In short.
- Spain's Law 7/2022 requires hazardous waste management operators —including carriers, brokers and dealers, whom the law treats as waste managers (art. 2(n) and (ñ))— to lodge a bond that answers to the authorities (art. 23.5(b)). Dealers, carriers and entities treating hazardous waste must also take out, in addition to the bond, insurance or another equivalent financial guarantee covering third parties and the environment (art. 23.5(c)). Producers of hazardous waste also need insurance, unless they generate less than 10 tonnes a year (art. 20.6).
- The amount is not discretionary: Royal Decree 208/2022 sets formulas for the bond —by payload capacity for carriers, by storage capacity for facilities, by volume traded for dealers— and minimum sums insured of €450,000 to €1,000,000 for liability insurance (Annex IV).
- The guarantee must be in force before the activity begins (RD 208/2022, art. 9.1); if it is called, there are 30 days to replenish it or the authorisation is suspended (art. 7.3). Failing to provide or renew it is a serious infringement under Law 7/2022 (art. 108.3(f)).
The financial guarantee for waste is not something to arrange once the authorisation has been granted: until the authorities have verified that it is valid, the authorisation has no effect (RD 208/2022, art. 9.6(b)) and the activity cannot begin (art. 9.1). For a waste operator, a carrier or a manufacturer generating hazardous waste, this means that the amount and the instrument are decided during the application stage, and that a calculation error or a policy form the regional deposit office will not accept delays the start of operations.
This guide sets out who is obliged, how the bond and the sum insured are calculated, which instruments can be used and what happens when the guarantee expires. It describes the national framework: Royal Decree 208/2022, applied alongside Law 7/2022 on waste and contaminated soils.
What is a financial guarantee in waste matters?
Under the same name, the law and RD 208/2022 group three distinct elements (RD 208/2022, arts. 1 and 3), whose beneficiaries and purposes do not overlap:
| Element | In favour of | What it answers for | Who arranges it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bond | The competent authority | Compliance with the obligations of the authorisation or notification | The obliged party, with the authority as beneficiary |
| Liability insurance (or equivalent guarantee) | Third parties | Death, injury, illness and damage to property or animals | The obliged party, as policyholder and insured |
| Environmental liability guarantee | Natural resources | Prevention and remediation of environmental damage | Governed by Law 26/2007 (RD 208/2022, art. 3.3) |
The third element has its own regime —exemptions, risk analysis, calculation model— and we cover it separately in the article on the financial guarantee under Law 26/2007. Here we focus on the first two, which are specific to waste legislation.
For an overview, our piece on guarantees required by law places the waste guarantee alongside those of other regulated activities. And in the environmental field it has a close relative: the decommissioning guarantee required of renewable energy installations.
Who is required to provide one?
The obligation depends on the role the company plays in the waste chain:
- Hazardous waste management operators —including carriers, brokers and dealers, whom the law treats as waste managers (art. 2(n) and (ñ))—: they must lodge a bond (Law 7/2022, art. 23.5(b)). For non-hazardous waste, only where the rules for the specific waste stream or operation require it.
- Dealers, carriers and entities treating hazardous waste: in addition to the bond, they must take out insurance or another equivalent financial guarantee (art. 23.5(c)) covering compensation for death, injury or illness, damage to property and the costs of repairing and restoring the affected environment.
- Producers of hazardous waste: insurance or another equivalent guarantee (art. 20.6), with an exemption for those generating less than 10 tonnes a year. The law does not require them to provide a bond.
- Extended producer responsibility (EPR) schemes: the bonds or insurance set by the royal decree governing each waste stream, calculated using an objective formula (art. 51).
- Landfills: a bond before landfilling begins and insurance held by the operating entity (Royal Decree 646/2020, art. 11.1(c) and (d)).
For an industrial plant with hazardous process waste, this usually means at least liability insurance at the regulatory minimum sum; if it also treats or stores third-party waste, a bond as well. We explain this in the context of your sector in insurance for industrial companies.
RD 208/2022 (art. 2) expressly includes carriers, brokers and dealers and assigns them a bond formula. Whether a carrier of non-hazardous waste must provide one depends on the applicable rules and on what its autonomous community has established.
Who is exempt
Public authorities, their in-house entities and local authorities are excluded. So are concession holders of facilities owned by an exempt authority, who answer to that authority under the terms of their concession (RD 208/2022, art. 2.2).
