How to check if a platform is authorised in Spain

Before fees or returns there is a prior question: can this platform legally offer you investment services in Spain? It takes ten minutes and two free lookups on the regulator’s own site. This guide is the procedure with the official links; we refresh it if the CNMV moves its pages.

Step 1: search the official registers

Every entity authorised to provide investment services in Spain appears in the CNMV’s public registers, in the official registers section of cnmv.es: Spanish investment firms, foreign firms passporting in, crypto-asset platforms under MiCA. For deposits and payments, the register at bancodeespana.es is the equivalent. Search literally: the exact legal entity name, not the trading brand; clone firms use names nearly identical to real ones, so compare the web domain and the register number too. In doubt, the CNMV takes investor queries on 900 535 015.

Step 2: cross-check the warnings list

The CNMV publishes its warnings list of unauthorised entities (Spain calls them chiringuitos financieros) in near-weekly Monday releases, alongside warnings from other European and international supervisors; you reach it from the investor section of cnmv.es. NOT appearing on the list clears nobody: the list always trails the scammers. The right order is the diagram’s: first confirm the entity IS in the register; the warnings list is the extra filter, not the proof of legitimacy.

Step 3: the signals the regulator itself describes

The CNMV’s boiler-room guide has described the same pattern for years: unsolicited contact, pressure to decide now, high “guaranteed” returns, platforms showing fictional profits and asking for more funds to “unlock” withdrawals, and addresses beyond any supervisor’s reach. Any one of them justifies stopping; two or more together is the signature of the fraud.

If money has already gone in

Document everything (transfers, conversations, the website), send no more funds even if they promise to release your balance after “taxes” or “fees” (that is phase two of the same fraud), and report it: to the CNMV through its reporting channel and to the police. With unauthorised entities no guarantee fund covers you, which is why step one comes before any euro. Checked 2026-08-22 against the CNMV site.