Mandatory e-invoicing in Spain: what is approved and what is missing
Mandatory business-to-business e-invoicing in Spain now has its regulation: Royal Decree 238/2026 has been in force since 20 April. What has not started is the countdown, because the 12 and 24 month deadlines are not counted from there. Here is what is actually published, and why the part that changes collections most is not the invoice format.
What is approved, and what is missing
The obligation comes from article 12 of Law 18/2022 on business creation and growth, known in Spain as Crea y Crece: businesses and professionals will have to issue and receive electronic invoices in their dealings with each other. That law did not say how, and a regulation was needed.
The regulation is Royal Decree 238/2026 of 25 March, published in the BOE on 31 March 2026 and in force since 20 April. It sets the formats, the requirements for private exchange platforms, the rules for invoice statuses, and the public solution run by the Spanish tax agency.
And here is the part almost nobody gets right: the regulation being in force does not switch the obligation on. Its fourth final provision counts the deadlines from the entry into force of a Ministry of Finance order developing the public solution. Until that order is published, there is no date to count from.
The two groups, and the threshold between them
| Who | Deadline from the ministerial order |
|---|---|
| Businesses and professionals with turnover above 8 million euros in the previous calendar year | 12 months |
| Everyone else, sole traders included | 24 months |
The 8 million threshold is calculated under article 121 of the Spanish VAT law, meaning the volume of operations of the immediately preceding calendar year. It is not accounting revenue and it is not the balance sheet total. They look alike, they are not the same, and the difference decides which group applies.
Both deadlines are firm and both are in the regulation. The only thing missing is the day they start. Any specific 2027 or 2028 date in circulation is a projection over a rule that does not exist yet, not a fact.
What actually changes in collections
If this were only a format change it would belong to the invoicing team and there would be nothing to write about. The piece that changes collections is a different one: the obligation to report the status of every invoice.
Article 10.3 of the regulation requires the status of an invoice to be communicated within a maximum of 4 calendar days, excluding Saturdays, Sundays and national holidays, from the date the status occurs. That covers acceptance, rejection and actual payment.
Read that again while thinking about an overdue ledger. Today, when an invoice falls due unpaid, there are three possible explanations and no way to tell which: it never arrived, it was never approved, or they do not intend to pay. Each one needs different handling, and the first call is spent finding out which of the three it is. With statuses running, that information arrives on its own, with a date on it.
Three things that stop being arguments and start being measurements
- The rejection, while it is still useful. An invoice rejected on day 3 stops being a surprise on day 62. It gets reissued inside the payment term instead of after it.
- The approval date. In many contracts it is what starts the payment clock, and today it is a matter of phone argument. With a dated status, it stops being one.
- Silence. A customer who does not report within 4 days is in breach of the regulation. It does not make the invoice accepted, but it does leave an objective, dated breach.
That last point is worth getting right, because it is easy to overreach. The rule does not say silence means acceptance. It says reporting is mandatory, which turns silence into a verifiable fact instead of an impression. It is material for the conversation that follows, and for deciding whether a customer still deserves the terms they have.
What to prepare now, without waiting for the order
The temptation is to wait for the order and start then. That is a bad idea for one concrete reason: what has to be prepared is not the invoice issuer, it is the receiver, and that touches data nobody has reviewed in years.
Checklist
- Customer identifiers. Correct tax number, exact legal name and the electronic address invoices must be sent to. A tax number mistyped today is an invoice that does not get delivered tomorrow.
- Who approves, at each customer. If approval is going to carry an official date, somebody has to give it. Find out who before the clock runs against you.
- The agreed payment term, in writing, per customer. Spanish Law 3/2004 sets 30 days as the general rule and allows up to 60 by express agreement. What it does not allow is nobody remembering what was agreed.
- Where the statuses will be stored. Receiving a status and not being able to see it on the customer record is the same as not receiving it.
- What happens when a rejection arrives. If the answer is "invoicing looks at it when they can", the 4 days buy nothing.
All five are data work, not software work, and none of them depends on the ministerial order. They can be done today, and they are exactly the ones that cannot be improvised the month before.
The mistake of reading it as a tax obligation
This should not be confused with Spain's verifiable invoicing system or with immediate supply of information. They are different mechanisms with different purposes, and the Crea y Crece one was born with a stated objective that is not revenue collection: reducing late payment. Payment traceability is the mechanism, not a side effect.
That decides who should own it. If the project stays inside the tax department, the result will be an implementation that complies and contributes nothing: invoices in the right format and not one new data point in collections. If the people who chase the money take part, the same effort brings approval dates, rejection reasons and payment confirmations onto every customer record.
Frequently asked questions
Is mandatory e-invoicing already in force in Spain?
The regulation is, since 20 April 2026. The obligation to issue and receive electronically is not: it applies 12 months after the ministerial order on the public solution enters into force for those above 8 million in turnover, and 24 months after for everyone else. That order has not been published.
When does the deadline start counting?
From the entry into force of the Ministry of Finance order developing the public solution, not from the Royal Decree. It is the fourth final provision of the regulation. Until that order appears in the BOE there is no start date and every calculation is a forecast.
Does it affect sole traders too?
Yes. The obligation covers businesses and professionals, and a sole trader is one. They fall in the 24 month group unless their volume of operations exceeds 8 million euros.
What happens if a customer does not report the invoice status?
They breach article 10.3, which gives them 4 calendar days excluding Saturdays, Sundays and national holidays. It does not make the invoice accepted by silence, but it does leave a dated record of their breach, and that is usable in a claim.
Does this change the legal payment terms?
No. They remain those of Law 3/2004: 30 days as the general rule, extendable to 60 by express agreement. What changes is that there will be an official date to count them from, instead of whichever date each side remembers.
Where should preparation start?
With customer data, not with software. Tax number, legal name, electronic address and who approves. None of the four depends on the order appearing, and none of them can be fixed in a week.
What comes next
While the calendar settles, money keeps taking as long as it takes. To measure how long, start by calculating DSO and the cost of every day of delay. For invoices already overdue, look at how much can be claimed at the statutory late payment rate, and for what happens before a default, the 7 signs a customer is about to stop paying are detectable with data already on hand.
In FK, invoice statuses, approval dates and agreed terms live on the customer record, not in an inbox. To see that against a real ledger, book a demo.