In practice it suits autónomos and small SLs that sell mostly to individuals, or that get paid late and do not want to advance to the tax agency VAT they have not yet collected. Under the general regime, if you issue an invoice in one quarter and get paid months later, you have already paid the VAT in the quarter of the invoice; under the cash scheme, you pay it when the money comes in.
The deferral is not open-ended either: if an invoice remains unpaid, the VAT falls due on 31 December of the year following the transaction at the latest. You opt in through a census declaration, and the rules are set out in articles 163 decies and following of the Spanish VAT law.
The typical mistake is opting in without tracking collections and payments: the scheme requires you to record in your VAT ledgers the date and method of every collection and every payment. Another frequent slip is not warning business clients, whose deduction will be delayed.
It is linked to the devengo and to the quarterly and annual VAT returns. kontora keeps your accounts in double entry and prepares your forms box by box with deadline reminders.
Guides that use this term
- How to fill in the modelo 303 box by box: a practical 2026 guide with a worked example
- Deferring or splitting a tax payment to Hacienda in Spain: how to apply, what can be deferred and what it costs
- Quarterly tax returns for the self-employed in Spain: which forms you file each quarter and by when
- How to fill in the modelo 036 box by box: registering as an autónomo or an SL, IAE heading, ROI, changes and deregistration
- How to fill in the modelo 390 box by box: instructions, a full-year example and how to reconcile it with your 303 returns
Related terms
Rather have this calculated for you?
kontora generates your tax forms box by box, tells you how much to set aside and reminds you before every deadline.