Are Stun Guns or Tasers Legal in Spain?

Electric self-defence devices are widely advertised online, which leads many people to assume they occupy a legal grey area. In Spain they do not. Stun guns, tasers and other electric-discharge devices are treated as prohibited weapons, and for a private citizen there is simply no lawful way to own, carry, buy or use one.

How Spanish law classifies electric defence weapons

The Spanish Weapons Regulation (Royal Decree 137/1993), in Article 5.1.j), lists among the prohibited arms "electric defence weapons, rubber or extendable batons, and tonfas or similar devices". This matters because of what it does not say: electric defence weapons do not appear among the regulated weapons of categories 1 to 7 in Article 3 of the Regulation.

The consequence is decisive. Regulated firearms can be legalised with the right licence or permit. Prohibited objects cannot. An electric defence weapon is prohibited in itself, so no authorisation, licence or permit exists that would allow a private individual to hold one legally.

A ban that covers possession, sale and use

Article 5 of the Regulation bars private citizens from the advertising, sale, possession and use of the weapons listed in its first paragraph. The ban is therefore not limited to carrying a device in the street. For a private person, buying one, keeping one at home and using it are all equally prohibited, and importing one does not avoid the ban on possession.

The only exception is for specially authorised officers of the security forces and the bodies on which they depend. Licensed dealers and brokers may supply these devices to those entities, but never to the general public.

A note on terminology: "taser" and "stun gun"

It is worth being precise here. Article 5.1.j) of the Regulation expressly names "electric defence weapons" (defensas eléctricas). It does not name "taser", "stun gun" or "electric-discharge device" one by one, and it does not need to: these devices are electric defence weapons, so the ban reaches them through its own wording. What the Regulation does not settle by itself is whether possessing one is a criminal offence; that depends on the requirements explained below.

The criminal offence: Article 563 CP

Possessing a prohibited weapon may constitute the offence of possession of prohibited weapons. Article 563 CP provides that "the possession of prohibited weapons, and of those resulting from a substantial modification of the manufacturing characteristics of regulated weapons, shall be punished by imprisonment of one to three years".

The typical conduct punished is the possession itself. Use, sale or importation can add further liability on top of that. But not every possession of a prohibited weapon is an offence. In STC 24/2004, a plenary judgment (legal ground 8), the Constitutional Court limited Article 563 CP to cases meeting four requirements: the object must materially be a weapon; its possession must be banned by a statute or by the regulation the statute refers to, not by a ministerial order; it must have a special capacity to cause harm; and the possession must take place in circumstances that make it, in the specific case, especially dangerous for public safety. Where that concrete danger is absent, criminal law does not apply, without prejudice to the administrative sanctioning regime. You can read more about how these cases are defended on our dedicated page for stun guns and electric defence weapons, part of our wider work on illegal weapons possession.

Criminal offence or administrative infringement?

Not every case ends up before a criminal court. Organic Law 4/2015 on the protection of public safety treats carrying, exhibiting or using prohibited weapons as a serious administrative infringement (Article 36.10). The line between the criminal offence of Article 563 CP and an administrative infringement is drawn by the four requirements of STC 24/2004: if they are not met, the response is administrative. The fine may carry, as an accessory penalty, confiscation of the device (Article 39.2), and no infringement in Organic Law 4/2015 refers to merely keeping a prohibited weapon at home: the Act punishes carrying, exhibiting or using it.

One firm rule applies throughout: the non bis in idem principle. The same facts cannot be punished twice, so a person cannot be sanctioned both criminally and administratively for the identical conduct.

Administrative fines

• Serious infringements under Organic Law 4/2015 are punished with fines of 601 to 30,000 euros (Article 39).
• Very serious infringements carry fines of 30,001 to 600,000 euros.

How this compares with other self-defence items

Electric defence weapons sit in the same list of prohibited items as certain batons, which is why the analysis for an extendable baton runs along similar lines. Other self-defence products follow different rules altogether; for example, the position on pepper spray in Spain is not the same, because not every self-defence item is a prohibited weapon. If you are unsure about a specific device, the safest course is to check its exact classification before acquiring it.

If you are facing an investigation

If you have been stopped, reported or investigated in connection with a stun gun, taser or other electric-discharge device, the classification of the object and the circumstances of its possession will shape whether the matter is treated as a criminal offence under Article 563 CP or as an administrative infringement. Those distinctions can make a substantial difference to the outcome.

To discuss your situation with a criminal defence lawyer, call us on 91 078 65 74.