Regulatory updates - Spain

Taxpayers may use specific invoicing systems certified by the tax authorities (AEAT). Alternatively, any commercial invoicing software must comply with the new regulations, including the requirement to submit invoices to the Spanish Tax Authority (AEAT). These systems will be classified as "verifiable invoicing systems," or Veri*Factu systems.

Order HAC/1177/2024 brings only minor modifications in this latest version. It outlines technical, functional, and content standards for invoicing systems, defining required formats for invoicing records. These requirements ensure system compatibility with regulatory standards, streamlining invoicing processes and promoting data uniformity across digital platforms.

Additionally, the SIF ensures consistency, accuracy, and regulatory compliance in invoicing records, facilitating transparency and uniform tax reporting.

It is essential to note that this approval does not alter the implementation deadlines set by Royal Decree 1007/2023 and does not impact the timing of the Veri*Factu mandate.

The Spanish Tax Authority (AEAT) has submitted a draft Ministerial Order (Sp. Orden Ministerial) to the EU Commission, outlining the technical, functional, and content specifications required on Computerized Billing Systems (SIFs) and Verifactu – a real-time invoice reporting system (RTIR).

As a reminder, Royal Decree 1007/2023 is the regulation that mandated taxpayers to adapt their SIFs as of 1 July 2025. There are two ways to comply with this regulation:

1. Generating and preserving duly Invoice Registries, or
2. Using Verifactu RTIR.

Among the most important things specified in the draft order, we have:

• The XML format and content structure to be used for keeping or forwarding to AEAT,
• Specifications on how to preserve or forward Invoice Registries to AEAT,
• XML format and specifications for keeping a proper log of events
• Details regarding the QR code, hash/fingerprint, and e-signature

The EU Commission has until 4 October 2024 to issue comments regarding the draft, which must be observed and contemplated by the Spanish authorities before approving and publishing the final version.

The draft Royal Decree outlines the requirements for electronic invoicing, mandating advanced electronic signatures to ensure the authenticity and integrity of B2B invoices issued by private platforms. It also stipulates that private platforms facilitating these exchanges must operate in accordance with EU Regulation No. 910/2014.

The notified draft Royal Decree covers e-invoicing for both natural and legal persons. After examining the draft submitted on 2 February 2024, the European Commission noted the following.

The draft mandates advanced electronic signatures for electronic invoices exchanged in B2B transactions, compliant with EU Regulation No. 910/2014. However, this regulation distinguishes between "electronic signatures" for natural persons and "electronic seals" for legal entities, ensuring document authenticity and integrity.

The European Commission noted no infringement of EU Law. Nevertheless, to avoid ambiguity, the Commission strongly recommends using "advanced electronic signatures or seals" instead of "advanced electronic signatures" to align with EU Regulation No. 910/2014, which differentiates between electronic signatures (for natural persons) and electronic seals (for legal entities).

The Commission has requested the Spanish authorities to consider these recommendations and to notify the Commission of the final text once adopted, as required by Article 5(3) of EU Directive 2015/1535.

This initiative seeks to improve payment efficiency and supervision, decrease commercial debts and foster business growth. When the regulatory framework for Crea y Crece Law is approved and the deadlines are met, all companies and self-employed workers in Spain will be required to use electronic invoicing for their business transactions.

What are the current timelines?

Compared to the original draft, the proposed regulation timelines have changed, and sole traders have the following deadlines to comply with invoice statuses:

These deadlines will start computing when the Royal Decree gets approved and published in the BOE (Official Gazette), which is expected to happen this year.

Within 12 months of this Royal Decree's enforcement, entrepreneurs and professionals issuing e-invoices must include a PDF document unless the recipient explicitly accepts the original format.

Invoice statuses

As previously mentioned, there will be two mandatory invoice responses that buyers are obliged to issue:

• Acceptance or rejection of the invoice and its date;
• Full payment of the invoice and the effective date of payment.

Buyers will have 4 business days to reject the invoice - otherwise, it will be interpreted as accepted. Furthermore, from the moment the full payment is made, buyers will have 4 business days to send this information to the Spanish Public System.

The Draft Ordinance that prepares the technical and functional specifications provided for in the regulations that prescribe the criteria for computer or electronic systems and programs to support the invoicing processes of entrepreneurs and professionals was published on 4 January 2024 by the Spanish Ministry of Finance.

This development is in line with the standardization of billing record formats, as established by Royal Decree 1007/2023 of 5 December, including billing obligations, approved by Royal Decree 1619/2012 of 30 November.

The key additions introduced by this Draft Ordinance in the Billing Regulations include:

• An invoice must contain a QR code and a line indicating issuance by the VERI*FACTU system, when applicable. As QR codes are not mandatory on electronic invoices, the "URL" of the QR code must be entered separately.
• Multiple taxpayers can use a single system if it manages billing records and events separately for each taxpayer, generates separate hash chains, and allows independent operation.
• Certification of the billing system will be achieved through a "Declaration of Responsibility for the Computerized Billing System", which must meet the minimum requirements outlined in the draft Ordinance which does not require the assessment of the system by the tax authority.
• The certified software must perform specific functions to transmit billing records to the tax authority in real time (VERI*FACTU) or on demand. Invoices must be issued through an invoicing system that is certified according to Spanish invoicing standards, and billing records in structured XML format must also be created simultaneously or immediately before invoices are issued.
• A VERI*FACTU system is one that consistently sends created records to the tax authority in real-time and will for this reason enjoy exemptions from specific requirements, including electronic signature on billing records.
• Event detecting and recording capabilities are required, such as when the system is initially installed, when it starts operating as a VERI*FACTU system, among others.
• Traceability of billing records. In addition to ensuring that with each new billing record, the last five records generated by the system are linked correctly, the "hash" that guarantees traceability must contain a specific set of data and characters. 
• Only the first billing record will not require the above information.

