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VAT invoicing

Invoicing obligation, exceptions, types of invoices and contents

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Duty to preserve the invoices

Entrepreneurs and professionals must issue and deliver invoices and keep the invoices and supporting documents related to their tax obligations for the four-year limitation period (article 29.2, letter e) of Law 58/2003, of 17 December, General Taxation Act and 165.1 of Law 37/1992).

Likewise, the following documents must be kept with their original content, in an orderly fashion and for the period of time established in the General Tax Law:

  • Invoices received.
  • Physical copies or electronic data pertaining to issued invoices.
  • Accounting records for transactions subject to the reversal taxpayer system when the supplier is not established in the European Community.
  • The justificatory receipts of the compensatory refund in the Special System for Agriculture, Stock Breeding and Fishing, both the original by the issuer, and the copy by the holder of the exploitation.

Similarly, this duty binds business owners or professionals enrolled in any of the special Value Added Tax systems, as well as those not classed as business owners or professionals but who are required to pay Value Added Tax, although in the latter case it shall only encompass invoices received and copies of or electronic data on issued invoices.

The various documents, in paper or electronic format, shall be stored by any means enabling the party bound by the duty to guarantee the authenticity of their origin, the integrity of their content and their legibility, as well as immediate access to them by the Tax Agency except for duly justified reasons. This duty may be discharged through use of electronic means.

In order for storage by electronic means in a third country with which there is no legal instrument agreeing mutual assistance to be considered valid, the Tax Agency must have been informed to this effect in advance.

When the invoices received or issued relate to acquisitions for which VAT quotas of have been borne, the deduction of which is subject to an adjustment period, they must be kept for the corresponding adjustment period and the following four years.

The employers or professionals who carry out operations involving gold as investment will have to keep the copies of the invoices corresponding to these operations for a period of five years.