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Practical manual VAT 2025.

Intra-EU acquisitions and imports

1. Intra-EU acquisitions of goods 

The taxpayer will be the person who carries them out, that is, the purchaser of the goods.

2. Imports

Those who carry out imports will be subject to the tax.

The following will be considered importers, provided that the requirements of customs legislation are met:

  1. Recipients of imported goods.

  2. Travelers, for the goods they carry when entering the territory.

  3. The owners of the property, in cases not covered by the previous numbers.

  4. The purchasers or, where applicable, the owners, lessees or charterers of the goods, when dealing with operations similar to imports of goods.

On the other hand, when it comes to imports referred to in article 27.12 of the LIVA , if the importer acts through a tax representative, the latter is obliged to comply with the material and formal obligations arising from said imports.

In the case of gasoline, diesel and biofuels intended for use as fuel included in sections 1.1, 1.2.1, 1.2.2, 1.3, 1.13 and 1.14 of tariff 1 of article 50.1 of Law 38/1992, of December 28, on Special Taxes, the completion of the non-customs warehouse regime will be understood to have been carried out, in any case, by the last depositor of the product that is extracted from the tax warehouse, who will be obliged to pay the Value Added Tax for the operation assimilated to the import, or by the owner of the tax warehouse if he is the owner of the product.