The record chain will contain both registration records and cancellation records. These records must include information on the exact date and time of generation of the document.

The Draft Ordinance also stipulates the format, coding, the structure and content of the registration/cancellation records.

A computer system may start operating as a VERI*FACTU system at any time. However, operation as a VERI*FACTU system must always be maintained at least until the last day of the year in which it operated as such.

This Ordinance will come into force the day following its publication in the Official State Gazette.

From 1 January 2024, all taxpayers were supposed to have already implemented TicketBai reporting, but the Foral Treasury of Bizkaia announced a decision to change this setup to a phased roll-out implementation.

Therefore, as of 1 January 2024, only large companies will be required to comply with TicketBai regulation, while small and medium-sized enterprises, micro-enterprises, self-employed workers, small cooperatives or non-profit entities will be progressively incorporated into windows that will open every six months.

The progressive implementation of this real-time reporting CTC model is expected to be completed on 1 January 2026 with non-profit entities, professionals and companies in the first sector, education and cultural services.

The Spanish government has released a new draft Royal Decree which further develops the electronic invoice requirements for B2B transactions as stated in Law 18/2022, better known as law “create and grow” (“Crea y Crece”).

Spanish e-invoicing system

The Spanish electronic invoice system will be formed by certified service providers and by the public electronic invoicing solution, which will also fulfill the function of the invoice repository managed by the tax authority.

The CTC model chosen resembles a decentralized CTC exchange model with similarities to the upcoming French mandate. Service providers will be obligated to support e-invoices in the following syntax formats:

• Facturae
• CII
• UBL
• EDIFACT

Service providers will also be required to send a copy of the e-invoice to the Spanish public platform in Facturae format.

A digital signature will be required when issuing e-invoices using service providers. The e-signature will not be required when using the public solution for issuing e-invoices.

Invoice Responses are mandated

Recipients will be required to inform the issuer of the e- invoice statuses with the following responses:

• Commercial acceptance or rejection (AoR) and the date of it
• Complete payment of the invoice and the date of it

Other possible invoice responses that may be used optionally, which can be seen in Article 8 of the draft royal decree.

Timelines

Businesses with an annual turnover > 8 MEUR are mandated to begin issuing e-invoices 12 months after this royal decree has been published, while remaining taxpayers will be mandated to issue e-invoices 24 months after the publication. The taxpayers obligated to issue e-invoices will be required to attach a PDF to the XML file if the recipient is not yet in scope of the mandate.

The obligation to start sending the mandatory invoice responses will start applying to businesses with annual turnover < 6 MEUR starting from 36 months after the law has been published. The same obligation will start applying to self-employed professionals with annual turnover < 6 MEUR in 48 months from the publication of the same.

Requirements to become a certified service provider

Article 10 of the draft Royal decree further explains the requirements to become and operate as a certified service provider of e-invoices in Spain. Some of the requirements are:

• Use of AS2 or AS4 communication protocol
• Be capable of operating with advanced e-signatures as per regulation 910/2014
• Be capable of exchanging e-invoices with stated syntaxes in Article 6 (Edifact, UBL, CII, and Facturae), and be capable of transforming the e-invoice message to any of these formats before applying e-signature and sending it to the buyer.
• ISO 27001 certification, among others.

On 29 September “Ley Crea y Crece” was published in the Official Bulletin of the State (BOE). As we have previously mentioned, one of the requirements of that law is to establish B2B e-invoicing among taxpayers in Spain. However, the technical specifications for e-invoicing adoption are not available yet. The next two relevant steps to know are:

• Public consultation will be shortly available and no later than 6 months from 29 September 2022. Taxpayers will be able to give feedback on how e-invoicing should be implemented.
• After those 6 months (preliminary date 1 April 2023), technical specifications will be publicly available.

From the date e-invoicing technical specifications are published, there will be different timelines to adopt e-invoicing for taxpayers according to their revenue:

• 1 April 2024 (preliminary): E-invoicing adoption for large taxpayers (annual turnover higher than EUR 8 million)
• 1 April 2025 (preliminary): E-invoicing adoption for all remaining taxpayers

It is important to keep in mind that all EU member states need to get the EU commission derogation in order to implement mandatory B2B e-invoicing. Therefore, the preliminary dates may be affected as Spain has not obtained such derogation yet.

As previously explained, one of the measures taken by the draft law “Crea y Crece” (En.: Creation and Growth) is to implement e-invoicing in the business sector to ensure that every invoice gets paid on time and help the economy grow. This draft law was approved on 15 September by the Spanish congress.

The law still needs to be published in the Official State Bulletin (BOE), which is expected in the upcoming days. Starting the day of publishing, the deadlines for the adoption of e-invoicing will be:

• 1 year for large taxpayers (annual turnover higher than EUR 8 million);
• 2 years for all remaining taxpayers.

Once the draft law gets published in the State Official Bulletin, large taxpayers (with annual revenue of more than EUR 8 million) will have one year to adapt their workflows to issue, exchange and receive e-invoices. The rest of the taxpayers will have a longer period of two years.

Taxpayers may use the services of e-invoicing service providers, and these must guarantee the possibility to interoperate with one another without implying additional costs to any involved party. Hence, interoperability agreements will be in place among the different service providers. Neither invoice recipients nor their service providers will be allowed to force the suppliers to use any particular system or platform to issue or exchange e-invoices.

Pagero is an open network for exchanging electronic invoices and other types of documents with more than 70 interoperability agreements with different service providers worldwide. Get in contact to find out how Pagero can help you fulfil the new Spanish requirements soon to be mandatory.