Accounting software for Spanish businesses

How Spanish IVA works

The points below describe the Spanish regime itself, not HelloBooks — they are the rules your books have to line up with.

General rate — 21%

The tipo general, applied to most goods and services.

Reduced rate — 10%

The tipo reducido, covering categories such as passenger transport, hotel accommodation and restaurant meals.

Super-reduced rate — 4%

The tipo superreducido, covering categories such as basic foodstuffs, books and newspapers, and medicines for human use.

No general registration threshold

Spain has no turnover figure below which a business making taxable supplies simply escapes IVA obligations — being small does not, on its own, remove them.

Modelo 303 — quarterly by default

Most businesses file quarterly, in the first 20 days of April, July and October, and through 30 January for the final quarter.

Modelo 303 — monthly filers

Monthly filing applies to large businesses whose previous-year turnover passed EUR 6,010,121.04 and to businesses in REDEME, the monthly refund register. Those returns are generally due in the first 30 days of the following month.

Modelo 390 — annual summary

An informational recap of the year rather than a further payment, normally filed in January. Not everyone files it; SII taxpayers are among those exempt.

SII — near real-time invoice records

Large businesses, REDEME registrants and VAT groups keep their IVA books by sending invoice records to AEAT as they go, not only in the periodic return. Others may opt in.

Where it is filed

The Sede Electrónica of the Agencia Estatal de Administración Tributaria (AEAT). The Basque Country and Navarre run their own tax administrations under their special fiscal arrangements.

Territorial scope

IVA applies in mainland Spain and the Balearic Islands. The Canary Islands, Ceuta and Melilla sit outside it and use their own indirect-tax systems.

From your ledger to the Modelo 303

Each sales invoice carries its IVA rate and each purchase carries the cuota soportada you can deduct. At the end of the quarter those lines are totalled into the shape the Modelo 303 asks for: base imponible by rate, IVA devengado, exports and intra-EU dispatches, deductible input IVA, and the resultado de la liquidación. You review the totals against the transactions behind them, then key them into the Sede Electrónica or hand them to your asesor fiscal. HelloBooks sends nothing to AEAT.

Between quarters the bank feed does the work: transactions arrive, AI categorisation proposes the account and the IVA treatment, and you confirm or correct. That is what turns the 20th of April into a review.

Who this is for

• Sociedades limitadas that need a euro ledger, correctly rated sales and purchases and month-end statements without a full ERP.
• Autónomos who prepare their own quarterly Modelo 303 and want the boxes computed from real transactions, not a spreadsheet.
• Hospitality, retail and food businesses mixing 21%, 10% and 4% lines on the same ticket.
• Exporters and intra-EU sellers who need zero-rated dispatches kept apart from domestic supplies.
• Spanish subsidiaries of foreign groups invoicing in other currencies but reporting in euro.

Questions Spanish businesses ask