Recreational fisherman, you will have to declare your captures

Last February, 2025, the European Commission approved the Execution Regulation (UE) 2025/274, with a new normative base destined to improving the control and recreational fishing management in communitary waters.

This normative answers to the growing worry for the ecological recreational fishing impact and aims to ensure a more precise data recollection, the accomplishment of the conservation measures and a wider inspection of the non commercial fishing activities.

But, how does this measure affect the recreational fishermen of the Balearic Islands? The islands’ recreational fishmongers, whether they are retired, beginners or amateurs, will be obliged to notify electronically all the captures they annually (from May, 2027) and mensually (from March, 2026).

This measure, which aims to improve the control and sustainability of fishing, will require the use of a central server EU RecFishing, where they will have to register details such as the FAO code of the captured species, the geographic areas, the type of fishing gear that’s been used, the used modality and even the ship’s length, if it corresponds. It is important to highlight that the marine reservations of Balearic Islands already use a similar app for the captures registry.

The objective of this measure is to improve the transparency and facilitate a sustainable management of the marine resources, aligning it with the Common Fishing Politics.

The regulation also introduces strict norms for the passive fishing gears used in recreational fishing, like webs, longlines, traps or ports.This will have to be strictly identified with non removable and resistant labels, which link the gear to the fisherman or the owner, and that indicate its presence in the water.

With the entry into force of this regulation, the articles 64 and 65 from the Execution Regulation (UE) nº 404/2011 remain replaced, being replaced this way by the current Regulation, which establishes new laws about the expected situations in these dispositions.

The new regulation is framed within the efforts of the UE to fight illegal fishing and protect marine ecosystems. In addition, it supports the objectives of the Directive (UE) 2019/904 about plastics of one use only, and reducing the derived risks of the abandoned fishing gears.