Reception desk or not, the obligation in Spain is identical: every guest generates a report that has to be filed within 24 hours under Spain’s guest registration rules. What differs is where it hurts.
A hotel has a front desk, so online check-in earns its keep for other reasons: clearing the queue on arrival, spreading the load of afternoon check-ins and, above all, not retyping data a receptionist already collected once. A holiday rental has no desk at all: the check-in app is the only moment your guest hands over their data and signs. Choosing this piece badly costs you the same either way, in rejected reports, guests confused at eleven at night and, in the worst case, fines.
This is the comparison we would have wanted to find: prices exactly as published on each provider’s site (checked July 2026), real registry coverage and the fine print. RegistroViajero is on the list, so consider yourself warned: we are an interested party. The data runs equally straight for everyone.
The table first
| App | Published price | Registries covered | Fine print |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chekin | Annual billing: 3.95 EUR/property/month (Basic), 5.95 (Premium), 7.95 (Enterprise). Monthly billing: 4.95 / 7.45 / 9.95 EUR | SES, with Mossos and Ertzaintza support by location | Annual billing accepts a single property; monthly billing requires a 3-unit minimum; identity verification is a premium feature; transaction fees (deposits 1.5% + 0.30 EUR, upsells 1%) |
| Check-in Scan | 6.95 / 8.95 / 13.95 EUR/property/month (annual: 66.95 / 83.95 / 125.95 EUR/yr), VAT not included | SES, Mossos and Ertzaintza; Turespazo from the Plus plan | One-year lock-in; monthly billing only from 10 units; PMS/iCal from the mid plan; 14-day trial |
| HolaHuésped | 5 EUR + VAT/apartment/month; 15-day trial | SES.HOSPEDAJES only | No Mossos or Ertzaintza; no document scanning |
| Civitfun | Not published (demo only) | SES.HOSPEDAJES, Mossos d’Esquadra and Ertzaintza, documented in its help centre | Hotel-first focus; prices unpublished |
| Partee | “From 1.69 EUR/month” (calculator by property type and capacity); first month free | SES, Mossos and Ertzaintza | Real price depends on the calculator; document reading as the core feature |
| RegistroViajero | 5 EUR/active property/month; 15-day trial without a card | SES.HOSPEDAJES (Mossos and Ertzaintza in development) | No minimum number of properties; no document scanning, by design |
Prices are those published by each provider in July 2026 and can change; some require annual payment for the advertised figure.
Reading the table for your case
If you manage 1 or 2 properties in Spain, read the minimums before the unit price, because they are tied to how you pay. Chekin lets you contract a single property if you pay for the year up front, but its monthly plan asks for 3 units. Check-in Scan’s monthly plan starts at 10 properties. HolaHuésped, Partee and RegistroViajero set no minimum either way. With one or two dwellings everything fits except Check-in Scan’s monthly plan, so the real question is whether paying twelve months up front suits you.
If you operate in Catalonia or the Basque Country, coverage decides: you need submission to the Mossos or the Ertzaintza, not to SES. Today that means Check-in Scan, Partee, Chekin or Civitfun. Not us yet: our integration with the regional systems is in development, and you would rather know that before contracting than after.
If lock-ins worry you, read them before the features: Check-in Scan publishes a one-year commitment. The rest of the list, RegistroViajero included, runs month to month.
If your volume comes from Booking and Airbnb, check from which plan the calendar connects: in Check-in Scan, iCal arrives with the mid plan; in RegistroViajero, iCal import is always included.
What changes if you run a hotel
Much of the software in this category grew up serving apartments, and it shows. If you have a front desk and a PMS, there are three questions an apartment manager never asks and you should:
Does it integrate with your PMS? This is the one that decides. If online check-in doesn’t feed the PMS, you’ve swapped typing into SES.HOSPEDAJES for typing somewhere else. Of this list, Civitfun is the one that presents itself as hotel-focused, and it documents submission to SES.HOSPEDAJES, the Mossos and the Ertzaintza in its help centre, though it publishes no prices, so that means asking for a demo. With the others, PMS connections tend to sit in the upper plans: confirm it with the provider for your specific PMS before signing.
