Spain's Public Subsidy Search: DNI, CIF, and Millions in Aid
Spain's public grants portal allows searches by DNI or CIF, revealing beneficiaries and amounts. Mass queries crashed the site, sparking a transparency debate.
English · Original discussion in Spanish · Published
A DNI in the search bar reveals every subsidy received
An uncommon surname, a keystroke, and a six-digit figure. The Portal of Aid and Subsidies from the Ministry of Finance returns beneficiaries and amounts to anyone who enters a name, DNI, or CIF in its search bar, and the query has become the year's most uncomfortable pastime. Among the first shared searches, one by the surname Rocasolano yielded a beneficiary with 350,000 euros and a CIF linked to Newtral Media Audiovisual. The data does not come from a leak: it is in the public database the State maintains to comply with transparency obligations.
How to search for a subsidy by DNI or CIF?
You can search by name or company name, by DNI/NIF, or by CIF, and refine with filters for the agency, type of aid, date, or call. The search bar also accepts leaving all fields blank, revealing the true scale of the system: nearly 26 million records.
Not everything that appears is direct subsidy. The portal mixes aid with guarantees and "equivalent aid" figures, a distinction that stung some when comparing figures. The portal itself warns that the use and reuse of its data is subject to special conditions and refers to its legal notice, a detail that several who tracked the database were quick to cite.
The figures that appear when searching by name
Broad sweeps by very common surnames return notable volumes: more than 33,000 records for Mohamed, according to the shared queries. The portal does not break down nationality or administrative status, so the number, isolated, does not prove the legality of each aid; it was used as a thermometer of the total volume of beneficiaries.
With the word LGTBI, the literal search returns 66 entries. Filtering by the Institute of Women yields aid of 10,000 to 15,000 euros for gender studies, along with programs of 15,000, 27,000, 36,500, 50,000, 70,000, 100,000, and up to 190,000 euros for specific lines. The sum, compared to any industrial policy budget, invites questions about what is considered a priority.
From Onda Cero to Valencian: media on the list
The most replicated case was Uniprex (Onda Cero), CIF A28782936, linked to the 2022 call by the Valencian regional government to promote the Valencian language in media and private publications. A regional resolution, published and public, which was suddenly just a click away.
Some argue that this type of query demonstrates structural clientelism; against this weighs the argument that many of these lines respond to legal calls approved in their day by governments of different stripes. Transparency does not distinguish between the suspicious and the routine: it puts everything in the same table.
Tarragona and local entity funding
Filtering by local entities, the City Council of Tarragona appears with 19,834 euros for international development cooperation to the Assembly for Peace Cooperation and 28,186 euros to the Catalan Committee for Refugees. The same council, in figures from previous years, allocated to the Gimnàstic de Tarragona Football Club 500,000 euros in 2019 and 300,000 euros in 2020 and 2021.
With the municipal coffers in the red, the picture is hard to sustain before a resident. There also appear aid of 300,000 euros for a program on LGTBIQ+ and migrant rights in Ecuador, or grants of 20,112 euros to medium-sized associations. The drip, summed up, ceases to be pocket change.
26 million records and a crashing website
The success of the query had a predictable effect: the portal stopped loading. It appeared under maintenance, took too long, or simply did not respond. It did not work in Chrome; in Firefox, it did. With a 1080p screen, you had to scroll horizontally and vertically to move, a design that does not seem intended for anyone to find anything quickly.
The other reading of the episode is financial. Much of this spending is covered by European loans, converting each disputed subsidy into future debt. Those who pointed it out summarized it with an uncomfortable phrase: a State that distributes borrowed money does not distribute wealth, it distributes commitments.
What can be consulted and with what caution
The system is as wide as it is uneven. It allows tracking a specific CIF or getting lost among millions of rows without apparent order. Repeated NIFs and duplicate files add noise to a tool that, used well, is the largest citizen audit available today in Spain.
And a detail that disconcerts those who expected to confirm their suspicions: the football players' union, FUTPRO, does not appear. The database is huge and capricious. It does not even confirm what one believes they will find.
