Regulatory updates - Spain

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.

As previously mentioned, the remaining entities not required to implement TicketBai software in Álava were supposed to do it by 1 October 2022.

As per the request of large taxpayer groups in Álava, the Tax Authority has deferred the obligation to adopt TicketBai software to 1 December 2022. Even though this date is final now, there might be further postponements to the mandatory TicketBai adoption, as this is not the first time delaying this requirement.

In addition, the Tax Authority has exonerated 60-year-old freelancers from the TicketBai obligation. This exemption will apply to nearly 3000 taxpayers in Álava.

Regarding the other two Basque provinces, the timelines for TicketBai adoption have not been altered.

The Spanish Tax Authority AEAT (Sp.: Agencia Estatal de Administración Tributaria) has released a new Real Decree on public consultation until 14 March 2021, establishing new requirements for electronic billing systems or ERP software used by taxpayers for invoicing. Although this is not an e-invoicing regulation, the Spanish Tax Authority explicitly states there will be synergies between the new requirements for the billing systems and e-invoicing.

With the new decree under public consultation, there are several objectives the Tax Authority aims to achieve. The main goals are business digitalization and reducing tax evasion.

Main aspects of the regulation

• An invoice must be generated from the certified billing systems. Once the invoice is generated, the system will automatically create a registry of invoice issuance. Therefore, all issued invoices will be saved in the registry of invoices that can be transmitted to the Tax Authority;
• The billing systems will have the functionality to allow the Tax Administration to access the system and extract the required data;
• Every issued invoice will include a QR code and a UUID (universally unique identifier) number;
• E-signature will be mandatory, and invoices will contain the previously issued invoice data (invoice chaining) for a reliable audit trail;
• Submission of the invoice registry data to the Tax Authority will be voluntary.

Timeline to comply with the regulations

According to this decree, every taxpayer using billing systems will have to fulfil all the above requirements by 1 January 2024.

Next steps

Spain will be releasing new documentation in regards to:

• Technical specifications for the billing systems
• E-signature and invoice chaining specifications
• Billing systems’ certification process
• Technical specifications for voluntary data submission to the AEAT
• Content, format, design requirements and submission deadlines

Stay tuned with Pagero to be up to date with all developments in Spain.

On 30 November 2021, the law was approved by the Council of Ministers.

These are expected timelines for taxpayers to start issuing e-invoices:

• Taxpayers with annual turnover above EUR 8 million: 1 year after approval by the parliament and publication on the BOE (State Official Bulletin);
• Rest of the taxpayers: 3 years after approval by the parliament and publication on the BOE.

Within six months, the Spanish government also intends to create a “National Debt Observatory” that will monitor and analyse payment transactions and promote good practices.

Pagero will notify you about the exact deadlines for taxpayers to switch to electronic invoicing as soon as the “Crea y Crece” law gets approved by the parliament and published in the BOE.

The e-invoicing requirements were supposed to enter into force on 1 January 2022, but Bizkaia (one of the Provincial Councils) already postponed the requirements until 2024.

The other two provinces, Gipuzkoa and Álava, have postponed the deadlines for some months. It will still be a gradual roll-out of mandatory TicketBAI implementation for different taxpayers.

Below is an overview of the new timelines.

Timelines in Álava

The province of Álava has set the following dates:

• 1 January 2022 – e-invoicing on a voluntary basis;
• 1 April 2022 – mandatory TicketBAI adoption for consultancies (natural and legal persons) collaborating with the Provincial Council of Álava;
• 1 July 2022 - B2C suppliers of medicines, medical and personal hygiene products, and representatives of other certain professional activities;
• 1 October 2022 - all other taxpayers.

TicketBAI roll-out in Gipuzkoa

• Current voluntary adoption of TicketBAI;
• 1 July 2022 - mandatory TicketBAI adoption for tax management service providers;
• 1 September 2022 - professional activities (the list of codes can be found here);
• 1 November 2022 - accommodation and hospitality service providers;
• 1 April 2023 - construction, real estate, transportation, and recreational and cultural service providers;
• 1 June 2023 - manufacturing, wholesale, telecommunications, financial services, artists, and taxpayers in the remaining sectors.

TicketBAI adoption in Bizkaia

Starting 1 January 2022, taxable persons can comply with TicketBAI requirements on a voluntary basis. As of 1 January 2024, e-invoicing will become mandatory for all taxpayers in Bizkaia.

The Spanish Ministry of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation will create a “National Debt Observatory” that will monitor payment transactions.

The scope and the timelines

All transactions between companies and self-employed will fall into the scope of the new draft law. Once the draft law gets approved and published on the BOE (State Official Bulletin), the implementation timeline is as follows:

• Taxpayers with annual turnover above EUR 8 million: no later than one year after the publication on the BOE;
• Rest of the taxpayers: no later than three years after the publication on the BOE.

Technical specifications

The specifications are expected to be published once the draft law is approved. Furthermore, the Government will develop the regulations for the technical requirements and information e-invoices will have to contain. The regulations will also outline verification of the payment periods, the security, control, and standardisation of the devices and information systems that generate the documents.

E-invoicing model

Although the exact model is not established yet, it is likely to be the centralised exchange model as an extension of the existing FACe platform.

Current challenges for SMEs

Today many self-employed and small entrepreneurs in Spain do not have the necessary technology or knowledge to issue electronic invoices. Resources for digitalisation will be provided by the Digital Toolkit Program as part of the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan. These measures are funded by the Next Generation EU recovery package.

Public consultation

The pre-project has been submitted for public consultation, where individuals and taxpayers can send feedback on the new proposal until 6 September 2021.