FAQs Interest Groups

A group of interest is considered natural and legal persons and groups without legal personality, including platforms, forums, networks or other forms of collective activity, whether acting on their own behalf or on behalf of others, regardless of the form they adopt or their legal status, and which carry out activities of influence on the personnel and/or public office subject to the application of Royal Decree-Law 21/2026, of 25 August, on transparency and integrity of the activities of groups of interest.

They do not have the consideration of a group of interest:

• Public administrations and the entities and bodies of their institutional public sector.

• International public bodies and organizations and foreign public authorities, including diplomatic missions and embassies, except where such authorities are represented by legal entities, offices or networks without diplomatic status, or by an intermediary.

• The political parties, federations, coalitions and groups of electors regulated in Organic Law 6/2002, of June 27, on Political Parties, without prejudice to the fact that entities created or financed by them may be considered as a group of interest.

• Professional associations and other public law corporations when performing public functions, without prejudice to the fact that they may be considered a group of interest when they do not perform this type of functions.

Influence activity is any direct or indirect communication of a group of interest with the personnel and/or public office susceptible of influence, carried out by any means or channel, with the purpose of influencing public decision-making, in the design or application of public policies, or in the elaboration, modification or approval of normative projects, for the benefit of own or third party interests.

• It is understood by direct communication any contact maintained by the interest group, by itself or through a representative, with the personnel and/or public office, carried out through any means with the purpose of influencing it.

• Indirect communication means any contact with the staff and/or public office through the use of intermediary persons, made for the purpose of influencing.

In particular, they are activities of influence, among others, those carried out by the interest groups consisting of:

a) Organize, for the purpose of exerting influence, meetings, conferences, training courses or other events attended as a guest or speaker by the staff and/or public office.

b) Propose the development of consultations, hearings or other similar public initiatives.

c) Organizing communication campaigns, platforms, networks and similar initiatives aimed at personnel and/or public office for the purpose of exerting influence.

(d) Making available to staff and/or public officials documents relating to public initiatives and position papers and amendments, as well as other materials relating to such initiatives.

e) The use of third parties to transmit positions of a group of interest to the staff and/or public office, including the financing of associations, Think Tanks or other entities to influence public or regulatory debate.

They are not considered activities of influence:

(a) Activities carried out by private entities performing public functions or providing public services, when these functions are legally attributed to them.

b) Intervention in public participation procedures provided for in legal or regulatory rules.

c) Participation in collegiate consultation and participation bodies regulated by legal or regulatory standards.

(d) Activities relating to the provision of legal or professional advice directly linked to the defence of interests affected by administrative proceedings.

(e) Conciliation, mediation and arbitration activities carried out within the framework of its specific implementing regulations.

(f) Activities carried out in the exercise of a constitutionally guaranteed right such as the right to demonstrate or the rights of assembly and petition.

(g) Merely protocol acts.

h) The provision of documentation, formulation of allegations, presentation of means of defense or any other action carried out as a person interested in the administrative procedure, in the terms in which it is defined in article 4.1 of Law 39/2015, of 1 October, of the Common Administrative Procedure of Public Administrations.

The Registry regulated in Royal Decree-Law 21/2026 is the Register of Interest Groups of the General Administration of the State and its institutional public sector. It is configured as a Fully electronic registration.

The Register of Interest Groups is attached to the Council of Transparency and Good Governance, responsible for governance and management of the same. The relevant monitoring and control powers are also vested in the Council.

Yes, registration in the Register of Interest Groups at the state level is mandatory and must be prior to the exercise of influence.

No. No. The registration is public and free.