Can't pay your Hacienda payment plan: what happens if you miss an instalment and what you can do

Can't pay your Hacienda payment plan: what you need to know first

In an aplazamiento or fraccionamiento (a deferral or an instalment plan), each instalment falls due on the 5th or the 20th of the month set in the agreement (art. 52.1 of the General Collection Regulation, RGR) and is collected by domiciliación (direct debit) from the account named in it. If the charge does not go through that day, the instalment is unpaid.

The good news is that missing an instalment is not an infraction. You start from a filed self-assessment (autoliquidación), and art. 191.1 of the Ley General Tributaria (LGT, the General Tax Law) rules out an infraction when art. 161.1.b applies, which is the case of a filed self-assessment with no payment. What follows is the enforcement period (periodo ejecutivo), with its surcharges and interest, not a tax penalty.

What happens next depends on three details in the grant resolution:

• Whether it is a deferral (a single payment made later) or an instalment plan (several instalments).
• Which period the debt was in when you applied: voluntary (within the deadline of the return) or enforcement (already due and unpaid).
• Whether there is a guarantee, and whether it covers the whole agreement or only some instalments. Up to 50,000 € there usually is none (explained in the deferral guide).

What happens if I miss an instalment of the payment plan: what art. 54 RGR says

Art. 54 RGR regulates non-payment. Its wording has not changed since 2006.

Single-payment deferral. If the application was made in the voluntary period, the enforcement period starts the day after the missed due date and the AEAT starts the apremio (compulsory collection). It demands the principal, the late-payment interest from the end of the original voluntary period to the due date you did not pay, and the enforcement surcharge on the sum of both (art. 54.1.a). If the application was made in the enforcement period, the apremio that was already under way simply continues (art. 54.1.b).

Instalment plan with no guarantee, or with one guarantee for the whole agreement. Here comes the question of whether the other instalments fall due, and the answer depends on the debt included in the unpaid instalment (art. 54.2):

• Instalment with debts that were in the voluntary period: only that instalment is pursued, with its interest and the surcharge on the sum. The rest of the agreement stays alive. But if you also do not pay what is demanded within the period of the providencia de apremio (the enforcement order), all pending instalments are treated as due and all the debts are pursued.
• Instalment with debts that were already in the enforcement period: there is no second chance. The apremio continues for all the debts of the agreement that were in the enforcement period, and those that were in the voluntary period enter the enforcement period the day after the missed payment.

If the agreement mixes debts from both periods, the instalments with enforcement-period debts are paid first and cannot be combined with voluntary-period ones in the same instalment (art. 52.2 RGR).

Instalment plan with partial guarantees, one for each instalment or group of instalments: non-payment only drags down the instalments covered by that guarantee, and the agreement stays in force for the others (art. 54.3).

If there is a guarantee and you do not pay within the period of the providencia, the AEAT enforces it: it collects from the bank guarantee, the surety insurance or the mortgaged asset (art. 54.1.c and 2.c RGR and art. 168 LGT). With a partial exemption from guarantees, or if the guarantee turns out to be insufficient, it does not wait to enforce it before continuing the apremio (art. 54.5 RGR).

Breach of the payment plan with Hacienda: what happens in each case

Summary of art. 54 RGR:

In all cases, once the providencia has been notified, if you do not pay within its period the AEAT moves on to seizure of assets (art. 167.4 LGT).

Enforcement-period surcharges and the providencia de apremio

Non-payment starts the enforcement period, and with it the surcharges of art. 28 LGT accrue. There are three, and they are mutually exclusive:

• 5% enforcement surcharge, if you pay everything owed before the providencia de apremio is notified to you.
• Reduced 10% apremio surcharge, if you pay the debt and the surcharge itself within the period the providencia opens.
• Ordinary 20% apremio surcharge, in any other case. This one is compatible with late-payment interest; with the 5% or the 10% the interest accrued since the start of the enforcement period is not charged (art. 28.5 LGT).

The providencia de apremio is the notification that identifies the debt, calculates the surcharge and demands payment (art. 167.1 LGT). The period to pay it depends on the day you receive it (art. 62.5 LGT):

• notified between the 1st and the 15th of the month: until the 20th of that month;
• notified between the 16th and the last day: until the 5th of the following month;
• in both cases, if that day is not a working day, until the next working day.

After that period comes seizure, which covers the debt, the interest, the surcharges and the costs, and normally starts with the money in your accounts (art. 169 LGT).