How many reports come out of a single booking? In an apartment, a booking is usually a small group. In a hotel handling groups, coach parties or conferences, the bottleneck isn’t the guest form but batch submission and how rejections get handled. Ask how you retry a batch with three bad reports out of eighty.
Who fills in the form, the guest or reception? Nearly all the software here assumes the former. If your real workflow is reception scanning and typing, what you need looks more like a document reader wired into the PMS than a remote check-in app.
What doesn’t change between a hotel and an apartment is the law: RD 933/2021 draws no distinction by establishment type. Same fields, same 24-hour deadline, same penalties.
The document scanner: the star feature you may not need
Much of this category’s marketing revolves around ID scanning: MRZ OCR, biometric matching, verification selfies. Before paying for it, two considerations:
- It is not a legal requirement in Spain. Royal Decree 933/2021 asks you to collect and report the Annex I data, not images of the document. The data protection agency in fact expressly forbids keeping copies of guests’ IDs and accepts remote check-in with alternative verifications (payment data, codes to the guest’s phone or email).
- Scanning does not fill everything. The fields that kill most reports (support number, second surname, relationship to minors) still need review. The scanner saves typing; it does not replace validation.
Our position, and the reason we do not offer one: the guest fills in their own data in their own language (RegistroViajero’s check-in works in 9), the system validates the Annex I fields against SES rules before sending, and no image of the document is ever stored. Less friction for the guest and no photocopy archive to guard. Anyone preferring the scanner flow has good options in the table; it is a difference of philosophy, not of compliance.
And after check-in, what?
That is the question separating a check-in app from a complete compliance solution. Check-in collects the data; the legal job ends when the report is accepted by SES.HOSPEDAJES (or Mossos/Ertzaintza) within the deadline, with its receipt kept for three years, and with the booking communication sent within its own deadline. When comparing, ask each provider about the full cycle: booking reported, report submitted, response verified, errors retried. Pretty data collection is the easy part.
If you want to see how we solve that full cycle, here is the walkthrough, and the 15-day trial asks for no card.
Frequently asked questions
How does online check-in work at a Spanish holiday rental? Before arrival, the guest gets a link, fills in the data Royal Decree 933/2021 requires and signs. At the start of the stay, the lodging reports that data to the competent authority (SES.HOSPEDAJES in most of Spain). The apps in this comparison automate that circuit.
Is offering online check-in mandatory in Spain? No. What is mandatory is collecting the data, verifying identity and reporting on time. Online check-in is how you do that without being present, which in rentals without reception makes it nearly indispensable.
Do I need an app with an ID scanner? Not as a legal requirement: the rule asks for data, not images, and the AEPD forbids keeping document copies. The scanner is a workflow preference.
Which apps cover Catalonia and the Basque Country? From this list, Check-in Scan, Partee, Chekin and Civitfun declare submission to the Mossos and the Ertzaintza. RegistroViajero and HolaHuésped cover SES.HOSPEDAJES; our regional integration is in development.
Why do “from” prices never match what I end up paying? Because they are usually the cheapest annual plan, without the features you wanted (verification, iCal, PMS) or with unit minimums. Always price your real number of properties, monthly billing, and the features you will actually use.
Does the same check-in software work for a hotel and an apartment in Spain? Legally, yes: RD 933/2021 asks for the same data and the same deadline in both. What differs is the operational fit. A hotel needs check-in to feed its PMS and batch submissions to be retryable; an apartment needs the guest to manage alone from a phone. Almost all the software on this list is built for the second case.
Is there a free check-in app? Entirely free and filing to SES.HOSPEDAJES, none that we know of. What does exist are trial periods (15 days at HolaHuésped and at RegistroViajero, 14 at Check-in Scan) and free first months, like Partee’s. If you want permanently zero cost, the real alternative is the Ministry portal by hand, with our guest report template to collect the data.
Sources and disclaimer
Prices and conditions taken from each provider’s public pages (chekin.com/precio/, app.checkinscan.com, holahuesped.com, civitfun.com and its help centre academy.civitfun.com, partee.es) and re-verified on 31 July 2026. They can change at any time: check each site before deciding. RegistroViajero is the product of this blog’s authors; we have flagged our own limitations by the same standard as everyone else’s.
