Permits

What you need before you harvest rainwater, dig a pond, drill a well or dam a ditch, in England, Spain, Poland and Portugal. Four countries, four different shapes of rule, and penalties large enough to matter.

Intercepting water is regulated everywhere in Europe, because water you keep is water that does not reach the people and ecosystems downstream. That is not a formality. In Slovakia, officials ruled small retention structures illegal constructions and fined the people who built them. In Spain, five landowners were sent to prison in 2023 for extracting water beyond their rights. In Poland, using water without a permit costs five times the fee, with no discretion to reduce it.

So this page comes before the digging. It covers the four countries we have documented and puts the same five actions side by side for each. It is a research summary, not legal advice: the rules are national, they change, and every figure here carries the year it was checked.

The comparison

All Spanish and Polish figures are 2025 to 2026 values from the sources named below. English figures are as documented on the water retention page.

Three different shapes are visible in that table. England draws one line, a daily volume, and leaves harvested rainwater outside it. Spain regulates works: even a rainwater use is registered, and any earth moved near a channel is authorised. Poland regulates water taken: its ordinary-use volume is the smallest of the three, yet its thresholds for ponds, tanks and ditch barriers are the most permissive. The same technique meets three different regimes.

England

Documented on the water retention page from the Environment Agency's position statement and planning guidance, checked in 2026.

• Rainwater: storing only harvested rainwater needs no abstraction licence.
• Ground or surface water: taking more than 20 m³ a day from one or several sources needs an abstraction licence from the Environment Agency or Natural Resources Wales. Mixing harvested rainwater with abstracted water may bring the whole into scope.
• Ponds and earthworks: on an agricultural unit of 5 ha or more, excavation and engineering works reasonably necessary for agriculture can fall under permitted development, but prior notification is always required and prior approval often is.
• Not covered here: the Sustainable Farming Incentive rules, reservoir safety law for larger stores, and consents from internal drainage boards, all of which can apply.

Spain

From the consolidated Water Act (Texto Refundido de la Ley de Aguas), the public hydraulic domain regulation, the river-basin authorities' own procedures, and court reporting, checked in 2026. Full sources in the research note behind this page. River basins that cross regional borders are run by state Confederaciones Hidrográficas; basins inside one region by the regional agency; and the municipality licenses any construction.

Rainwater from roofs, yards and your own fields. Article 54.1 of the Water Act lets a landowner use rainwater that falls or runs on the land, by right, with no concession. But the use is inscribed in Section B of the Water Register. The Júcar authority's 2024 information sheet asks for an application signed by every owner, proof of title, a cadastral plan marking wells and channels within 1,000 m, a technical memorandum covering the collection surface, the tank or pond, its safety measures, the intended use and a volume calculation, then after construction a completion certificate with coordinates and a certified volumetric meter on the pump. The water may be used only on the parcel where it is collected. No fee or decision deadline is stated.

Wells and springs. Up to 7,000 m³ a year from a well or spring on your own land is likewise a registered use by right. Minimum well spacing is 10 m in urban land, 20 m in rural land and 100 m for larger flows. In aquifers declared overexploited, new works need authorisation even below the threshold. Above 7,000 m³, or from a stream, you need a concesión: the authority has 18 months to decide, silence means refusal, terms run to 75 years, and irrigation concessions pass through a competing-projects notice in the official gazette. Real waiting times were not found; treat 18 months as a floor.

Ponds (balsas). The water right comes first, then a municipal works licence (in Andalucía earth moving and terracing are expressly licensed), then environmental screening for stores of 200,000 m³ or more, and dam-safety classification for any balsa higher than 5 m or larger than 100,000 m³. A dedicated safety norm for balsas has been in draft since 2024; the ministry counts "possibly several tens of thousands" of small ones. A typical farm balsa of a few thousand cubic metres and under 5 m sits outside the dam regime, but the Júcar file still demands safety measures.

Earthworks near channels. Every public watercourse carries a 5 m easement strip and a 100 m police zone. Any construction, substantial alteration of the terrain, planting or "any other work or activity" in the police zone needs prior authorisation from the basin authority: legal deadline six months, never granted by silence, fees apply. Andalucía also asks for a flood study at 25, 100 and 500 years. "Watercourse" includes dry ephemeral channels, which is exactly where check dams get built.

Terraces. CAP conditionality bans tillage down slopes of 10% or more unless terraces compensate, and then makes it obligatory not to disturb the existing terrace banks. On slopes of 10% or more, woody crops must carry a vegetated strip at least 1 m wide from October to March. Spain protects existing terraces and, through the eco-scheme, pays up to €185/ha (2025 campaign) for cover on steep olive land. See swales and terraces.

