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Taxation of VAT on the sale of season tickets and boxes to attend processions during Easter Week

On 15 December 2022, the Central Economic-Administrative Court (TEAC) issued two resolutions in unification of criteria (RG 05825/2022 and RG 06997/2022) regarding the possible exemption and, where applicable, the VAT tax rate applicable to the activity of renting chairs or boxes to attend Easter Week processions.

The arguments and criteria of these two rulings are as follows:

The TEAC considers that Holy Week processions are covered by Article 20.Uno.14.d) of Law 37/1992 of 28 December 1992 on Value Added Tax, as there is no doubt that Holy Week processions are not only religious but also cultural in nature.

However, these are two different services:attendance at processional parades and the rental of chairs or boxes that allow you to watch the parade seated.

If public access to the processional parade along the Carrera Oficial were free and open to the public, that is, if anyone could watch the procession without having to pay for it, certainly, the people who paid to rent a chair or box would not be doing so to watch the procession -which is free and open to the public- but to be able to watch it seated.

However, if access to the processional parade along the Carrera Oficial were not free and unrestricted, i.e. if the parade could only be watched by those who had paid the corresponding price, then there would not be two different services (a cultural service of free access consisting of the processional parades and a service of renting chairs and boxes for a fee), but a single service provided by the taxpayer as the body responsible for regulating the Easter Week processions, consisting of granting, against payment, access to a restricted area of the processional route through the city, the so-called Carrera Oficial, to watch the Easter Week processions of all the brotherhoods that participate in the procession.

In the appeals, the TEAC does not consider it accredited whether public access to the procession was free and free of charge, but, given the possibility that both situations could occur, the TEAC establishes the following criteria for each of them:

    1. When the viewing of processional parades along the so-called Carrera Oficial during Holy Week is not free and unrestricted, i.e. it is reserved exclusively for those who pay for it, the sale of season tickets for seats and boxes to watch such processions constitutes a service subject to, but exempt from, Value Added Tax.It shall be understood that the viewing of the processional parades is not reserved exclusively for those who pay when the public who do not pay, even without having access to the seating areas or boxes, can watch the processional parades normally in all or part of the Carrera Oficial, as there is no relevant obstacle preventing them from doing so.

    2. On the other hand, if such parades could normally be watched by any person, along all or part of the Carrera Oficial, without the need to pay for them, that is to say, if access to them were free of charge, the sale of season tickets for seats and boxes would in that case constitute a service subject to and not exempt from VAT, subject to taxation at the general rate of 21 %.

The full text of the resolutions can be found at the following links Resolution 05825/2022 and Resolution 06997/2022.