Emergency kit in Spain: what the EU and Spain ask for

Keep enough for three days at home. Drinking water comes first, then food that keeps without a fridge and needs no cooking, then a torch, a radio, a charged power bank, your usual medicines and some cash. That’s the short list behind the EU’s 72 hours, Spain’s Protección Civil and the UK’s Be Ready campaign, and if you’re starting from nothing, prepping for beginners puts it in order.

What goes in it, and who says so

Side by side, the EU’s working paper, Spain’s Protección Civil, Catalonia and the UK’s government campaign name the same things. The quantities are where they part company.

The UK asks for ready-to-feed formula rather than powder for a reason: you may not be able to boil water for it.⁴

Water is where the numbers differ

The EU puts no litre figure on the water.¹ These do, and they don’t all count the same thing.

In Spain the figure is 1.5 litres a day at least, nationally and in Catalonia: 4.5 litres a person for three days. If you want margin, plan on the UK’s 3 litres to drink, and the 72-hour kit list turns that into bottles for a household. More countries’ figures, and what each one covers, are in how much water to store per person.

What Spain and its regions publish

Spain’s national list comes from Protección Civil, the government’s civil protection directorate, in a template for a family emergency plan. The box is headed Kit básico de emergencias (72 horas), basic emergency kit, and holds seven things: a portable charger, a torch, a radio, batteries, bottled water, non-perishable food and your usual medicines. It gives no quantities, and it’s framed for a family that has to leave home for several days.² The family guide Protección Civil published with the Education ministry in 2025 goes further: drinking water, at least 1.5 litres per person per day for three days, a hand tin opener, a whistle and a light or thermal blanket for each person.²³

Three regions also publish a kit list of their own on an official page.

Catalonia adds long-life food that needs no cooking for anyone staying at home.³ Andalusia, whose advice covers the Costa del Sol, has no kit page: its flood advice says to keep food for about three days that needs neither cold nor cooking, and its general emergency page asks for a radio, a torch, a first-aid kit and your documents to hand.¹²¹³

A recommendation, not a law

The 72 hours start in the EU Preparedness Union Strategy of 26 March 2025, in which the Commission promises it “will propose guidelines for Member States to reach population self-sufficiency of at least 72 hours”.¹⁴ The guidelines followed on 30 October 2026.¹⁵¹⁶ They call themselves non-binding and are written for civil protection authorities, not households: “Help households meet essential needs for at least 72 hours. Encourage emergency plans, evacuation bags and practical skills, such as first aid.”¹⁵ They name the needs (food, water, medicines, communication and cash) and one skill, cooking without electricity, but list no items.

The items are in a staff working document published alongside, the EU paper in the tables above. It names food and stored water, a battery radio, power banks and an offline way to pay, with pets and a grab-and-go bag as “additional considerations”, and gives no litres, no calories and no number of meals.¹ Its own line: “The emphasis should be on encouraging action rather than on the specific timeframe itself.”¹ Ireland has gone further and dropped the 72-hour framing from its Be Emergency Ready booklet, sent to some 2.2 million homes, after market research suggested it could leave people anxious.¹⁷

The one official “90 days” in EU law is about oil: each Member State must hold stocks of at least 90 days of net imports or 61 days of inland consumption, whichever is greater.¹⁸ Spain’s ordinary level is 92 days.¹⁹ That’s fuel, held by the state and the oil companies.

The food, in the EU’s words

The one sentence any EU text spends on food is in that working document, and it’s precise.

A pouch from the box keeps at room temperature and can be made without heating, but it isn’t “no or little water”. The pouches in the 72-Hour Food Reserve can also be made with cold water, 20–30 minutes depending on the meal, and meat and potato stay a little firmer that way. Chicken & Rice takes 370 ml and about 20 minutes with cold water, and the Porridge & Fruit breakfast needs 250 ml, on top of what you drink.

The box covers the food line of a kit. The rest is priced, bought ready or put together from the shops, in what a 72-hour kit costs in Spain, and the tins, jars and dry goods of a shelf that needs no fridge are in the non-perishable food list.

Before the blackout of 28 April 2025, 34.3% of the people the CIS, Spain’s state polling institute, asked had a kit at home, and what they missed most during it was a way to cook without electricity.²² For the next one, the fridge and the freezer are in how long the fridge and freezer keep food in a power cut, and what you can safely cook on in how to cook without power.

From our range

72-Hour Food Reserve

9 pouches for 3 days: the food line of the kit, and only the food line.

€112.90Hear from us before the shop opensSee the box