If you skip it. Fines are banded: minor up to €10,000, less serious to €50,000, serious to €500,000, very serious to €1,000,000, always with an obligation to restore the site. Catalonia adds its own scale. In the Doñana area, Seville's Criminal Court 14 sentenced five co-owners of one estate to three years and five months in prison, a €12,000 fine and €1.9 million in civil liability in September 2023, for extracting 19 million m³ beyond their right. Prosecutors identified 250 operators extracting illegally in 2022 and 2023. Enforcement in Spain is uneven and politicised; where it lands, it lands hard.

Poland

From the Water Law (Prawo wodne, consolidated 2025), the Building Law, the state water authority Wody Polskie and the official business portal, checked in 2026. Notifications go to the local nadzór wodny; permits are decided by the zarząd zlewni or regional board; building matters by the starosta.

Rainwater from roofs and yards. A sealed tank collecting roof water is not a water device: no permit, no notification. An infiltration basin, or an unsealed tank, is a water device and needs a permit. Household tanks above 10 m³ need a building notification or permit. You may not change the direction or intensity of runoff to a neighbour's detriment.

Ordinary use: 5 m³ a day and 30 m. A landowner may use surface water on the land and groundwater beneath it for household or farm needs, up to 5 m³ a day on average, with no permit, and may sink a well to 30 m for that purpose without even a notification. But ordinary use excludes business use and sprinkler irrigation of crops from groundwater, whatever the volume. Deeper wells, larger volumes or irrigation need a pozwolenie wodnoprawne plus a hydrogeological project approved by the starosta (about 30 days plus 14 to become final). An amendment in force from 18 August 2026 lets owners of unpermitted wells legalise them until 31 December 2027 with the 6,601.67 zł fee and the penalty waived. It is a financial amnesty, not automatic recognition.

Ponds. A pond filled only by rain, meltwater or groundwater, up to 5,000 m² and 3 m deep, whose effects stay on your land, needs a notification: fee 132.33 zł, a site plan and sketches, and a 30-day window in which the authority may object; then you may start, within three years. Under building law, ponds up to 1,000 m² on farmland need nothing at all; from 1,000 to 5,000 m², a building notification. Two or more works are summed, including what already exists: two 3,000 m² ponds are a permit, not two notifications. A permit costs 330.07 zł, needs an engineer's report (operat wodnoprawny), is decided "as a rule within a month, up to two", and runs up to 30 years. The engineer's report is the real cost, and no price was found.

Streams and fees. Abstraction beyond ordinary use is a water service with a fixed fee on the permitted maximum and a variable fee on volume. Irrigation is exempt from the fixed fee. Fixed rates elsewhere are 500 zł per day per 1 m³/s permitted for groundwater and 250 zł for surface water (regulation in force 1 January 2024). The variable rate per cubic metre for irrigation was not found and is not stated here.

Ditches and earthworks. A simple, non-permanent barrier on your own drainage ditch that holds water only on your own plots needs no notification (guidance reported August 2026). A culvert up to 10 m needs a notification. If the water could affect a neighbour, their written consent is mandatory. In Natura 2000 and other protected areas the regional environmental director must be notified. New permanent structures that change water conditions need a permit. Levelling a field with no structure intended may fall outside building law; an embankment or bund is a budowla ziemna and should be assumed to need at least a notification.

If you skip it. Using water without a permit triggers an increased fee of 500% of the variable fee, minimum 5,000 zł, maximum 1,000,000 zł, which the authority has no discretion to reduce and which later legalisation does not erase. Building a water device without consent means a 6,601.67 zł legalisation fee (2026) or a demolition order. The criminal provisions carry fines of 1,000 to 7,500 zł or arrest. Farm press reports outcomes of "tens of thousands of złoty, sometimes over 100,000 zł" including back-fees with interest.

A payment for wet grassland. Poland's eco-scheme for water retention on permanent grassland pays for an outcome: soil saturation of at least 80% for 12 consecutive days between May and September, verified by satellite, on land already in another environmental practice. It paid 292.27 zł/ha in 2023 and 244.57 zł/ha in 2024, with no structure required. That is a rare design, and a sensible one.

Portugal

From the Water Act (Lei n.º 58/2005) and the water-use regime (Decreto-Lei n.º 226-A/2007) in its consolidated text, the environment agency's licensing pages, the Alqueva operator's own guidance and a published appeal-court decision, checked in 2026. The licensing authority is the Agência Portuguesa do Ambiente, acting through regional hydrographic departments, and applications go through the SILiAmb platform.

