Invoicing guide
Invoicing in Spain
VAT — how it works, what an invoice needs, and where the numbers come from.
Data as of 2026-07-19. Sources: www.boe.es (opens in new tab), www.boe.es (opens in new tab), www.boe.es (opens in new tab), sede.agenciatributaria.gob.es (opens in new tab), marosavat.com (opens in new tab), sede.agenciatributaria.gob.es (opens in new tab).
This is general guidance, not tax advice — verify with your tax authority.
The tax regime
Spain taxes most sales under a VAT system (regime type: vat). The document title Ochre prints is “Invoice.”
Tax registration number
The tax registration number for Spain is labelled NIF-IVA on an Ochre invoice.
Format: "ES", then 1 character (a digit or an uppercase letter), then 7 digits, then 1 character (a digit or an uppercase letter).
Registration & thresholds
There is no general revenue-based VAT registration threshold for resident businesses in Spain — registration is required from the first taxable supply (effectively €0). Spain's small-business regimes (régimen simplificado, recargo de equivalencia) affect how VAT is calculated and reported, not whether you need to register. Confirm this with the Spanish tax agency (AEAT); no amount is set here.
Rates
| Standard (21%) | 21% |
|---|---|
| Reduced (10%) | 10% |
| Super-reduced (4%) | 4% |
| Zero-rated (0%) | 0% |
| Exempt | 0% |
| Out of scope | 0% |
Rates shown above are for Domestic supply; this pack also defines Intra-Community B2B (reverse charge) and Export (outside EU) for cross-border or special-case supplies.
This pack also defines an “Intra-Community B2B (reverse charge)” table — intra-EU B2B supplies can qualify for the reverse charge.
Price display
Ochre's default for Spain is tax-exclusive pricing on a line item.
For consumer-facing (B2C) prices, the displayed price must include tax.
Rounding
Tax is rounded half up, applied once per tax rate on the invoice, to a precision of 0.01.
Mandatory invoice fields
- Seller's tax registration number
- Customer's tax registration number (B2B)
- Sequential invoice number
- Issue date
- Date of supply
- Tax broken down by rate
- Reverse-charge statement (where it applies)
Fiscal year & dates
The fiscal year starts January 1. Dates print in DD/MM/YYYY order.
Currency
EUR (€), shown to 2 decimal places.
E-invoicing
Spain has three systems at different stages. SII (live since 2017): near-real-time XML reporting within 4 days, required for businesses with turnover over €6 million and REDEME businesses. Verifactu: businesses not on SII that invoice with software must use invoicing software that meets the Verifactu requirements (a chained, tamper-evident record of every invoice and a QR code on it) — before 1 January 2027 for corporate-tax payers and before 1 July 2027 for everyone else, including the self-employed. Business-to-business e-invoicing: from October 2027 for businesses with turnover over €8 million, and from October 2028 for all others, invoices to other businesses must be issued electronically through an e-invoicing platform or the Spanish tax agency's free public solution. These dates have moved before — confirm yours with the Spanish tax agency (AEAT). Ochre does not connect to SII, is not a Verifactu system and does not send e-invoices; a business these rules cover needs software that does.