The Government activates the Auto+ Plan: up to 4,500 euros to buy an electric car and another 1,000 in discount.

The Auto+ Plan is already designed and has political and budgetary backing, but as of July 21, 2026, it is still not fully operational because key regulatory steps are missing: the approval and publication in the BOE of the Royal Decree that structures the aid and, above all, the official call that opens the application registration. There is no official opening date yet; the Ministry of Industry talks about a program in preparation and the sector notes the delay, despite purchases being retroactive from January 1, 2026. The forecasts that pointed to the end of May, June, or early July have not been met and, today, the window remains closed.

Regulatory situation of the Auto+ Plan

The Auto+ Plan is part of the Spain Auto 2030 Plan, presented by the Government and the automotive employers' association as a roadmap for the electrification of the sector. According to the newspaper Demócrata, the Auto+ program replaces Moves III, has an initial allocation of 400 million euros for 2026, and is conceived as a direct aid scheme for the purchase of electric vehicles, managed centrally by the General State Administration, and not by the autonomous communities, to speed up the processing and payment of subsidies (keys to the Auto 2030 Plan, numbers of the Auto+ Plan).

In 2026, Demócrata details that the Auto+ Program foresees aid of up to 4,500 euros per electric passenger car, to which a minimum discount of 1,000 euros by the dealer will be added, so that the total incentive can reach 5,500 euros (amounts and requirements). Another article from the same media emphasizes that the program is retroactive from January 1, 2026: those who have acquired a vehicle that meets the requirements from that date will be able to apply for the aid when the call is formally opened (how the Auto+ Program works, article about the BOE and Auto 2030 Plan).

On the regulatory level, the Ministry of Industry and Tourism submitted for public consultation the Draft Royal Decree regulating the direct granting of aid for the purchase of electric and electrified vehicles (Auto+ Program), with a period for comments from March 31 to April 14, 2026, according to the Energy Sector Agenda and several installments of Demócrata's “I Want to Influence” series (February 17 edition, February 24, March 3). This regulation must establish the direct granting regime, the regulatory bases, and the aid management scheme.

A summary from economic and specialized press also indicates that the program is supported by a Royal Decree-law 7/2026, which mobilizes 400 million euros for Auto+ within a broader package, and that the Council of Ministers would have formally approved the plan, unlocking those funds, although the call has not yet been published in the BOE nor the application portal launched (carwow, ABC Motor, La Tribuna de Automoción, Motorpasion, Electromovilidad24, guide on Spain Auto 2030 Plan, LugEnergy, video 1, video 2, official presentation of Spain Auto 2030).

Next legislative/regulatory steps

With the available information, the pending steps for the full operational entry into force of the Auto+ Plan are:

• Final approval and publication in the BOE of the Royal Decree of the Auto+ Program, which closes the public consultation phase and sets bindingly the regulatory bases: beneficiaries, requirements, documentation, price limits, aid intensity, etc.
• Publication of the call, presumably by order or resolution of the Ministry of Industry, specifying the opening and closing dates, the effective budget for the year, and the operation of the processing system.
• Launch of the telematic management system, which will be the single platform to submit applications and which, according to sector reports, is being developed centrally (IDAE is mentioned as the technical-administrative manager in several specialized guides).
• Possible parliamentary ratification of the base Royal Decree-law, in case the RDL supporting the program is still pending ratification in Congress; this procedure does not prevent the opening of the window but is part of the full regulatory cycle.

Deadlines for the opening of the call

Neither the BOE nor the official website of the Ministry of Industry yet include the call for the Auto+ Plan. Demócrata emphasizes that, on July 3 and 17, the Ministry is “finalizing the opening of the official call” and that “the aid can only be processed when the corresponding call is published; the official page of the Ministry of Industry still conditions access to that publication” (Auto+ Program, 2026 aids).

Before summer, some media and the sector itself placed the opening between late May and June or, at the latest, early July, but those forecasts have not been met. The employers' associations Faconauto and ANFAC insist on the need to “immediately start” the application registration and emphasize that the plan “still lacks an application opening date, despite being in force since January,” which creates uncertainty for the buyer (Faconauto note, ANFAC report).

Consequently, as of today, there is no new official date for the opening of the call: everything depends on the Government completing the approval of the Royal Decree of the program and publishing the specific call in the BOE. Until then, electric vehicle purchases made since January 1, 2026, can accumulate, but applications cannot be formally registered.

The Minister of Industry and Tourism, Jordi Hereu, leads the department responsible for the Government's policy on industry and tourism, including industrial strategy, support for SMEs, industrial property, and tourism policy. His competencies are exercised through a structure with two Secretariats of State (Industry and Tourism) and a Undersecretariat, defined by Royal Decree 409/2024. Regarding his profile, Hereu is a social-democratic leader of the PSC, former mayor of Barcelona, and former president of Hispasat, with training in Business Administration and an MBA from ESADE, and a strong link with the Catalan business and logistics fabric, according to the official biography from La Moncloa and various public profiles such as Moncloa and Wikipedia.

