“Crea y Crece” Spain: Approved E-Invoicing mandate for 2027-2028

In September 2022, the Spanish government published the ‘Crea y Crece’ law, thereby taking its first steps towards a B2B electronic invoicing requirement. As it is presented now, ‘Crea y Crece’ will coexist alongside the SII and VERI*FACTU principles, according to which Spanish companies have been reporting VAT-related information to their government since 2017. In what follows, we will briefly report on what is currently known about the new ‘Crea y Crece’ requirements, and what SAP will offer in order to comply with them.

Pioneer within Europe, Spain entered the previously mostly Latin American realm of eDocuments in 2017, through the introduction of the ‘Suministro Inmediato de Información del IVA’ (SII) principle. SII is a system of near real-time B2G electronic reporting, ruling all VAT-related information from B2B transactions to be sent electronically to the Spanish tax authorities (‘Agencia Estatal de Administración Tributaria’ or AEAT). Its main purpose is to be an instrument in Spain’s fight against tax evasion. Aside from added control for the Spanish government, SII nonetheless also aims at helping Spanish companies to obtain their data for VAT returns more swiftly and precisely, and speeding up any refund process. More information on SII and SAP’s solution for the SII requirements, can be found in our previous blogpost: SII Spain: Reporting on VAT info with SAP Document Compliance

With the ‘Crea y Crece’ (Business Creation and Growth) law, the Spanish authorities dictate the use of electronic invoices in all transactions by companies and freelancers. Aside from accelerating Spain’s digitalization process, the new law equally aims at increased transparency for both government and businesses; and the promotion of growth through the evasion of late payments and unnecessary transaction costs. Contrarily to SII, which solely applied to certain types of companies (large companies, members of VAT groups or the REDEME scheme), ‘Crea y Crece’ targets all Spanish companies and freelancers. It will nonetheless be introduced in stages, starting out with large taxpayers (annual turnover of over 8 million euros) in 2027, before fanning out to the general public. Furthermore, whereas SII presents its targeted document types in the form of ‘Books’ (e.g. ‘LFRE’ book of outgoing invoices, ‘LRFR’ book of incoming invoices), transactions affected by the new e-invoicing requirements will firstly be all B2B invoices, exempting only specific cases such as non-residents, foreign transactions or simplified invoices. B2C transactions are excluded as well.

In essence, it comes down to the fact that all Spanish companies with a fixed establishment from mid-2024 will need to be able to issue, receive and follow-up on electronic invoices for their domestic B2B transactions.

To this purpose, four syntaxes of the EN 16931 semantic model will be allowed to be used based on the latest draft of the Royal Decree: CII, UBL, EDIFACT and Facturae (Spanish format mainly used for B2G e-invoicing in Spain). QR codes and digital signatures will be required. Two channels will be offered to transmit e-invoices: accredited private platforms, which must be freely interoperable with each other, and a free public solution operated by the Spanish Tax Authority, AEAT. Taxpayers may use either or both channels, but in all cases a faithful UBL copy of every invoice must still be sent to the public solution. The private platform operators must have the capability to transform e-invoices between all four supported formats, all the while guaranteeing the preservation of the invoice content’s integrity. Invoice data must be transmitted to AEAT within four days of the transaction. 

The AEAT’s public platform will serve as both a repository and a payment-monitoring tool. To achieve the latter purpose of covering not only the invoice’s exchange but the entire invoice lifecycle, both suppliers and customers are required to electronically submit invoice status updates (e.g. commercial invoice acceptance or rejection, full payment date) to the public solution within four calendar days of occurrence.

Any future updates on the legal requirements will be added to this blogpost upon their release.