Residents of the Canary Islands, Ceuta and Melilla
We inform you how to recover the VAT paid for purchases you have made in the peninsula or the Balearic Islands
VAT refund. Residents of the Canary Islands
Upon arrival in the Canary Islands, you must go to the corresponding airport/port Customs office or the Tax Office to have your Electronic Refund Document (DER) electronically stamped and present your purchased goods.
The return of the VAT In the passenger regime, it is subject to prior settlement of the IGIC.
To carry out this liquidation it will be necessary:
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For purchases made before September 23, a “Simplified Declaration for the Importation of Postal Packages” (Form 040) must be submitted.
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For purchases made after September 23; It will not be necessary to present a model, but you must have provided a valid email address or telephone number at the time of purchase. The Canary Islands Tax Agency (ATC) will process the IGIC and send the traveler a payment receipt for the tax so they can proceed with its payment.
After the liquidation practice, from the AEAT The DER will be automatically electronically sealed, passing to the sealed CONFORME state.
The traveller will send the Electronic Refund Document (DER) electronically endorsed by Customs to the supplier, who will refund the amount charged within the following fifteen days by check, bank transfer, credit card or other means that allows the refund to be verified.
Refunds of the tax may also be made through collaborating entities authorized by the State Agency for Tax Administration. Travelers will present the electronic reimbursement documents endorsed by Customs to these entities, which will pay the corresponding amount, stating the traveler's consent.
No. The entire procedure is recorded electronically and it is an essential requirement that the operation be documented in an Electronic Refund Document.
If you meet the rest of the requirements and, provided that you can prove that your purchases have entered the Canary Islands within 3 months of their purchase (you must request that your purchases be verified upon arrival, when disembarking), you can ask the seller to issue you the Electronic Refund Document (ERD) afterwards.
No. The entire procedure is recorded electronically and it is an essential requirement that the operation be documented in a DER .
However, the retail establishment cannot deny you your right to a refund nor can it refuse to issue the DER. The seller must issue the corresponding invoice and, in addition, a DER, available at the Electronic Headquarters of the State Tax Administration Agency, in which he will record the goods acquired and, separately, the corresponding tax.
Thus, the issuance of the DER by the seller is not configured as a discretionary or optional circumstance for the seller, but rather as a genuine legal obligation situated at the same level as the obligation to issue invoices.
The seller's refusal to issue the DER, which it is legally and statutorily obliged to do, could be considered a tax dispute for the purposes of allowing the consultant to file the corresponding economic-administrative claim before the Economic-Administrative Court.
Neither the regulations of the VAT nor of the IGIC regulate this period. However, it should be noted that the traveler's request may require the seller to rectify the transferred fees, for which they have a maximum period of 4 years from the moment in which the Tax corresponding to the operation was accrued. According to the above, the traveler must submit the endorsed DER before four years have elapsed since the accrual of the operation documented therein, so that said supplier can comply with the obligation to rectify the transferred fees recorded therein. After this period, the supplier will not be obliged to rectify these fees or return the amount thereof.
Therefore, the Customs approval must be made available to the seller within 4 years of the purchase.
When it comes to purchases made in other Member States by residents of the Canary Islands who do not fly directly, but whose last airport/port of departure from the EU territory is located in the Peninsula and the Balearic Islands, three cases must be distinguished:
- Goods in checked baggage, when there is a stopover: stamp on the outgoing EM (p. eg. Flight Paris-Barajas-Las Palmas, with checked baggage, competent to be stamped by Paris Customs)
- Goods in hand luggage, when there is a stopover: Manual stamp upon arrival in the Canary Islands (as there is a stopover and there is a risk that the goods will remain in TAU, it may be that the Customs office upon departure does not want to stamp it, it would be stamped upon arrival in the Canary Islands).
- Departures from the VAT territory via the Peninsula and the Balearic Islands when there is no "stopover" but the traveler makes a stop (e.g., 2 flights, 1 Paris - Madrid, 2 Madrid - Canary Islands): manual stamp upon arrival in the Canary Islands .