Carriers, brokers and dealers with a nationwide authorisation
Where the authorisation or notification is valid throughout Spain, the guarantee is lodged in the autonomous community where the company has its registered office and takes effect in every community in which it operates (RD 208/2022, art. 4.5). It does not have to be duplicated for each region.
How is the bond calculated? The formulas in RD 208/2022
The bond is set by the environmental authority in the authorisation or notification, applying the criteria in Annex IV. The authority may raise or lower it in duly justified exceptional circumstances (RD 208/2022, art. 7.1). The starting formulas are as follows (Annex IV.1):
| Party | Formula or amount |
|---|---|
| Carrier of hazardous waste | 0.15 × Ka + 0.03 × Kb + €2,000 |
| Carrier of non-hazardous waste | 0.10 × Ka + 0.02 × Kb + €1,100 |
| Treatment facility | Qm × €10 + Qnp × €50 + Qrp × €500 |
| Minimum, hazardous waste facility | €15,000 / €25,000 / €45,000 (area < 200, 200-500, ≥ 500 m²) |
| Minimum, non-hazardous waste facility | €3,500 / €7,500 / €10,000 (same bands) |
| Operator of construction and demolition waste and steel slag | 3,000 + 170 × √C |
| End-of-life vehicles | Minimum €30,000 |
| Landfills | Estimated costs × 1.2 (operation) and × 1.3 (aftercare) |
| Brokers and other obliged parties — hazardous waste | €15,000 |
| Dealer in hazardous waste | €8,000 + €100/t up to 300 t + €10/t thereafter |
| Brokers, dealers and other obliged parties — non-hazardous waste | €7,000 |
Ka is the payload in kilograms of vehicles under 3,500 kg and Kb that of vehicles of 3,500 kg or more. Qm, Qnp and Qrp are the maximum storage capacities, in tonnes, of non-hazardous metal waste, non-hazardous non-metal waste and hazardous waste. C is the annual management capacity in tonnes.
Three illustrative examples, with invented figures to show the calculation:
- Carrier of hazardous waste with a van of 3,000 kg payload and two lorries of 20,000 kg: 0.15 × 3,000 + 0.03 × 40,000 + 2,000 = €3,650.
- 600 m² facility with capacity for 100 t of hazardous waste and 400 t of non-hazardous non-metal waste: 100 × 500 + 400 × 50 = €70,000, above the €45,000 minimum.
- Dealer declaring 500 t of hazardous waste a year: 8,000 + 300 × 100 + 200 × 10 = €40,000.
Updating and replenishment
The bond is updated at the intervals set by the competent authority. If it is called in whole or in part, the obliged party has 30 days from receipt of the enforcement decision to replenish it; otherwise the authorisation is suspended or the notification ceases to have effect (RD 208/2022, art. 7.3). If the bond is insufficient to cover the liabilities, the authorities recover the difference through enforced collection proceedings (art. 7.4).
Are you applying for a waste operator authorisation or filing a notification? We calculate the bond and the sum insured with you before you submit it.
Ways of providing the bond: cash, bank guarantee or surety insurance
RD 208/2022 (art. 4.2) accepts four forms:
- Cash.
- A guarantee from a credit institution, a specialised lending institution or a mutual guarantee company.
- Surety insurance issued by an insurer authorised to operate in Spain.
- Other forms provided for in Title IV of the Spanish Public Sector Contracts Act (Ley de Contratos del Sector Público) that offer equivalent protection.
The bond is deposited with the fund or body designated by the competent authority (art. 4.1); if this is the Caja General de Depósitos (the State General Deposit Fund), its regulations, approved by Royal Decree 937/2020, apply (art. 4.3).
Each instrument has its own requirements. The bank guarantee must be joint and several, waiving the benefits of prior recourse, division and order (art. 5). In surety insurance, the policyholder is the obliged party and the insured is the competent authority (art. 6.1, which refers to the definition in article 68 of the Spanish Insurance Contracts Act); the certificate follows the form of the relevant deposit fund or, failing that, the one in Annex II.
One bond is lodged per authorisation or notification (art. 4.4). Where several obligations overlap in their cover, a single instrument identifying each beneficiary authority is permitted (art. 9.5).
The choice between a bank guarantee and surety insurance affects the company's banking risk lines; we analyse this in bank guarantee vs surety insurance.
The liability insurance required by RD 208/2022
In liability insurance, the policyholder and the insured are the obliged party itself (RD 208/2022, art. 8.1). It must cover unintentional damage caused to third parties by waste management activities (art. 8.2). In transport, the cover extends to damage caused by the goods, including loading and unloading operations (art. 8.3).