One question decides everything else: is the water public or private? Portuguese law separates the public water domain, meaning watercourses with their beds and margins and much of the groundwater connected to them, from particular water, which is private. Surface water in a watercourse is generally public and needs a title. Groundwater under your own land may be private, and the duties are much lighter. Which side a given borehole falls on is not obvious from the surface, and it governs the rest.

The free allowance is measured in horsepower, not cubic metres. This is what makes Portugal different from every other country on this page. The law provides that an authorisation may be replaced by "uma mera comunicação prévia... quando estejam em causa captações de água com potência igual ou inferior a 5cv" — a simple prior notification where the abstraction has a power of 5 cv or less, roughly 3.7 kW. England, Spain and Poland all gate on volume or depth. Portugal gates on the size of your pump. Trade sources in the drilling industry add that registering a private groundwater abstraction at or below 5 cv is not obligatory and becomes so above it, which is consistent but is a driller's summary rather than the statute.

The rule you find out about after paying the driller. Article 41 requires "um afastamento mínimo de 100m entre as captações de diferentes utilizadores de uma mesma massa de água subterrânea": a minimum 100 m between abstractions belonging to different users of the same groundwater body. The agency can vary it where that is technically justified. On a small parcel in a district that is already heavily bored, this can decide whether a borehole is possible at all, and it is worth checking before anyone quotes for the drilling.

Irrigating more than 50 hectares. Article 44 provides that abstraction of public water to irrigate an area above 50 ha must meet the efficiency rates set in the national programme for efficient water use. Abstraction of private water for irrigation is restricted only in situations of scarcity or accident.

Farm ponds. Farming advisory sources summarising the agency's position describe a pond built outside the margin of a watercourse, the margin being a 10 m strip from the bed as identified on the 1:25,000 military map, and sealed either naturally with clay or artificially with a liner, as not requiring a licence. The same sources advise writing to the agency anyway and asking for written confirmation that none is needed. We flag this as advisory rather than statutory: it is specific enough to be credible, and we could not find the article. Take the advice about getting it in writing.

Alqueva. In the Alentejo scheme the operating company issues the titles for private use of the public hydraulic domain, and applies its own split: under 50 hectares a prior licence, above 50 hectares a prior concession, with a concession also required for energy production. Holders file self-monitoring reports quarterly. This is the part of Portugal where irrigated olive and almond planting has expanded fastest, and a licence there is a claim on a resource that is already heavily committed.

What it costs. Portugal charges a water resources fee with components covering private use of public-domain water, private use of water under public management, effluent discharge, occupation of public land and water surfaces, and extraction of inert materials. The component charging abstraction applies a base rate per cubic metre multiplied by a scarcity coefficient, so the charge is designed to rise exactly where water is short. We found a published base value only for public supply, which is not the agricultural rate, so no irrigation figure is quoted here. Ask your regional hydrographic department for the current value; it is set by ordinance and changes.

If you skip it. Using water resources without a title is classified by Article 81 as a very serious environmental offence. Under the environmental offences framework law as amended in 2015, a company faces €24,000 to €144,000 for negligence and €240,000 to €5,000,000 where the breach is deliberate, figures recorded in a published appeal-court decision. The law also provides that the fine should, where possible, exceed the economic benefit the offender gained, which is what makes treating it as a cost of doing business a bad plan. The bracket for a farmer trading as an individual rather than through a company is something we could not confirm, and we would rather say so than quote a number.

What we could not establish

• Spain: fees for registration, authorisation or concession; actual waiting times against the 18- and 6-month legal maxima; whether check dams in dry channels are treated as works in the domain itself; regional detail beyond Andalucía and Catalonia; whether repairing an existing terrace needs any licence at all.
• Poland: the variable fee per cubic metre for irrigation; the date the pond threshold rose from 1,000 to 5,000 m²; the cost of an engineer's water report; slope rules under Polish conditionality; any enforcement case with a named farm and amount.
• Portugal: whether harvesting rainwater from a roof needs any title, which we could not settle either way and is the largest gap in that section; the fine bracket for a farmer trading as an individual; the farm-pond rule in the statute rather than in an advisory summary; current water-fee base values by hydrographic region; and whether the Azores and Madeira run separate regimes, since this covers mainland Portugal only.
• Everywhere else: Italy, Romania, France and Germany are not yet covered, and England's Sustainable Farming Incentive is out of scope.

Before you dig, ask the basin authority, the municipality and, where a ditch is shared, your neighbours or the drainage body. The decision tool flags this on every water technique, and the water retention and swales pages explain why storing water in the soil first avoids most of it.