Adopt a cat in Spain

Adopting in Spain if Spanish is not your first language

The process is the same for everyone. What changes is that almost everything happens in Spanish.

The websites and the paperwork are in Spanish

The search sites, the rescues’ websites and the adoption forms on this page are in Spanish, and some in Catalan, Basque or Galician. Your browser’s translate option works well for the listings. The adoption contract is a different matter: it is a document you sign, so make sure you understand every clause before you do, and ask the rescue if anything is unclear.

What Spanish law requires of you

Under Spain’s animal welfare law (Law 7/2023), every cat must be identified with a microchip and neutered before six months of age, unless it is registered as a breeding animal with a registered breeder. The microchip is recorded in your region’s register, and when you adopt from a rescue the change of owner into your name is usually handled by them or by your vet. The law also does not allow a pet to be left unsupervised for more than three days in a row. Each region adds its own rules: you will find them on each region’s page.

For more detail, read our article on adopting a cat in Spain, and if you may travel or move abroad with your cat one day, how the EU pet passport works.

How to adopt a cat in Spain

What happens from the moment you fill in the form until the cat steps out of the carrier in your home.

How an adoption works, step by step

Almost all rescues follow the same path, and it is worth knowing because it surprises many people. First you fill in a questionnaire about your home, your hours and any animals you already have. Then there is an interview, often by phone, with very specific questions: whether the windows and balcony have netting, whether the cat will go outside, who looks after it when you are on holiday. Next you meet the cat, often in the foster home where it lives, and it is normal for them to suggest a different one from the cat in the photo, because they know which character fits what you have told them. Some do a home visit or ask for a photo of the netting in place. Finally you sign an adoption contract, which is not a formality: it sets out the commitment to neuter the cat if it is not neutered yet, not to pass it on to anyone else, and the rescue’s right to take it back if things go wrong.

Why they ask so many questions

Because many of the cats in front of them come from an adoption that went wrong or from a litter nobody wanted. A serious rescue would rather say no to you than see you bring the cat back in three months, and that filter is precisely the sign that things are done properly there. Be wary of anyone who gives you a kitten without asking anything, without a contract and for cash: since Law 7/2023, cats may only be sold by registered breeders, and a kitten “given away” through an advert usually arrives without a microchip, without being dewormed, and with an unneutered mother who will have another litter in a few months.

What it costs and what it includes

The usual contribution is 50 to 150 euros, and some municipal centres only charge a fee. It is not the price of the cat: it is part of what it cost the rescue to get the cat ready. For that money the cat usually leaves with a microchip registered in your name, up-to-date vaccinations (the trivalent one, and sometimes the leukaemia one), dewormed, tested for feline leukaemia and feline immunodeficiency (FeLV and FIV) and neutered, or with a commitment to neuter it when it is old enough. Doing all of that on your own at a clinic costs quite a bit more, and here the money stays with the rescue for the next cat.

What to ask before you say yes

Why the cat is there and how long it has been there. How it gets on with other cats, with dogs and with children, and whether they have really seen that in the foster home or it is a guess. The result of the FeLV and FIV test: a positive is no reason to rule the cat out, but it is a reason to know about it and discuss it with the vet, especially if you already have cats. Whether it uses the litter tray properly, whether it scratches the sofa or the scratching post, whether it is the kind that hides for a week on arrival. And what support they give afterwards: good rescues follow up and still answer the phone the following month, which is when the questions come up.

Netting on windows and balconies: they will almost always ask for it

It is the requirement that surprises people most and the one that makes most sense. Falls from windows and balconies are a common veterinary emergency in cities, and cats do not learn to avoid them: they leap after a pigeon or slip off the railing. That is why many rescues ask for the windows that open and the balcony to be protected with netting or a reinforced screen before they hand over the cat, and some check it. Netting for a balcony costs far less than a single night at an emergency vet.

Fostering: the way of helping that hardly anyone knows about

If you cannot commit to fifteen or twenty years but want to help, fostering is the most useful thing you can do. You take a cat home for a few weeks or months, the rescue keeps paying the vet and often the food, and you give it what a shelter cannot: a home where it learns to live with people. Small cat associations work almost entirely this way, and in spring and summer, with the colony litters, they need foster homes for kittens that are still bottle-fed.

An adult is almost always a better idea than a kitten

With a three or four-year-old cat you know what you are getting: whether it is affectionate or independent, whether it tolerates another cat, whether it is calm or a whirlwind. It has grown out of the curtain-climbing phase and usually arrives neutered and already using the litter tray. Kittens find homes on their own; adults, seniors, cats with one eye missing or that are FIV positive, and quite often black cats, wait for months. In Málaga, for example, several rescues suspend adoptions of all-black cats around Halloween for fear they will be used in rituals, and for the rest of the year they are still the ones that take longest to be adopted.

If you find a kitten or a colony

Not every cat on the street is lost: many live in colonies that someone looks after. Since Law 7/2023 they are “community cats” and managing them is the job of the town council, which must count them, neuter them and identify them with a microchip, usually with the TNR method (trap, neuter and return, known in Spain as CER). If you see a colony, ask at your town council or a cat association before taking any cat away. If it is a lone kitten, wait a while at a distance in case the mother comes back; if it is cold, injured or hours go by, call a rescue or a vet.

Before you take the step, it is worth reading what having a cat involves, whether a kitten or an adult suits you better and what the first days at home are like.