There are three minimum sums insured (Annex IV.3):
| Minimum sum | Parties |
|---|---|
| €450,000 | Non-hazardous waste operators up to 5,000 m² or 200 t; carriers, brokers, dealers and producers |
| €600,000 | Non-hazardous waste operators over 5,000 m² or 200 t; hazardous waste or end-of-life vehicle operators up to 5,000 m² or 200 t |
| €1,000,000 | Hazardous waste or end-of-life vehicle operators over 5,000 m² or 200 t |
Once the policy is taken out and at each renewal, the insurer issues a certificate in the form set out in Annex III, which the obliged party submits to the authority (art. 8.5). These are statutory minimums: the appropriate sum for the actual exposure may be higher, and the specific scope is governed by the terms of the policy.
The liability element of RD 208/2022 and its minimum sum exclude damage to natural resources —water, soil, species and habitats— (art. 3.2(b), which refers to the definition in article 2 of Law 26/2007). The environmental remediation cover required by article 23.5(c)(3) of Law 7/2022 is sized and exempted under Law 26/2007 (RD 208/2022, art. 3.3), in the same policy or a separate one, such as environmental liability insurance, whose regime we explain in the article on the financial guarantee under Law 26/2007.
We coordinate your waste liability cover with your environmental guarantee so that no gaps remain. Request a review.
Waste shipments: the bond for transboundary shipments
Regulation (EC) 1013/2006 was repealed with effect from 20 May 2024, but its provisions continued to apply, with some exceptions, until 21 May 2026 (Regulation (EU) 2024/1157, art. 85(1) and 85(2)). Regulation (EU) 2024/1157 has applied since 21 May 2026 (art. 86(2)), with a transitional regime for notifications acknowledged before that date (art. 85(3)).
Its article 7 requires every shipment subject to notification to be covered by a financial guarantee or equivalent insurance covering transport, recovery or disposal and 90 days of storage. It is provided by the notifier and must be effective on notification —or, if the authority so allows, when the movement document is completed—; it is approved by the competent authority of dispatch and released once that authority receives the certificate of recovery or disposal. The regulation empowers the Commission to adopt, if it considers it feasible, a harmonised calculation method (art. 7(10)); until one exists, Spain applies the formula in RD 208/2022 (Annex IV.1.5):
1.2 × Q × [Ct + Cev + (Ca × 90)]
Q is the maximum quantity of waste in simultaneous transit, Ct the transport cost per tonne, Cev the recovery or disposal cost and Ca the storage cost per tonne per day. Illustrative example: 200 t in transit, €60/t for transport, €120/t for treatment and €1/t per day for storage: 1.2 × 200 × (60 + 120 + 90) = €64,800. It is a guarantee given to an authority at the border, like the customs guarantee, but with its own rules and its own calculation.
Shipments within Spain are governed by Law 7/2022 (art. 31) and Royal Decree 553/2020, which require an identification document and, where applicable, prior notification. Royal Decree 553/2020 does not establish a guarantee of its own for domestic shipments.
Construction and demolition waste: the bond attached to the building permit
On site, a different bond arises, borne not by the waste operator but by the producer. Royal Decree 105/2008 provides that the producer of construction and demolition waste shall, where regional legislation so requires, lodge a bond or guarantee linked to the municipal building permit (arts. 4.1(d) and 6.2). Where the project has a waste management study, the bond is calculated on its budget, and it may be increased if the study is undervalued (art. 6.3).
It should not be confused with the bond of the construction and demolition waste operator, which follows the RD 208/2022 formula (Annex IV.1.2(c)). If your company develops or carries out construction work, you will find the rest of the risk map in insurance for construction companies.
What happens if the guarantee expires or is not provided?
Without a guarantee in force the activity cannot begin (RD 208/2022, art. 9.1), and it must be kept in force until the authority orders its cancellation (art. 9.3). If the surety or the liability policy runs for a shorter term than the obligation, the obliged party must provide a new guarantee or the renewal before expiry; otherwise the guarantee is seized and the authorisation suspended (art. 9.4).
Failing to provide or renew the guarantees is a serious infringement (Law 7/2022, art. 108.3(f)), punishable by a fine of €2,001 to €100,000 —€20,001 to €600,000 where hazardous waste is involved— and by possible revocation or suspension of the authorisation for up to one year (art. 109.1(b)).
Calling the bond requires a prior administrative procedure (RD 208/2022, art. 11.1). And the roles should not be confused: compensation for injured third parties comes from the liability policy, not from the bond (art. 11.4).
