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Spotlight PEPPOL BIS Billing 3.0 The EU e-invoicing mandate is here — France Sept 2026, Belgium Jan 2026, Germany 2025.

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Foundations

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Standards

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Spanish IVA regimes

Spanish IVA (Impuesto sobre el Valor Anadido) is one of Europe’s most complex: a General regime with four rates (0 / 4 / 10 / 21%), a Simplified regime for small businesses, the retailer-specific Recargo de Equivalencia, and two distinct territorial tax regimes for the Canary Islands (IGIC) and Ceuta-Melilla (IPSI). Mastering this taxonomy is essential to correctly configure Verifactu, SII, Facturae and FACe.

General regime rates

The General regime applies by default, unless an opt-in to a simplified regime occurs. The four main rates are set by LIVA article 90 (general rate) and article 91 (reduced and super-reduced rates):

text iva-rates-spain.txt 
# Main Spanish IVA rates (Ley 37/1992 of Impuesto sobre el Valor Anadido)

General rate            21%  - standard supplies, manufactured goods, professional services
Reduced rate            10%  - non-essential food, transport, hospitality,
                                residential water and gas, cultural goods (printed books,
                                newspapers, cinema, theatre, recorded music)
Super-reduced rate       4%  - essentials (bread, milk, eggs, fruit/veg, cheese),
                                human medicines, prosthetics, printed books (not electronic),
                                protected housing
Zero rate                0%  - extra-EU exports, intra-Community supplies,
                                investment gold, very specific operations

# Recargo de Equivalencia (added to the general IVA rate)
Super-reduced recargo   0.5% - applied on the 4% rate
Reduced recargo         1.4% - applied on the 10% rate
General recargo         5.2% - applied on the 21% rate

# Special tabacco (rate set by LGT, not strictly IVA but on IVA invoices)
Tabacco recargo         1.75% - applied on the 21% rate, on tobacco sales

Simplified regime and modulos

The Simplified regime (LIVA art. 122) is a flat-rate regime reserved for the activities listed in the yearly Orden ministerial. Rather than computing collected and deductible VAT operation by operation, the taxpayer applies modulos: a scale set against activity drivers (employees, surface area, energy consumption, kilometres driven).

  • Eligible activities — agriculture, fisheries, taxi/VTC, small-load land transport, take-away food service, certain repairs (shoes, clothing). Yearly list in the Orden HFP.
  • Eligibility thresholds — turnover < EUR 250,000 in 2024 (expected to rise to EUR 300,000 in 2026 according to the SME tax reform bill).
  • Modelo 131 — quarterly return, modulos-based computation, regularisation adjustments.
  • Opt-out — the taxpayer can opt into the General regime. The opt-out is irrevocable for 3 years.

Recargo de Equivalencia (retail)

The Recargo de Equivalencia is a Spanish peculiarity that radically simplifies IVA for retailers (LIVA art. 148 to 163). Rather than invoicing IVA to their customers and deducting IVA paid to their suppliers, they pay an enhanced recargo to their supplier, who remits it to AEAT, and they have no IVA return to file.

Mechanism:

  1. The retailer buys from a wholesaler with IVA 21% + Recargo 5.2% = 26.2% total.
  2. The wholesaler remits this IVA + Recargo to AEAT (after deducting its own upstream IVA on its own purchases).
  3. The retailer resells to the final consumer with IVA 21% included but WITHOUT Recargo (it is not charged to the consumer).
  4. The retailer has no IVA return: it already "paid" IVA through the Recargo.

Conditions:

  • Be a natural person or unified estate (succession), not a commercial company.
  • Have > 80% of turnover from resales to final consumers (no transformation).
  • No IVA return, but a normal IRPF return through Modelo 130 or Direct Estimation.