Key data from the tracking
An uncommon surname, a keystroke, and a six-digit figure. The Portal of Aid and Subsidies from the Ministry of Finance returns beneficiaries and amounts to anyone who enters a name, DNI, or CIF in its search bar, and the query has become the year's most uncomfortable pastime. Among the first shared searches, one by the surname Rocasolano yielded a beneficiary with 350,000 euros and a CIF linked to Newtral Media Audiovisual. The data does not come from a leak: it is in the public database the State maintains to comply with transparency obligations.
How to search for a subsidy by DNI or CIF?
You can search by name or company name, by DNI/NIF, or by CIF, and refine with filters for the agency, type of aid, date, or call. The search bar also accepts leaving all fields blank, revealing the true scale of the system: nearly 26 million records.
Not everything that appears is direct subsidy. The portal mixes aid with guarantees and "equivalent aid" figures, a distinction that stung some when comparing figures. The portal itself warns that the use and reuse of its data is subject to special conditions and refers to its legal notice, a detail that several who tracked the database were quick to cite.
The figures that appear when searching by name
Broad sweeps by very common surnames return notable volumes: more than 33,000 records for Mohamed, according to the shared queries. The portal does not break down nationality or administrative status, so the number, isolated, does not prove the legality of each aid; it was used as a thermometer of the total volume of beneficiaries.
With the word LGTBI, the literal search returns 66 entries. Filtering by the Institute of Women yields aid of 10,000 to 15,000 euros for gender studies, along with programs of 15,000, 27,000, 36,500, 50,000, 70,000, 100,000, and up to 190,000 euros for specific lines. The sum, compared to any industrial policy budget, invites questions about what is considered a priority.
From Onda Cero to Valencian: media on the list
The most replicated case was Uniprex (Onda Cero), CIF A28782936, linked to the 2022 call by the Valencian regional government to promote the Valencian language in media and private publications. A regional resolution, published and public, which was suddenly just a click away.
Some argue that this type of query demonstrates structural clientelism; against this weighs the argument that many of these lines respond to legal calls approved in their day by governments of different stripes. Transparency does not distinguish between the suspicious and the routine: it puts everything in the same table.
Tarragona and local entity funding
Filtering by local entities, the City Council of Tarragona appears with 19,834 euros for international development cooperation to the Assembly for Peace Cooperation and 28,186 euros to the Catalan Committee for Refugees. The same council, in figures from previous years, allocated to the Gimnàstic de Tarragona Football Club 500,000 euros in 2019 and 300,000 euros in 2020 and 2021.
With the municipal coffers in the red, the picture is hard to sustain before a resident. There also appear aid of 300,000 euros for a program on LGTBIQ+ and migrant rights in Ecuador, or grants of 20,112 euros to medium-sized associations. The drip, summed up, ceases to be pocket change.
26 million records and a crashing website
The success of the query had a predictable effect: the portal stopped loading. It appeared under maintenance, took too long, or simply did not respond. It did not work in Chrome; in Firefox, it did. With a 1080p screen, you had to scroll horizontally and vertically to move, a design that does not seem intended for anyone to find anything quickly.
The other reading of the episode is financial. Much of this spending is covered by European loans, converting each disputed subsidy into future debt. Those who pointed it out summarized it with an uncomfortable phrase: a State that distributes borrowed money does not distribute wealth, it distributes commitments.
What can be consulted and with what caution
The system is as wide as it is uneven. It allows tracking a specific CIF or getting lost among millions of rows without apparent order. Repeated NIFs and duplicate files add noise to a tool that, used well, is the largest citizen audit available today in Spain.
And a detail that disconcerts those who expected to confirm their suspicions: the football players' union, FUTPRO, does not appear. The database is huge and capricious. It does not even confirm what one believes they will find.
Key data from the tracking
- Gimnàstic de Tarragona Football Club: 500,000 euros in 2019; 300,000 euros in 2020; 300,000 euros in 2021
- A union in Galicia: 3,479,049 euros
- LGTBIQ+ rights and migrant program in Ecuador: 300,000 euros
- Institute of Women: gender aid between 10,000 and 15,000 euros
Summary of a discussion on Burbuja.info - Foro de economía, actualidad y política., translated from Spanish and reviewed before publication. Read the full discussion (229 replies).
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