Release on cessation of the activity
To recover the bond, the obliged party must apply for its release, prove that the cessation obligations have been met and obtain an express decision (art. 10). For landfills, the operational guarantee is released once closure has been approved, but the aftercare guarantee remains in place.
Authorisations are granted for a maximum of eight years and are renewed automatically following a favourable inspection, except for installations holding an integrated environmental permit, which follow the term of that permit. At each renewal, the bond and the insurance may be reviewed (Law 7/2022, art. 33.10). Guarantees provided before RD 208/2022 must be adapted when the authorisation is renewed or, at the latest, within eight years of its entry into force (sole transitional provision).
The role of an independent broker
The waste financial guarantee combines a bond, a liability policy and, frequently, an environmental guarantee, each in favour of a different beneficiary. As an independent brokerage, we act on the client's mandate: we size the bond and the sum insured using the formulas before the application is filed, we place the surety on the form accepted by the regional deposit office and we coordinate the waste liability cover with the Law 26/2007 guarantee to avoid gaps and overlapping cover. We then monitor expiry dates and renewals. The issue of each guarantee depends on the insurer's underwriting; we do not anticipate acceptance or cost. If you operate in generation or utilities, see also insurance for energy companies.
We review your environmental guarantee programme without obligation: sizing, placement of the surety and monitoring of expiry dates. Talk to us.
Frequently asked questions
Does a producer of hazardous waste need a bond or insurance? Insurance or another equivalent financial guarantee (Law 7/2022, art. 20.6), unless it generates less than 10 tonnes a year. The bond is an obligation of the waste operator (art. 23.5(b)). The producer's minimum liability sum insured is €450,000 (RD 208/2022, Annex IV.3).
Can surety insurance be used for a waste operator's bond? Yes. It is one of the four accepted forms (RD 208/2022, art. 4.2(c)), with the competent authority as the insured (art. 6.1) and the certificate following the form of the regional deposit fund or, failing that, the one in Annex II.
We operate in several autonomous communities: do we need a bond in each one? If your authorisation or notification is nationwide —carriers, brokers, dealers or operators without a facility—, the guarantee is lodged in the community of your registered office and takes effect in all of them (art. 4.5). Facilities, by contrast, are authorised in the community where they are located (Law 7/2022, art. 33.1), and each authorisation or notification carries its own bond (RD 208/2022, art. 4.4).
When is the bond for a transboundary shipment released? When the authority that approved it receives the certificate of recovery or disposal of the waste (Regulation (EU) 2024/1157, art. 7(5)).
What happens if part of our bond is called? You have 30 days from receipt of the enforcement decision to replenish it. Otherwise, the authorisation is suspended or the notification ceases to have effect (RD 208/2022, art. 7.3).
Sources and legislation
- Law 7/2022 on Waste and Contaminated Soils for a Circular Economy (Ley de residuos y suelos contaminados para una economía circular), articles 2, 20.6, 23.5, 31, 33.1, 33.10, 51, 108.3(f) and 109.1(b) (consolidated text).
- Royal Decree 208/2022 on financial guarantees in waste matters, articles 1 to 11, sole transitional provision and Annexes II, III and IV (consolidated text, as amended by Royal Decree 34/2023).
- Law 26/2007 on Environmental Liability (Ley de Responsabilidad Medioambiental), article 2 (referred to in RD 208/2022, art. 3.2(b)).
- Royal Decree 937/2020 approving the Regulations of the General Deposit Fund (Caja General de Depósitos).
- Royal Decree 646/2020 on the disposal of waste by landfill, article 11.1.
- Royal Decree 105/2008 on the production and management of construction and demolition waste, articles 4.1(d) and 6.
- Royal Decree 553/2020 on shipments of waste within Spain.
- Regulation (EU) 2024/1157 on shipments of waste, articles 7, 85 and 86.
- Law 50/1980 on Insurance Contracts (Ley de Contrato de Seguro), article 68 (surety insurance).
The exact amount, the accepted form and the updating intervals are set by the authorisation or notification processed by the autonomous community, which may depart from the formulas in justified cases and have its own forms; this guide describes the national framework. Regional waste and construction waste legislation may impose additional obligations: please consult the competent environmental authority. The numerical examples are illustrative. The issue of a surety or a liability policy depends on the insurer's underwriting, and cover is governed by the terms of each policy.
This information is for guidance only and does not constitute legal or binding advice. New Brokers Correduría de Seguros, S.L., registered with the DGSFP under reference J0140.