IGIC Canary Islands and IPSI Ceuta Melilla

For historical reasons (Canary Islands tax regime since 1972, Ceuta and Melilla regime since 1991), three Spanish territories sit outside the harmonised EU VAT system:

  • Canary Islands — IGIC (Impuesto General Indirecto Canario, Ley 20/1991) — IVA substitute for the Canarian archipelago. Rates are lower (super-reduced 0%, general 7% vs 21%). Receipts go to the Canarian government and to its DGT.
  • Ceuta and Melilla — IPSI (Impuesto sobre la Produccion, los Servicios y la Importacion, Ley 8/1991) — a city-specific indirect tax, levied by local governments at rates between 0.5% and 10% depending on the product. No IVA in these cities.
text igic-canarias-rates.txt 
# IGIC Canarias — Impuesto General Indirecto Canario
# (Ley 20/1991 of 7 June 1991, Canary Islands tax regime)
# IGIC substitutes IVA in the Canaries (EU territory but outside harmonised VAT)

General rate            7%   - standard supplies
Reduced rate            3%   - food, transport, certain services
Super-reduced rate      0%   - essentials, inter-island transport, residential water, books
Increased rate         13.5% - luxury cars, jewellery, certain manufactures
Special rate           20%   - tobacco, alcohols, cars > 22 fiscal HP

# IGIC recargo on resale
Super-reduced recargo   0%
Reduced recargo         0.3%
General recargo         0.7%
Increased recargo       1.35%

Implication for electronic invoicing:

  • An invoice from mainland Spain to a Canary Islands customer must be IVA-exempt (export outside the IVA territory); IGIC will be reverse-charged by the customer.
  • An invoice to a Ceuta / Melilla customer is IVA-exempt for the same reason; any IPSI is handled by the customer.
  • An intra-Canaries invoice between two Canarian taxpayers carries IGIC, Facturae format with TaxTypeCode 02 (IGIC) and rate 0 / 3 / 7 / 9.5 / 13.5 / 20%.

Reverse charge: article 84 LIVA

LIVA article 84 lists the eight reverse-charge cases (the customer pays IVA instead of the supplier). In Spanish law, "auto-liquidacion" refers to reverse charge. Canonical list:

text reverse-charge-spain.txt 
# Spanish auto-liquidacion (reverse charge) cases — Art. 84.Uno LIVA

1. Real-estate operations (non-buildable urban land, second and subsequent
   sales of buildings) - LIVA 84.Uno.2.e

2. Intra-Community operations (intra-EU acquisitions by a Spanish
   VAT-registered taxable person) - LIVA 84.Uno.2.a

3. Electronic-equipment operations (microprocessors, mobile phones,
   game consoles, laptops, tablets) above EUR 10,000 ex-tax per
   transaction - LIVA 84.Uno.2.g

4. Recovery materials (scrap metal, recycled plastics, glass) -
   LIVA 84.Uno.2.c

5. Premium telecommunications services (premium telephony) -
   LIVA 84.Uno.2.d

6. Greenhouse-gas emission rights assignment (EU ETS CO2 trading) -
   LIVA 84.Uno.2.f

7. Construction (subcontracting between construction companies in a
   B2B chain) - LIVA 84.Uno.2.f.5

8. Electricity production services (suppliers to the grid) -
   LIVA 84.Uno.2.h (effective 2014)

On a Facturae invoice, reverse charge appears as:

  • A TipoNoSujetaOExenta with code S2 in SII, and the legal caption "operacion sujeta no exenta con inversion del sujeto pasivo" mandatory in the PDF.
  • No collected IVA amount in the TaxesOutputs block (the customer will declare it on their side).
  • Mandatory LegalLiterals caption: "Operacion sujeta y no exenta con inversion del sujeto pasivo, art. 84.Uno.2 LIVA".

Other special regimes

On top of the main regimes, Ley 37/1992 provides for several activity-specific regimes:

  • Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries Special Regime (REAGYP) — flat 12% rate for farmers and 10.5% for fishermen on their sales. No IVA return.
  • Cash-Criterion Special Regime (RECC) — since 2014, lets SMBs (turnover < EUR 2 M) opt into criterio de caja taxation (cash basis: IVA chargeable only at collection, deductible only at payment).
  • Travel Agency Special Regime (REAV) — margin taxation for travel agencies.
  • Second-hand Goods, Art, Antiques and Collectibles Special Regime (REBU) — margin taxation for second-hand goods.
  • Investment Gold Special Regime (REOIV) — full IVA exemption for investment gold (bars, coins).
  • Group of Entities Special Regime (REGE) — VAT group regime for consolidated groups, with cross-compensation between subsidiaries. Subject to mandatory SII.