A draft Royal Decree with regard to the electronic invoice between companies and professionals has been introduced in Spain.

The main goal of this regulation is to extend the obligation to issue and send electronic invoices to all commercial relationships between companies and the self-employed. In other words, B2B transactions are the focus of this regulation, and the goal is to encourage the digitization of all companies, particularly the smallest ones. The purpose of this law is to improve regulation and the business climate, eliminate obstacles to the development of economic activities, reduce commercial delinquency, and optimize access to financing, as stated in the Preamble of the regulation.

In general, regulation states that the system is established for issuing e-invoices by providing exact information on the issuance, delivery, acceptance, and payment times of the same invoice. The whole system will be managed by the Spanish State Tax Administration (AEAT). The electronic invoice system will be made up of a set of private electronic invoice exchange platforms and a public electronic invoicing solution, which will also fulfill the function of an invoice repository. Also, the AEAT will develop a free application or form that, under certain conditions and requirements, will be made available to small businesses and professionals to allow these operators to generate electronic invoices and make them available to counterparties and the AEAT. If we talk about formats, the regulations state that an electronic invoice shall be understood as a computer message of a structured nature adjusted to the semantic data model EN16931 of the European Committee for Standardization and under certain syntaxes (XML message of the CEFACT/ONU, ISO/IEC, EDIFACT). Aldo, an electronic signature will be required. Electronic invoicing may be done through private electronic invoicing platforms, through the public electronic invoicing solution, or through a combination of both.

If we consider the timeline, the Regulation states that it will enter into force 12 months after its publication in the Official State Gazette; however, its entry into force is subject to obtaining the community exception of articles 218 (LAW 11857/2006) and 232 of Directive 2006/112/CE of the Council, of November 28, 2006 (LAW 11857/2006), relative to the common system of value added tax.

For the subjects, certain limits are predefined. More precisely, these obligations will apply to businessmen whose annual turnover is less than six million euros 36 months after the publication of the royal decree in the Official State Gazette and to professionals whose annual turnover is less than six million euros 48 months after the publication of the royal decree in the Official State Gazette. Until the expiration of the mentioned periods, the provision of information on the invoice statements will be voluntary. The Regulation can be found on the website of the Ministry of Telecommunications and Digital Infrastructures.