On interest: the interest under the agreement is calculated at the late-payment rate in force, which you will find in the deferral guide. The enforcement-period interest runs until payment and its base does not include the apremio surcharge (art. 72 RGR). Note: the late-filing surcharge calculator calculates the art. 27 LGT surcharge for filing late, not these ones.

Before the due date: what to do if you can see you will not make it

1. Pay at least that instalment. In an instalment plan for a voluntary-period debt, one instalment paid keeps everything else alive.
2. Leave the balance in the account set up for direct debit. The agreement states the account and the bank for the charge (art. 52.1 RGR). If you need a different account, raise it as a modification and in good time.
3. Ask for a modification of the terms. Art. 52.3 RGR expressly allows it: once the agreement is granted, you can ask for the instalments or amounts to be changed, and it is processed under the same rules as a new application. The same rule warns that the request has no suspensive effect in any case: if the instalment falls due while they study it and you do not pay, art. 54 applies all the same. Ask with time to spare and explain what has changed.
4. Check whether Hacienda owes you anything. If you have a recognised refund, you can ask for set-off (compensación) (art. 72 LGT and art. 56 RGR). And if your agreement was granted with a total or partial exemption from guarantees, set-off against the refunds due to you is deemed requested from the resolution, even if it brings due dates forward (art. 52.2 RGR).

The modification is requested on the AEAT online office, in the same section as deferrals.

After non-payment: a new deferral and partial payment

Applying for a new deferral. Once the debt is in the enforcement period, the law lets you apply for a deferral until you are notified of the agreement to sell the seized assets (art. 65.5 LGT). But the conditions are worse than those of the first agreement:

• the surcharge has already accrued and does not disappear by applying for a deferral;
• the AEAT can start or continue the apremio while it processes the request, and it only suspends the sale of assets (art. 65.5 LGT);
• interest is calculated without including the surcharge in the base (art. 53 RGR);
• if you repeat a refused application without substantial changes, it is inadmissible (art. 47.2 RGR), and an inadmissible application is deemed not filed.

In addition, according to the AEAT internal criteria set out in the deferral guide, automated processing refuses applications that include a debt from an agreement already breached. You will have to justify better why you can pay this time.

Paying part of it. A partial payment does not save the instalment: the 5% and the 10% surcharges require payment in full (art. 28 LGT). Even so, it reduces the base on which enforcement-period interest runs until payment (art. 72 RGR) and what is seized (art. 169 LGT).

The payment plan and the taxes that keep arriving: payments on account and the quarter's VAT

Art. 52.2 RGR allows the agreement to be kept in force only if you are up to date with your tax obligations while it lasts. If your agreement carries that condition, leaving the next tax unpaid can cost you the whole agreement even if you pay every instalment.

And not everything that comes after can be deferred (art. 65.2 LGT):

• Withholdings on modelos 111 and 115 (the quarterly withholding returns): never deferred.
• Instalment payments on account of Corporate Tax (modelo 202): not either.
• VAT for the following quarter (modelo 303, the quarterly VAT return): only the output VAT that your customers have not paid you, and with justification. VAT you have already collected is not deferred.
• Modelo 130 of the autónomo (self-employed person): it does admit deferral, but you will be adding up deferred debts and, with them, the joint limit of 50,000 € without a guarantee explained in the deferral guide.

Note down the coming returns with the 2026-2027 tax calendar and set aside the VAT and withholding money before anything else. If a letter arrives from the AEAT asking you for information while the agreement lasts, the guide on the Hacienda notice (requerimiento) explains how to reply on time.

When it is worth talking to a professional

A one-off missed payment in the voluntary period is fixed by paying the providencia on time. It is worth having a tax adviser or your gestor (a Spanish administrative and tax agent) look at it when:

• the agreement has a guarantee (bank guarantee, mortgage, surety insurance);
• the agreement mixes voluntary-period and enforcement-period debts;
• you have already received seizure orders (diligencias de embargo), or the combined debt exceeds 50,000 €;
• you will not be able to pay for months, not days: then the problem is not temporary lack of liquidity, which is what art. 65.1 LGT requires for a deferral. If your company is at risk of insolvency, Ley 16/2022 provides a specific regime, which the deferral guide links to, and there advice is not optional.

Bring the grant resolution, the notifications received and a realistic forecast of receipts.

Frequently asked questions

Keep reading