Smoking on Benidorm beach could cost you £1,700 as under string of rules at Spanish tourist hotspot

Anyone visiting Benidorm this summer may face hefty fines if they don’t follow rules regarding specific entry times for the resort’s ever-popular beaches.

Tourists and locals alike are banned from setting foot on the sands between the hours of midnight and 7am, with swimming, sleeping on the beach and camping on the sands also strictly forbidden.

Anyone caught on the beach between these hours may face a fine of between €750 and €1,200 (£640 to £1,025).

Other rules that have been introduced in the Spanish summer hotspot deal with fairly innocuous activities, such as playing ball games outside of designated areas or reserving a place on the sands with a parasol. These come with fines closer to £100.

Other fines are more obvious and often address environmental concerns. The heaviest fine you can receive is for smoking on the beach, a penalty of €2,000 (£1,700).

Drinking alcohol on the sands brings a penalty of around £650, and the use of soap and shampoo while showering can see tourists fined £560. There are concerns that the chemicals in modern soaps are detrimental to local marine wildlife.

Much of the remaining regulation was brought in to curtail the impact of tourism on the lives of locals, with fines brought in for being naked on non-nudist beaches (£560), and not covering up appropriately when leaving the beach (£300).

Large penalties were also introduced to discourage potentially dangerous behaviour – a fine of £860 awaits anyone who is caught swimming while a red flag is flying, for instance.

The Independent has contacted Benidorm’s local authorities for comment.

Though the above rules are enforced in the eastern beach resort, which lies around 90 minutes south of Valencia, similar rules are commonplace throughout Spain. Fines for using soap and shampoo in beach showers, or walking around town in a bikini or swimwear, have been introduced in cities such as Barcelona, with smoking banned on beaches in Ibiza and Mallorca just before summer of 2023.