Where you cannot photograph in Spain, and what it costs where you can

Photography rules in Spain are set per site rather than nationally, and the two most-requested locations in the country both say no. This article exists so that nobody plans a morning around a building they will be turned away from.

The flat noes

The Alhambra, Granada. Visiting with a camera is fine. A photographer working with you inside the Nasrid Palaces is not, tripods are prohibited, the visit runs on a timed one-way route and the staff stop a session immediately. Everything people believe is an Alhambra wedding photograph was taken from the Albaicín or on the hill outside the walls — both open, free and better. (The Generalife gardens sit inside the ticketed monument.)

The Real Alcázar, Seville. The same position, applied the same way. There is a commercial permit, it runs into four figures, and it is granted for productions rather than for portraits. The Casa de Pilatos and the Palacio de las Dueñas are more approachable and considerably less photographed.

Park Güell monumental zone, Barcelona. The mosaic bench and the dragon sit inside the ticketed area, which prohibits professional and commercial shoots outright. The free zone above it — the colonnaded viaducts, the palm terraces, the Turó de les Tres Creus — is Gaudí's park proper, is empty at seven in the morning, and needs nothing from anyone.

Sagrada Família interior. No organised sessions. From the Plaça de Gaudí outside, the whole basilica fits in one frame with its reflection in the pond, and before eight the park is empty.

The ones that need paperwork

Teide National Park, Tenerife. Free to enter and to photograph as a visitor. A commercial or professional shoot needs written authorisation from the park, applied for weeks ahead. For a portrait session none of that arises: the Roques de García do everything the summit does.

Caminito del Rey, Málaga. About €10, timed entry, one-way walkway, no tripods, and a queue behind you the whole way. Worth it for one photograph nobody else has; not worth it for a session that has to produce forty.

Cap de Formentor, Mallorca. No permit, but from June to September the road is closed to private cars from mid-morning. That makes it, in practice, a sunrise location.

San Juan de Gaztelugatxe, Bizkaia. Free, capacity-limited, compulsory advance booking. The 241 steps are the real price.

Where the law is on your side

Article 35.2 of the Ley de Propiedad Intelectual says that works permanently sited in streets, parks and public squares may be freely photographed, distributed and published. That is unusually generous by European standards, and it is why the exterior of the Sagrada Família, La Pedrera, Casa Batlló and the Guggenheim can be photographed from the pavement without asking anyone — including for commercial use.

What it does not cover is interiors, which are a matter for whoever runs the building.

What a permit actually means in a Spanish city

The line the police actually apply in the street is whether you are in anybody's way. A camera on a strap, anywhere, always. A tripod, a light on a stand or an assistant holding a reflector reads as a production, and that is what the municipal permits exist for.

In Barcelona that is the Barcelona Film Commission; in Madrid, the Ayuntamiento, about ten working days and routinely granted; in Seville, a municipal permit that is genuinely checked at the Plaza de España and almost nowhere else. For a portrait, a couple or a family session done handheld, none of it arises.

The rule of thumb

If it has a ticket office, assume no and ask. If it is a street, a square or a park, assume yes. If someone promises you the inside of a monument, ask them to show you the authorisation — because the alternative is that they are planning to pretend to be a tourist, and that is a session that ends with a security guard rather than with photographs.