The law behind the farm notebook in Spain, without the small print
Updated: September 2026
Four sets of rules govern the Spanish farm notebook, and they get mixed up constantly, including by people selling software. Here they are separated, with what each one forces you to do and from when. Every date below comes from the BOE, the Spanish official gazette, or from the Official Journal of the European Union. If you farm land in Spain from abroad, all of it applies to you in full.
1. The farm notebook itself: RD 1054/2022
Real Decreto 1054/2022, of 27 December, creates SIEX, the national farm information system, REA, the regional register of holdings, and the cuaderno digital de explotación agrícola, the digital farm notebook, known as CUE. Two points in it matter more than the rest:
- The holder of the farm answers for the truth of what is recorded. Not the software, not the adviser, not the contractor who did the spraying.
- Any software is valid as long as it covers the minimum content of Annex II. There is no compulsory official programme, and anyone who tells you otherwise is selling you something.
Real Decreto 34/2025 amended it to leave the digital notebook voluntary in its regional CUE form. Do not jump to the easy conclusion. The CUE being voluntary does not remove the European obligation to record treatments, which is the rule that follows.
2. Plant protection treatments: Regulation (EU) 2023/564
This is the one with teeth. It requires records of plant protection product use to be kept electronically and in machine-readable form, and it sets out what every entry must contain: the product registration number, the crop with its EPPO code, and the plot identified.
- From 1 January 2026 those new fields are required.
- From 1 January 2027 the record has to be electronic. Paper stops counting for treatments. The original date was earlier and was pushed back by Regulation (EU) 2025/2203.
- Entries must reach the electronic record without undue delay and, at the latest, within thirty days.
In Spain this is put into practice by Real Decreto 1039/2025, which sets the electronic treatment record from 1 January 2027.
3. The fertilisation plan: RD 1051/2022
A separate rule, endlessly confused with the one above because the number looks alike. Real Decreto 1051/2022 governs sustainable nutrition of agricultural soils. It requires every nutrient application to be written into the fertilisation section of the notebook and, in many cases, a plan de abonado (fertilisation plan) prepared in advance.
Real Decreto 934/2025 reset its deadlines: the plan de abonado is required from 1 January 2026 on irrigated land sown or planted between March and June, and from 1 September 2026 for everything else.
4. What your comunidad autónoma asks for
The notebook is filed with the register of your region, and each region has its own platform, its own calendar and its own way of approving the commercial programmes that send it data. That is why the same app can be fully connected in one region and still going through approval in the one next door. Check where yours stands in our region-by-region guides (pages in Spanish).
What this means in practice
- If you use plant protection products, a paper notebook stops working in 2027 for that part of the record.
- Writing it up on the day is no longer just good advice. There is a hard thirty-day limit.
- Every entry needs the product registration number, the crop and the recinto. Miss one and the record is incomplete.
- You can use whichever programme you like, as long as it covers the minimum content.
- Hiring a contractor does not move the responsibility. The holder signs for it.
If you own land in Spain but live elsewhere
Nothing above softens because you are not resident. The practical consequence is that someone has to record the work within thirty days of it happening, in Spanish administrative format, with the SIGPAC recinto attached. If a contractor or a local manager works your land, agree who writes the entry and when, before the season starts, not after an inspection letter arrives.
Agro GPS records each job in that format from day one, checks the product against the Ministry official register before you apply it, and works out the plazo de seguridad (pre-harvest interval) that has to pass before you can harvest.