You request it free of charge at the AEAT electronic office using a digital certificate or Cl@ve. There are two versions: a general certificate and one issued under a specific tax treaty, which is the version foreign tax authorities usually ask for.
In practice it is requested in very specific situations: a foreign client about to pay you who wants to apply the treaty rate instead of withholding their country's general rate, a payment platform reviewing your tax status, or a foreign bank that needs to know where you are taxed. Each certificate refers to a specific year, so you need a new one whenever the payer asks for another year.
The typical mistake is sending the general certificate when the payer needs the treaty version, or requesting it before the AEAT has any record of you as a resident, for example if you did not file the previous year's income tax return. In that case the request may be refused or held for review.
It is linked to tax residency, double taxation treaties and the IRNR paid by non-residents. If the payer withholds tax anyway, that withholding is handled as double taxation relief in your income tax return or in your SL's corporate tax, and it is worth filing the certificate together with the invoices.
Guides that use this term
- Are you a Spanish tax resident? The 183-day rule, and the other two almost nobody looks at
- Renting out a property in Spain as a non-resident: what you pay and when you declare it
- Non-resident tax in Spain: which taxes you pay and when
- How to file and pay modelo 210 from outside Spain
- Selling a property in Spain as a non-resident: the 3% withholding, the capital gain and the plusvalía municipal
Related terms
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