The street permit for a move in Valencia
Valencia has a municipal procedure written specifically for house moves, with its own definition, its own deadline and a compulsory insurance figure. Almost nobody reads it before booking the van.
If the vehicle is 3,500 kg or more, or if a pulley or furniture hoist is needed, the move needs the city’s dedicated authorisation, applied for 15 working days ahead — 30 if the street is pedestrianised. The city requires a dimensioned site sketch and public liability cover of €300,000. Below 3,500 kg with no mechanical lifting, a different procedure applies and the notice period is one month.
Parking a removals lorry on the carriageway is a private use of public space, and Valencia city council authorises it case by case. Everything below is read from the city’s own electronic-office procedure pages, each linked, with the date it was checked. No figure here is our estimate.
1. Do you need a permit?
It depends on the vehicle and on how it is loaded, and the municipal definition is broader than people assume. The procedure page defines a move as the transport within the municipality of Valencia of furniture and household goods, as well as office material, whenever it requires vehicles with a maximum authorised weight of 3,500 kg or more, or, where lower, whenever external mechanical means are needed for loading and unloading— means the page itself limits to pulleys — or where the move involves operations ancillary to the transport.
So a small van can fall inside the procedure if a hoist or pulley is used up the façade, which in a city of narrow stairwells is common. The threshold is not the vehicle weight alone.
2. The two procedures
The electronic office runs two separate procedures, and picking the wrong one costs you the whole notice period.
Either can be applied for by, in the words of the moving procedure page, «cualquier persona, física o jurídica» — any person, natural or legal. You do not have to be the moving company. The person moving can file it, and many companies handle it for the customer. Ask which, in writing, because both parties assuming the other did it is the common failure.
3. How far in advance
For the moves authorisation the page says «cuando sea necesaria con una antelación de 15 días hábiles o 30 si es en calle peatonal». Note días hábiles: working days, not calendar days. Once weekends and Spanish public holidays come out, fifteen working days is the better part of three calendar weeks — and Valencia has local holidays a foreign calendar will not show you. Much of Ciutat Vella and the historic centre is pedestrianised, where the period doubles to 30.
For the occasional-works reservation, the page sets «un mes de antelación sobre la fecha prevista».
4. Documents and insurance
The moves procedure asks for a dimensioned sketch of the occupation — lanes, free carriageway width, the sweep area of the crane jib, and the signage and protective measures to be used — and «cobertura de seguro de responsabilidad civil 300.000 €, o aval sustitutorio: y al solo efecto de los daños que puedan producirse a personas y/o bienes (distintos de la mercancía objeto del traslado) durante las operaciones».
That parenthesis is worth reading twice. The insurance the city requires covers damage to third parties during loading and unloading, and expressly excludes the goods being moved: your furniture. They are two different policies, and the municipal permit only evidences the first. A company holding a valid permit tells you nothing about whether your possessions are insured — ask separately, and get the limit in writing.
Asking in writing what the insurance covers, and up to what amount, is one of the four checks in the hiring guide — which also covers reading a Spanish legal notice and checking the transport authorisation. See the guide →
5. The fee
The moves authorisation page publishes no amount. It refers to the fiscal ordinance and says the assessment is collected and paid «antes de retirar la autorización municipal, cuando se le comunique por el Servicio Circulación y Transportes»— after the permit is granted, not when you apply.
The occasional-occupation tariff is published, on the page of a different procedure governed by the same ordinance: «reserva de espacio o prohibición de estacionamiento por necesidades ocasionales, por cada metro lineal o fracción a partir de 50 centímetros en cualquier zona, por día: 1,85 euros. Se aplicará un recargo del 50 por ciento a los metros lineales de aprovechamiento que se excedan de cuatro»— €1.85 per linear metre per day, with a 50% surcharge on metres beyond four.
We cite it where we read it. That figure sits on the page for commercial loading-bay reservations, not on the moves page, and both refer to the same fee ordinance. Confirm the amount for your own case against the assessment the council notifies you — that is the document that governs.
6. The municipal register of movers
One detail that is barely cited outside the page itself: there is a municipal register of removal companies. In its words, «como excepción a lo dispuesto con carácter general las empresas interesadas podrán inscribirse en el Registro Municipal de Empresas de Mudanzas, según lo regulado en la Ordenanza de Circulación».
Registration is voluntary — the page says podrán, “may” — so not being on it means nothing against a company, and the page does not publish the list of those registered. We record it because it is a municipal check that appears in none of the sector’s own guides, and because it is the kind of thing a customer can ask a company directly.