How to collect
your gym’s membership fees

1. SEPA direct debit, step by step

• Ask your bank for your creditor identifier. It’s the code your bank assigns you to issue direct debits, and it goes on every mandate. Your bank gives it to you when you sign up for its direct debit service (Spanish Banking Association).
• Each member signs a direct debit mandate. It carries a unique reference, your details as creditor, the member’s details, their IBAN, whether the payment is recurring, the date and the signature, and it informs them of their right to reverse the charge within eight weeks (AEB). The SEPA rules allow it to be signed online if the signature is legally binding (EPC rules, 4.1), but some banks ask for paper: check with yours.
• Give notice of the charge. By default, at least 14 calendar days before, unless you have agreed on a different period (EPC, 4.3). The practical thing is to put it in writing at sign-up: «the fee is charged on the 1st of every month».
• Keep the signed mandate. While you use it and, after the member leaves, at least for as long as they can claim an unauthorized payment (EPC). Business records, six years (Spanish Commercial Code, art. 30).
• If 36 months go by without charging a member anything, the mandate expires and you need a new one (EPC, 4.1). It happens with members who come back years later.

2. Reversed direct debits

• Eight weeks, no reason needed. The member can ask their bank to refund a direct debit for eight weeks from the charge, and as a rule the bank cannot refuse (Spanish Royal Decree-law 19/2018, arts. 48 and 49; what the member has agreed with their bank may change the refund, art. 48.4). This right belongs to the SEPA Core scheme, the one for individuals: in the B2B scheme, only for companies and the self-employed, that refund does not exist (EPC, annex V). If the payment was not authorized, the period is thirteen months (art. 43).
• A refund doesn’t erase the debt. Reversing the charge does not free the member from their debt to the gym (EPC): you can claim it another way. And reversing direct debits is not the same as cancelling(Consumo Responde, Spanish consumer information service).
• The cost of the return. What your bank charges you depends on your contract with it. Passing it on to the member has no clear official criterion: Spanish law considers surcharges that are not clearly stated, and disproportionate penalties, to be unfair (consolidated text of the Spanish consumer protection law (Royal Legislative Decree 1/2007), arts. 85.6 and 89.5). The prudent thing, if you do it, is for it to be the real cost and to be written in the contract. Check with your adviser.
• Look at who reverses. Often the person who reverses a direct debit is someone who wants to leave and hasn’t said so. Calling them in time can do more than claiming the fee.

3. Cards

• The first charge, with verification. When a card is saved remotely, strong customer authentication (the bank’s code) is required. Later charges the gym initiates under that authorization are outside that requirement (European Banking Authority; RDL 19/2018, art. 68).
• Refunds. An unauthorized charge can be claimed for thirteen months (art. 43). Disputes over a service not provided also follow the rules of each card network.
• What to watch: cards expire and get renewed, and a charge that fails because of that is an unpaid fee without the member having done anything.

4. Cash, bank transfer and Bizum

• Cash, under €1,000. In Spain you cannot pay €1,000 or more in cash when either party is a business or a professional, and split payments are added together. The fine is 25% of the amount paid in cash, with the reductions the article itself provides (Law 7/2012, art. 7). Watch out with annual fees.
• Instant transfers, at the price of a normal one. Since 2025, banks in the euro area must offer them and cannot charge more than for a normal transfer (European Commission).
• Bizum. Spain’s mobile payment system has payments for businesses, which you set up through your bank; ask yours about recurring payments. Since February 2026, banks report to the Spanish Tax Agency what businesses receive through Bizum (Spanish Tax Agency).

5. Cancellations, minimum terms and fee increases

• Cancelling the same way as signing up. If the member signed up online, you cannot require them to come in person: the consumer can end the contract «in the same way in which it was entered into» (art. 62.3), and imposing steps different from those of the sign-up is unfair (art. 87.6).
• Minimum terms, reasonable ones. Excessive durations are prohibited, and the penalty for leaving early has to be in the contract and be proportionate (art. 62).
• Raise the fee only if the contract allows it. Unilateral increases without a reason set out in the contract, and without letting the member leave, are unfair (art. 85). According to OCU, the Spanish consumers’ organization, you must give notice in advance and in a way that leaves a record, and the member can cancel at no cost (OCU).

6. Your members’ bank details

The IBAN is processed because it’s needed to perform the contract. When the member leaves, that data is blocked and kept only for as long as it may be needed for a claim (Spanish Data Protection Act (LOPDGDD), art. 32); in Spain, unpaid fees become time-barred after five years (Spanish Civil Code, art. 1966).

Frequently asked questions