Self-billing in Spain

Under the Spanish self-billing procedure, a customer can issue an invoice in the name of and on behalf of the supplier, for the goods and services supplied to the customer. The set-up of a self-billing process in Spain requires the signature of a specific legal self-billing contract between provider and customer, transferring the responsibility to create the invoice to the customer (the buyer).

When drafting the above referred agreement, attention has to be paid to Spanish new Invoicing Regulation (Royal Decree 1619/2012), that implements Directive 2010/45/EU, which came into force on January 1st, 2013.

Article 5.2 of the above referred Royal Decree contains the requirements to be fulfilled when a company asks a third party or the recipient to issue the invoices (listed below):

a) both the supplier and the recipient must agree from the outset that the customer/recipient will supply the invoice; in other words, supplier has to authorize recipient to issue the relevant invoices (the agreement procedure);

b) there must be a procedure for the supplier to accept each invoice (the acceptance procedure);

c) the recipient issuing the invoices shall send a copy of the same to the supplier.

In addition, should the company issuing the invoices be established outside the European Union, a previous notification must be sent to Spanish Tax Authorities.