Competencies of the Ministry of Industry and Tourism and the minister

The department's mission is described in Order ITU/1176/2025, which refers to Royal Decree 409/2024: the Ministry of Industry and Tourism is the body responsible for proposing and executing the Government's policy on industry and tourism, covering, among other aspects, industrial strategy and development, entrepreneurship and small and medium enterprises, promotion and defense of industrial property, and tourism policy, as well as other competencies attributed by the legal system. This definition can be consulted in the BOE in the Order ITU/1176/2025.

The ministry's own note on its structure details that the department is organized into three main parts, of which the minister is the highest political authority and ultimate responsible:

• Secretariat of State for Industry (SEI): groups functions related to industry, industrial development and transformation, entrepreneurship, and SMEs. It oversees the Directorate General of Industrial Strategy and SMEs and the Directorate General of Industrial Programs, as well as the commissioners of the Agro-food PERTE and Industrial Decarbonization and entities such as EOI, CEM, SEPIDES, ENISA, or CERSA. It also manages funds such as FERGEI and FAIIP, according to the official note on the ministry's structure, available on the department's website (structure note).
• Secretariat of State for Tourism (SETUR): responsible for defining, coordinating, and executing the State's tourism policies, international tourism relations, and tourism cooperation, in coordination with Foreign Affairs. It is also responsible for normative proposals in its scope and, through Turespaña, the external promotion of tourism. It oversees the Directorate General of Tourism Policies and has Turespaña, FOCIT, Paradores, and SEGITTUR attached.
• Undersecretariat: assumes the ordinary representation of the Ministry, coordination of matters going to the Council of Ministers, internal normative power, and direction and coordination of common services, including the Technical General Secretariat and the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office (OEPM).

In recent political practice, information collected by the newspaper Demócrata shows that, under Hereu's leadership, the ministry is focusing on:

• Promoting a new Industry Law aimed at productivity, innovation, and talent, updating the 1992 law, as explained in Demócrata's analysis of his call to parties to approve “the industry law Spain deserves” (Demócrata information).
• Strengthening industrial governance through the High-Level Forum and a permanent Industrial Dialogue Committee, expanding the participation of companies and social agents in the design and monitoring of industrial policy (news in Demócrata).
• Managing aid programs for industry and decarbonization (for example, extending CO₂ aid to more than 20 industrial branches, covered in this piece) and its role in the Industrial and Technological Security and Defense Plan, for which the Government has transferred 1.399 million to the Ministry of Industry and Tourism (article on the Defense Plan).
• Coordinating programs such as the Profarma Plan to strengthen the pharmaceutical industry, as reported in Demócrata (Profarma event report) and in the government press release about the plan (Profarma Plan).
• Defining the long-term tourism strategy, including the Sustainable Tourism Strategy Spain 2030, in which Hereu chairs the Interministerial Tourism Commission to reorient the model towards sustainability, as Demócrata reports in this information.

All the above is integrated into the general competence of the minister as head of the department: directing the political and institutional action of the Ministry, representing Spain before other governments and international organizations in industrial and tourism matters (for example, at the Three Seas Summit, according to the La Moncloa note on the Three Seas Summit), and proposing to the Council of Ministers the normative and expenditure projects within his scope.

Professional and political background of Jordi Hereu

According to his official biography at La Moncloa (institutional profile) and profiles collected by various media, Jordi Hereu Boher (Barcelona, 1965) holds a degree in Business Administration and an MBA from ESADE. He began his career in the logistics sector (Port 2000, CILSA), linked to the Port of Barcelona.

In local politics, his career is almost entirely articulated around the PSC and the Barcelona City Council: manager and councilor of the Les Corts district, councilor for Security and Mobility, and finally mayor of Barcelona between 2006 and 2011, where he promoted proximity policies and urban mobility projects. Organically, he has held responsibilities in the Barcelona Federation of the PSC and is a member of the PSOE Federal Committee, according to the biographical summary from Wikipedia and other profiles such as RTVE or eldiario.es.

After leaving the mayoralty, he moved to the private sector, founding consultancies focused on the internationalization of SMEs and urban projects, and later was appointed president of Hispasat in 2020, a position from which he strengthened his profile in the technological and infrastructure field, as reported by media such as Cadena SER. In November 2023, he returned to the national political frontline as Minister of Industry and Tourism in Pedro Sánchez's Government, representing the PSC in the Council of Ministers.

