Spain's investment firms (ESI) on the CNMV official register
In Spain, a firm that receives and transmits orders, executes them, manages discretionary portfolios, deals on its own account or underwrites placements as a business must be authorised as an empresa de servicios de inversión (ESI) and entered in the official register kept by the Comisión Nacional del Mercado de Valores (CNMV). Since 2023 the legal basis is Ley 6/2023, de 17 de marzo, de los Mercados de Valores y de los Servicios de Inversión, which replaced the 2015 consolidated Securities Market Act, together with Real Decreto 813/2023 on the legal regime of investment firms. These two texts transpose MiFID II and the EU Investment Firms Directive and Regulation (IFD/IFR) into Spanish law.
The two licence types on this register
| Type | Suffix in the corporate name | What it may do |
|---|---|---|
| Sociedad de valores | S.V. / Sociedad de Valores | All investment services, including dealing on own account and underwriting with firm commitment |
| Agencia de valores | A.V. / Agencia de Valores | Order reception, transmission and execution, portfolio management and advice, but no dealing on own account |
The CNMV's list of sociedades and agencias de valores held 114 entities when checked on 30 October 2026, and roughly 40 of those carry the sociedad de valores name. Agencias, many of them small wealth-management or advisory boutiques, make up the majority. Spanish company law requires the licence type to appear in the corporate name, which is why entries read like "Haltia Capital Agencia de Valores, S.A." Most are sociedades anónimas (S.A.), and a few agencias are sociedades limitadas (S.L.).
Capital, FOGAIN and the register entry
Initial capital follows the IFD bands: €75,000 for firms that neither hold client money nor deal on own account, €150,000 for firms that hold client assets, and €750,000 for firms that deal on own account or underwrite. This is why many agencias show share capital just above €75,000 in their register entry. Every Spanish ESI must also belong to the Fondo de Garantía de Inversiones (FOGAIN), the investor-compensation scheme that covers up to €100,000 per investor if a firm cannot return cash or securities. The CNMV entry for each firm shows its register number and date, head office, share capital, guarantee fund, shareholders, directors, tied agents, branches, EEA passports and its programme of activities.
What happened to the EAFs
Until 2023, many independent advisers operated as empresas de asesoramiento financiero (EAF), a lighter ESI category limited to investment advice. Ley 6/2023 split them. Firms that wanted to keep a MiFID passport had to convert into an agencia de valores. Those advising only in Spain could become an empresa de asesoramiento financiero nacional (EAFN), which falls outside MiFID and has its own lighter regime. Some agencias on the register, such as firms with "asesoramiento" or "wealth advisory" in their names, are advisory boutiques rather than brokers.
Regional and market features
- Most firms have their head office in Madrid or Barcelona. Others are regional boutiques, such as firms based in Pamplona and León.
- The register also includes interdealer brokers, energy and commodity brokers, and firms authorised to run DLT-based trading under the EU pilot regime, so "ESI" is far broader than retail brokerage.
- Foreign EEA investment firms passporting into Spain appear on separate CNMV lists. Spanish banks providing investment services are supervised as credit institutions and are not ESIs.
For vendors of trading, custody, regulatory-reporting (MiFIR, IFR) or compliance services, the licence type is the first qualifier. A sociedad de valores dealing on own account has prudential and reporting needs that a two-person agencia advising clients does not.