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VAT practical manual 2022.

Duty to bill

Business owners and professionals are required to issue an invoice and a copy of it for the delivery of goods and provision of services they carry out in the course of their activity and to keep a copy of it. They must also issue invoices in cases of advance payments, except for exempt intra-Community deliveries of goods.

Likewise, other persons and entities that do not have the status of entrepreneurs or professionals are obliged to issue and keep invoices or other supporting documents for the operations they carry out.

1. Assumptions of mandatory invoice issuance

In any case, business owners and professionals are obliged to issue an invoice in the following cases:

  • When the recipient is a businessman or professional acting as such.

  • When the recipient of the transaction so requires for the exercise of any right of a tax nature.

  • Exports of goods exempt from VAT (except those carried out in duty-free stores).

  • Intra-community deliveries of goods exempt from VAT.

  • When the recipient is a public administration or a legal entity that does not act as a businessman or professional.

  • Deliveries of goods subject to installation or assembly before they are made available.

  • Distance sales when they are understood to be made within the territory of application of the tax.

2. Exceptions to the duty to bill

There is no obligation to issue an invoice, except in one of the cases indicated as mandatory in the previous section, in the following operations:

  • Operations exempt from VAT by virtue of the provisions of article 20 of the VAT Law. However, the issuance of an invoice will be mandatory in operations exempt from article 20.Uno.2, 3, 4, 5, 15, 20, 22, 24, 25 and 28 of the VAT Law.

  • Those carried out by taxpayers in the development of activities to which the special regime of the equivalence surcharge is applicable. However, an invoice must be issued in all cases for the delivery of property subject to and not exempt from the Tax.

  • Those carried out by entrepreneurs or professionals in the development of activities for which they are covered by the simplified VAT regime, unless the determination of the quotas is made based on the volume of income. Nonetheless, an invoice should always be issued for transfers of fixed assets.

  • Those operations that, with reference to business or professional sectors or to specific companies, are authorized by the Tax Management Department of the State Tax Administration Agency, in order to avoid disturbances in the development of the economic activities of businessmen or professionals.

There is also no obligation to issue an invoice when it comes to the provision of services defined in article 20.One 16 and 18, sections a) an) of the VAT Law, unless:

  • They are understood to be carried out in the TAI or in another Member State and are subject to and not exempt from it.

  • They are understood to be carried out in the TAI, the Canary Islands, Ceuta or Melilla, are subject to and exempt from it and are carried out by entrepreneurs or professionals other than insurance entities, management companies of collective investment institutions, management entities of pension funds, securitization funds and their management companies, credit institutions, through the headquarters of their economic activity or permanent establishment located in the aforementioned territory.

  • The Tax Management Department of the State Tax Administration Agency exempts other business owners or professionals from the obligation to issue invoices, upon request of the interested parties, when justified by the commercial or administrative practices of the sector of activity in question or by the technical conditions for issuing these invoices.

There is no obligation to issue a "self-invoice" in the case of intra-Community acquisitions or in operations in which the taxable person is reversed. However, the original invoice or accounting receipt issued by the person who makes the delivery that gives rise to the intra-community acquisition or the provision of services or the delivery of goods that gives rise to the reversal of the taxable person will be considered as a supporting document for the deduction, provided that said acquisition of goods or services is included in the corresponding self-assessment.

3. Possibility of issuing monthly billing documents. Summary invoices

Transactions carried out on different dates for the same recipient may be included in a single invoice provided they have been carried out within the same calendar month.

The operations will be deemed to have been carried out on the date on which the tax became due.