Spain

Summary

Spain has no national rule for or against the bow. The 1970 hunting act does not mention it, and the weapons regulation treats it as a regulated but licence-free sporting weapon. Hunting is a regional competence, so each comunidad autónoma answers for itself; the seven regional texts we read all allow the bow, and we found none that bans it, but nine regions were not checked.

For a visiting hunter that means two layers: the region’s own hunting licence, issued on your home papers under conditions that differ from region to region, and the region’s rules on the bow, from a bare permission to detailed draw-weight and broadhead figures.

What the law says

• Ley 1/1970, art. 3: the right to hunt belongs to anyone over fourteen with a hunting licence; the adult-only rule applies to firearms and air guns, not the bow. Art. 52: every hunter with weapons carries liability insurance.
• Weapons regulation, art. 3: bows are category 7.ª-5, effective for fishing and other sporting purposes; crossbows are 7.ª-2. A bow needs no weapons licence; buying one requires a valid sports federation card (art. 54.4), and carrying one outside the home or the sporting activity is banned (art. 146). The crossbow needs a licence E and a guía de pertenencia (art. 96.4, 101).
• Regions that name the bow: Andalucía, Decreto 126/2017, art. 82.4, hunting with bow or crossbow may be practised in any of the authorised hunting modalities, with 45 lb for big game and 35 lb for small game, arrows of at least 30 g and cutting heads of at least 22 mm for big game, and a liability policy that must expressly include the bow (art. 83.3). Murcia, order of 30 April 2026, art. 14.4, which repealed the order of 17 May 2023, the same 45 and 35 lb at the archer’s draw length, cutting heads with at least three blades, mechanical ones included, inscribed in a 22 mm circle for big game, impact or small-game points for small game with cutting heads banned there, field and bullet points banned outright, flu-flu fletching for birds, every arrow marked with the last eight digits of the hunter’s Murcia federation card or their identity number, and either the Murcia hunting federation’s specific bow training or the RFEC qualified-archer card (T2). Castilla y León, Ley 4/2021, art. 33, lists the bow among the permitted weapons and bans only toxic, explosive and harpoon-shaped heads. Castilla-La Mancha, Ley 3/2015, art. 20.2, allows capture weapons that launch a single arrow per shot. Comunidad Valenciana, Orden 13/2022, art. 4.1, lets the bow and the crossbow be used in the same way as firearms, in any modality that foresees weapons. Extremadura, Ley 14/2010, art. 24.2, makes small game with the bow free in its limited-hunting zones and issues a licence class B-A for the bow. Aragón, Ley 1/2015, art. 46.3, assumes the bow as a hunting weapon and its 2026-2027 order names it for fox and rabbit, while hunting with the crossbow is prohibited in Aragón (art. 5.3).
• Cataluña has no hunting act of its own and hunts under the 1970 act; its annual resolution does not mention the bow. Bowhunting there rests on the licence class for other authorised procedures.
• Only Murcia mentions mechanical broadheads, and holds them to the same three-blade rule; no text read addresses lighted nocks. Castilla-La Mancha’s implementing regulation of 2022 was annulled by the courts in 2025, so the region currently has only the act’s article.

Foreign hunters

• Your home licence does not replace a Spanish one anywhere; each region issues its own licence, or the interregional licence where conventions exist. What the home licence does is open the door: Castilla-La Mancha, art. 17.4, exempts non-resident foreigners from the aptitude certificate provided they meet the equivalent requirements of their country and are accompanied by a qualified hunter or supervised by the holder of the hunting rights. Castilla y León, art. 14.5, exempts those with an equivalent exam at home and lets the others hunt only accompanied by a hunter who has passed the regional exam. Andalucía, art. 78.1, gives its licence to a hunter qualified in a state whose system is comparable to its own, without naming those states, and art. 78.3 gives the others an exceptional and restricted authorisation of at most fifteen consecutive days on the strength of the home licence, requested fifteen working days ahead; since the amendment of March 2026 the request carries proof of the temporary-licence fee, the certification of the home licence in force, a signed declaration of not being barred from hunting, and the list of grounds, methods and dates (art. 78.4). Murcia, art. 71.6, recognises equivalent foreign certificates, and Decreto 112/2018, art. 2.3, in its 2018 text, asks that they rest on similar tests and on reciprocity; otherwise the Murcian exam is taken. The decree has been amended since, and we did not read the amending text. Aragón, Decreto 87/2015, art. 3.1 d), exempts non-resident hunters from EU countries who hold a valid licence from a country whose licence requirements are equivalent to Aragón’s; for the others the regional exam remains, and the decree’s annex says foreigners may be given a translation of the test, in English at least. Comunidad Valenciana, Orden 13/2015, art. 2.3, exempts non-resident foreigners who hold the documentation the administration accepts and meet the equivalent requirements of their country. Extremadura, order of 4 December 2013, art. 4 and annex III, recognises the hunter-aptitude systems of eighteen countries, Romania among them; a valid licence from such a country is one of the documents accepted for entry in the regional hunters’ register (art. 5.2), and under Decreto 34/2016, art. 10.5, a document issued by such a country counts as equivalent to the Extremadura hunter’s card, with which the regional licence can be requested (art. 9.1). Extremadura’s act, art. 72.3, also admits non-registered hunters to specific hunts under a professional hunting organisation with the directorate’s authorisation. Cataluña has no hunter exam.
• Extremadura, the hunter under tutelage: Decreto 34/2016, art. 14.1, lets hunters under the tutelage of the holder of a private estate or of a professional hunting organisation hunt in Extremadura without a licence; the directorate’s authorisation has the effects of a licence (act, art. 52.2). Art. 99.3 lists what is asked of the hunter: not resident in Extremadura, not entered in its hunters’ register, the compulsory insurance when hunting with weapons, and not entered in the regional or national registers of hunting offenders. It asks for no document from home and nothing about the bow. The tutelage page of the regional government repeats the four conditions and gives the fee for each hunter and hunt; the organisation or the estate holder must itself be entered in the register.
• The interregional licence rests on a convention published in March 2026, which ten regions have signed. It asks for a regional licence in force or the exam passed in a signatory region; a foreign licence is not in its text.
• In six of the seven regions read, no text asks that the home document cover the bow. Murcia asks separately for its own bow accreditation, below, and provides no equivalence for a foreign one.
• Liability insurance is compulsory everywhere for hunting with weapons; Andalucía wants the bow named in the policy. Minimum age is fourteen with a licence, accompanied by an adult under eighteen; Extremadura says so expressly for bows (art. 49.3).
• A sports federation card is what the weapons regulation asks for buying a bow; Murcia repeats that rule for buying a bow, and to hunt with one asks for its federation’s bow training or the T2 card. Whether Andalucía and Cataluña require the T2 card is asserted by associations, not by any text we read.

Seasons

Each region sets its species and dates in an annual order, and most bow rules refer to the ordinary big-game and small-game modalities of that order. Extremadura’s general order gives the outer limits: red and fallow deer in August to October for selective stalking, mouflon all season, ibex from September to May, roe deer from April to July, with the exact dates fixed each year.

Before you go

This page describes the national texts and the seven regional texts we read as they stood on the date below; the other regions were not checked, and the regional orders change every season. Ask the estate which region’s licence you need and on what papers it is issued to a non-resident, whether the bow rules of that region carry draw-weight or broadhead figures, and whether a federation card is required. Ask for the article. The final check is yours.