers commercial communications made by electronic means and demands two things at once: that they be identifiable as such, and that the natural or legal person on whose behalf they are made be identifiable too. The word payment appears nowhere.
The LCD does, and that is the dividing line
Article 26.1 treats as unfair by misleading the practice of including, in media, information society services or social networks, communications promoting a good or service where the trader pays for that promotion, without it being clearly specified that the content is advertising.
The express mention of social networks is recent and settles any doubt about the medium. But the text describes a paid promotion. A video made with no consideration at all does not fit that case. By contrast, it remains squarely within article 20.1 of the LSSI if it is a commercial communication, because that article conditions nothing on money. The two rules do not overlap: they divide the ground.
When a creator becomes an audiovisual media service provider
This is the specifically Spanish anchor, and the one almost nobody checks before signing.
Article 94 of the General Audiovisual Communication Act creates the figure of the user of special relevance. Whoever fits it is treated as an audiovisual media service provider for certain purposes, among them the obligations on the protection of minors and the rules on commercial communications they market, sell or organise.
The five requirements are simultaneous
Article 94.2 lists them and demands that they be met at the same time: that the service involve an economic activity yielding significant income from activity on video-sharing platforms; that the user be the editorial controller of the content; that the service be aimed at a significant part of the general public and be capable of a clear impact on it; that its function be to inform, entertain or educate, with the distribution of audiovisual content as its principal purpose; and that it be provided over electronic communications networks and established in Spain.
Five cumulative conditions leave out a lot of people who believe themselves inside, and bring in a few who never considered it.
The carve-out that surprises people
Article 94.3.d) excludes from those obligations businesses and self-employed workers who publish in order to promote the goods and services produced or distributed by themselves.
A shop showing its own catalogue does not occupy the same position as a person promoting a third party's product. That distinction appears in no best-practice guide and is written into the statute.
The same paragraph also excludes educational or scientific centres acting within their remit, museums and theatres presenting their programme, and public administrations or political parties reporting on their functions. Read together, the exclusions trace a logic: the figure targets whoever makes the distribution of audiovisual content their activity, not whoever uses video as a shop window for their own.
Who answers for what
Three things usually treated as one deserve to be separated here.
The transparency duty attaches to the publication. The content has to be identifiable as commercial, and that is a property of the video, not of a person.
The creator's responsibility arises from the publication they control editorially and, where article 94 fits, from the additional obligations that figure imposes.
The brand's own risk depends on its role. Whoever commissions, pays for and approves a piece that goes out without its commercial character being identified sits in a very different position from whoever receives an unsolicited mention. The General Audiovisual Communication Act also prohibits, in article 122.3, surreptitious audiovisual commercial communication that intentionally has an advertising purpose and may mislead the public as to the nature of the presentation.
Which route the complaint takes
It matters because it changes the calendar. A complaint to the AUTOCONTROL jury follows the timetable of self-regulation and reaches only those who have signed up. An administrative action or an unfair competition claim follow their own, and depend on no membership at all.
In all three cases, the first thing requested is the piece and the agreement behind it. A brand that keeps neither the approved content nor the instructions it gave argues without material, and that is a cost paid long after the shoot.
The code of conduct is not a statute
The Code of Conduct on advertising through influencers, from AUTOCONTROL and the Spanish Advertisers Association, is self-regulation. It binds those who adhere to it, and AUTOCONTROL publishes the list of signatories.
That makes it useful for two reasons and no others: it gives operational criteria on how and where to place the disclosure, and it creates a resolution mechanism a signatory brand can be called before. It neither replaces the three rules above nor extends them.
What goes in the brief
Four lines settle the matter before it becomes an argument.
- The disclosure lives in the content itself, not only in a platform field that can vanish on resharing.
- The brand is identified too, which is the second half of article 20.1 and the half most often forgotten.
- It applies even without money, when the video is a commercial communication. A product gift is not an automatic exemption.
- The brand keeps the approved piece, because its position depends on what it commissioned and validated.
Sources
- Art. 20 of Law 34/2002, on information society services
- Art. 26 of Law 3/1991, on unfair competition
- Law 13/2022, General Audiovisual Communication Act, arts. 94 and 122
- Code of Conduct on advertising through influencers, AUTOCONTROL
Checked on 10 September 2026. This guide is not legal advice and does not replace an examination of the individual case. Where this guide and the official source diverge, the source prevails.
