The Ministry of Consumer Affairs has fined car rental giant Avis €1 million for charging customers additional administration fees when they received traffic fines while driving hire cars in Spain, including the Canary Islands.

They imposed the maximum sanction after concluding that the charges amounted to “abusive practices” under Spanish consumer protection law. The ruling could be particularly relevant to tourists hiring cars in Spain and the Canary Islands, where rental vehicles are widely used by holidaymakers.

What was Avis charging customers for?

The case centres on an administration fee of between €33 and €45 charged to customers who committed a traffic offence while renting an Avis vehicle.

When a hire car receives a traffic fine, the rental company is required to provide the authorities with details identifying the person who had rented and was driving the vehicle.

Avis charged customers an additional fee for processing the fine and providing the authorities with the identity of the person responsible.

However, Spain’s Consumer Affairs Ministry ruled that identifying the driver is already a legal obligation of the vehicle owner and therefore customers should not be charged an additional fee simply for the company carrying out that obligation.

Under Spain's Traffic and Road Safety Law, the registered owner of a vehicle is legally required to identify the person responsible for an offence.

For car rental companies, this generally means providing the authorities with the renter's identity or, where appropriate, the rental agreement.

Why was the €1 million fine so high?

Consumer Affairs concluded that the contractual clause used by Avis violated several sections of Spain’s General Law for the Protection of Consumers and Users.

According to the ruling, the fee effectively required customers to pay for something that Avis was legally obliged to do anyway and imposed a disproportionate financial burden on the consumer.

The practice was classified as a “very serious infringement”, partly because a court had previously ruled against the same type of charge.

In September 2020, the Court of First Instance No. 1 in Vitoria-Gasteiz declared several general conditions used by Avis to be unfair, including its administration fee for handling traffic fines.

Avis was ordered to remove the clauses, stop applying them to existing contracts and refrain from including them in future agreements.

The fact that the practice had previously been declared unlawful was considered an aggravating factor when determining the latest penalty.

Case started following consumer complaints

The investigation began following complaints from the Basque consumer association EKA/ACUV (Euskal Kontsumitzaileen Alkartea).

The Ministry's decision brings the administrative proceedings to an end, although Avis can still challenge the €1 million fine through the courts.

For holidaymakers hiring cars in the Canary Islands or elsewhere in Spain, the ruling also highlights an important distinction: receiving a traffic fine and being charged an additional administration fee by the rental company are two separate issues.

Drivers remain responsible for any legitimate traffic fines they receive, but the government’s ruling concerns the additional fee Avis charged for identifying the renter to the authorities.