In recent months, Demócrata's reports present him as a minister focused on reindustrialization, strategic autonomy, and the transformation of the tourism model, combining an industrial agenda (Industry Law, CO₂ aid, governance of the High-Level Forum) with a global leadership tourism agenda (Tourism Strategy 2030, strengthening Spain's position in international tourism governance), as seen in articles like this on European industry or the analysis of his role in 21st-century tourism policy (reference in Demócrata).

The Auto+ Program is conceived as the new state aid for the purchase of electrified vehicles within the Auto 2030 Plan. According to information advanced by the Ministry of Industry and collected by the newspaper Demócrata in this article and in this guide on amounts and requirements, beneficiaries may be individuals, self-employed workers, and companies, provided they acquire vehicles with the ZERO environmental label and respect certain price and vehicle number limits. Management will be centralized by the State and, although the final call must still set the fine details, the experience of previous programs (MOVES III or Reinicia Auto+) allows anticipating quite well the type of legal requirements and documentation demanded.

Who can be a beneficiary and basic conditions

According to official information from the Ministry of Industry about the Auto+ Program (program page) and Demócrata's analysis, potential beneficiaries are:

• Individuals of legal age, residents in Spain.
• Self-employed workers registered in the Census of Entrepreneurs, Professionals, and Withholders of the Tax Agency.
• Companies and other entities with a Spanish CIF and legal personality (SMEs and, in general, commercial companies).

The aid limits per applicant, according to Demócrata's piece on 2026 aids, are:

• Individuals: up to 1 subsidized vehicle.
• Self-employed: up to 3 vehicles.
• Companies: up to 10 vehicles.

The vehicle must have the ZERO label from the DGT (pure electric, plug-in hybrid, extended range electric, or fuel cell), not exceed, in the case of passenger cars, 45,000 euros before taxes, and be new or, if applicable, a vehicle registered new in Spain from January 1, 2025, and sold by an official dealer or point of sale, according to the technical explanation published in Demócrata. Purchases from January 1, 2026, may be retroactively eligible.

Other sector sources such as RACE, Endesa, or Volkswagen agree that self-employed and companies will need to be up to date with tax and Social Security obligations and, presumably, keep the vehicle for a minimum number of years (in many analogous programs, the commitment period ranges between 2 and 3 years; in the case of Reinicia Auto+ it is 3 years, according to the La Moncloa note on the dealer platform: note on Reinicia Auto+).

Typical documentation required

The final Auto+ call has not yet been published, so the exact list of documents could vary. However, combining what Industry has advanced and what is required in very similar programs (MOVES III or Reinicia Auto+), a standard set of documents can be anticipated:

Beneficiary documentation

• Identity: DNI or NIE of the individual; deed of incorporation and CIF in case of a company.
• Proof of economic activity: for self-employed and companies, proof of registration in the Tax Agency's Census of Entrepreneurs (referred to by the Ministry and summaries such as 20minutos).
• Being up to date with the Tax Agency and Social Security: positive certificates from the AEAT and the General Treasury of Social Security, as occurs in MOVES III, described in this guide.
• Bank account for the aid payment: certificate of bank ownership.
• In companies, power of representation or certificate from the Mercantile Registry of the signatory.

Vehicle and transaction documentation

Although the philosophy of Auto+ is to simplify procedures through processing via the dealer (a model already applied in the Reinicia Auto+ Plan, according to Ministry of Industry notes: Reinicia Auto+ approval and dealer adhesion), usually the following is required:

• Vehicle purchase invoice, showing the mandatory dealer discount linked to the plan.
• Proof of payment of the invoice (transfer, financing, etc.).
• Technical sheet and circulation permit or provisional DGT proof, once the vehicle is registered.
• Proof of the ZERO environmental label and the final price before taxes, to verify compliance with the 45,000-euro limit for passenger cars.
• In case of programs linked to total loss (Reinicia Auto+), documentation of the total loss and file before the insurer or Insurance Compensation Consortium, as detailed on the Recovery Plan portal in this fact sheet.

In all cases, processing will be done through the affiliated dealer, who will act as representative, electronically submitting the application and documentation on behalf of the buyer, a scheme already used in Reinicia Auto+ and other state programs (see also the dealer adhesion note in this reference). With the publication of the regulatory bases in the BOE and the specific Auto+ call, the requirements and the closed list of documents will be set bindingly.

To complete the regulatory context on aid for electric mobility and fleets, among others, the Order of the MOVES Flotas Plus Program published in the BOE (Order TED/1478/2025) or the regulation that governed MOVES II (Royal Decree 569/2020) can be consulted, as well as explanatory articles in Eldiario.es or regional notes such as those from the Catalan Government on MOVES III 2025 (Generalitat note), which follow a very similar documentary pattern.