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E-invoicing in Spain

5 min read
Published on 15-01-2025

What companies need to know about Spain’s new invoicing laws 

E-invoicing mandates are being rolled out across the EU, with all member countries introducing their own laws in accordance with union-wide standards. This process began with the introduction of Directive 2014/55/EU all the way back in 2014. 

Electronic invoicing comes with a range of benefits for businesses and regulators. For issuing companies, e-invoices (with the right parameters) make financial record keeping much easier. Visibility into payment status makes progress and delays much easier to track. For the recipient, they make paying suppliers significantly easier. For regulators (and compliance officers), they make keeping track of transactions simple for the purposes of calculating tax obligations. 

However, not all e-invoicing rules across European countries are the same. It’s important for your business to familiarize itself with the relevant laws in all the countries you trade in. 

In this article, we’ll be focusing in on e-invoicing regulations in Spain. Read on to learn the basics of the law; what it means if you want to do business in Spain; and how you can equip your organization to benefit from e-invoicing while also improving your operational efficiency in both AR and AP. 

 

E-Invoicing in Spain: the basics 

Spain adopted the European Commission’s directive on mandatory e-invoicing in all business-to-government (B2G) transactions back in 2013. B2G e-invoicing has been mandatory in Spain since 2025.  

Following on from this, a new law passed in 2022 will soon extend this obligation to all business-to-business (B2B) invoices, along with some direct-to-consumer service providers (including telecoms, financial services, utilities, and others). 

As of January 2025, all companies with an annual revenue exceeding €8m must be able to issue, send, and receive e-invoices. This obligation will extend to all smaller organizations from January 2026.

The regulation establishes the requirement for all businesses to be able to send and receive e-invoices to other businesses, provide information on the status and payment of invoices on request, and maintain recipients’ access to e-invoices for a minimum of four years (or three years if they’re no longer active customers). 

Because all invoices will be created using government-certified systems, they’ll have an approved, structured format and use advanced electronic signatures to guarantee authenticity and prevent fraud. Recipients will also need to provide information to the sender and the government system to expedite payments. 

All providers will be legally bound to maintain interconnection and interoperability between all parties. This means recipients won’t be able to force invoice issuers to use a specific solution. All vendors and platforms will be accredited by the state to ensure compliance. 

 

E-Invoicing in Spain: what this means for you 

In brief, it means that you’ll no longer be able to send PDFs to bill customers in Spain after the deadline. Instead, you’ll need to communicate via public or certified private e-invoicing platforms.  

Additionally, for the first year after the new regulations come into force, you’ll also need to provide a readable PDF version of your invoices so that they can still be read and actioned by any business that is not yet using an e-invoice system. 

Of course, there’s also a big financial disincentive for non-compliance. This takes the form of a €10,000 fine. And if you’re a public service company or high-volume invoicer, you’re much more likely to be penalized. 

In the long run, this will mean Spanish companies will find it a lot easier to request, make, and receive payments. But as with any big technical change, it comes with some upfront costs and effort. To properly prepare for the change, you’ll have to think about the following: 
 

1. Think about how the change will affect your IT systems 

The move to e-invoicing will put some additional strain on your IT landscape. Your systems will need to be able to handle the interoperability and e-invoice format requirements. This might also cause your teams some temporary headaches, particularly when it comes to integrating any new systems into your existing stack. You may need to procure a system to manage creating, sending, and receiving e-invoices that’s compliant across all Spanish and international B2B, B2G, and B2C transactions for tax purposes (including VAT declarations). But it also means you’ll need to carefully select any e-invoicing system for its ability to interoperate with your existing systems (particularly your system of record). 
 

2. Do your homework on solution options and implementation requirements 

Start planning for e-invoicing now (if you haven’t already), taking into consideration any IT downtime, change management, and user training and education that will be required. 

You’ll be able to both manage the new compliance burden and take advantages of the benefits of e-invoicing if you have a system implemented before the new law comes in to force. (You’ll also ensure you avoid bottlenecks to implementation, because vendors are guaranteed to be swamped with new business requirements after January 1, 2025). 
 

3. Get your customers and suppliers ready for the change 

Make sure you’re monitoring your relationships and communicating your e-invoicing plans. Your customers will want to know your compliance plans so they can continue to pay you. Your suppliers will want to know you’re able to receive invoices from them in the required format. 

Letting them know how you’re ready to meet your obligations will help to strengthen relationships and foster forward business. Especially if you’ve had difficulties with billing, invoicing, and your own AP processes in the past due to PDF or paper invoice processes. 
 

4. Consolidate your systems as much as possible 

It’s easiest to handle this kind of disruption to your current systems if you’re doing it with the security of a single source of truth for your financial data. Take this as an opportunity to think about how you can remodel your processes and systems to create a more unified view of finance – across AP, AR, and treasury and liquidity management processes

 

How can Serrala help you? 

Serrala solutions are designed to create a coherent, end-to-end ecosystem for your invoice-to-pay processes that simplifies your accounting workflows and allows for full working capital optimization. In partnership with global e-invoicing leaders, our cloud and SAP-embedded AP and AR automation solutions can provide a single, integrated solution to handle e-invoicing mandates and regulations across over 60 countries. 

To learn more about how we can help you navigate e-invoicing and revolutionize your approach to financial operations – and how our solutions can streamline and automate every part of the process for greater working capital availability, efficiency, transparency, and decision velocity –  check out our resource pages here or click here to book a demo.

 

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