Spain E-Invoicing Updates 2026: Verifactu Postponement, Royal Decree 238/2026, and What's Next

Spain's e-invoicing rules moved more in the last nine months than in the previous several years combined. If you last checked the rules in early 2025, several dates you may remember have since changed. Here is a timeline of what actually happened, in order, with sources — and what to watch next.

2 December 2025 — Verifactu Postponed by One Year

The Spanish government approved Real Decreto-ley 15/2025, published in the BOE on 3 December 2025 and validated by Congress on 11 December 2025 (179 votes in favour, 168 against, 1 abstention). It pushed back the mandatory dates for Verifactu — the invoicing-software certification and anti-fraud reporting regulation — by exactly one year:

Taxpayer group	Original deadline	Current deadline
Companies (Impuesto sobre Sociedades)	1 January 2026	1 January 2027
Self-employed (autónomos) and other businesses	1 July 2026	1 July 2027

The stated reason was to give software vendors and businesses more time for an orderly, uniform technical rollout. If you're reading older content — including elsewhere on this site before this update — that cites a July 2026 Verifactu deadline, that date is no longer correct.

Action: Ask your invoicing software vendor when they expect VERI*FACTU certification, and check the AEAT's certified-software registry directly rather than relying on vendor marketing claims.

24 March 2026 — Royal Decree 238/2026 Gives the B2B Mandate Firm Dates

Separately from Verifactu, Spain's long-pending Crea y Crece B2B e-invoicing mandate (Ley 18/2022) finally got concrete dates. The Council of Ministers approved Royal Decree 238/2026 on 24 March 2026 (published in the BOE on 31 March 2026), establishing the legal architecture for mandatory structured B2B invoice exchange:

Date	What happens
1 October 2026	Ministerial Order takes effect; deadlines below start counting
1 October 2027	Mandatory for businesses with turnover above €8 million
1 October 2028	Mandatory for all remaining VAT-registered businesses and autónomos
1 October 2029	Payment-status reporting obligations extend to smaller entities

This is a different track from Verifactu — it governs exchanging structured invoices between businesses (UBL, CII, EDIFACT, or Facturae), not just certifying that your invoicing software produces tamper-evident records. See our Royal Decree 238/2026 explainer for the full breakdown.

17 April – 8 May 2026 — Draft Ministerial Order Public Consultation

The technical detail behind Royal Decree 238/2026 was left to a Ministerial Order. A draft went to public consultation between 17 April and 8 May 2026, covering the technical requirements for the AEAT's free public e-invoicing platform and the accreditation rules for private platforms. As of this update, the finalised order had not yet been published — treat any specific technical field-level requirements as provisional until the AEAT publishes the final text.

What's Being Discussed but Not Yet Confirmed

Some industry commentary in mid-2026 has floated the idea of consolidating Spain's SII real-time reporting system with Verifactu into a single reporting flow, since both increasingly touch the same underlying invoice data. As of this update, this is exploratory discussion, not a confirmed government proposal with a date — we'll update this page if and when AEAT or the Ministry of Finance publishes an actual plan. Don't budget technical work around it yet.

Why This Matters: Two Deadlines Now Sit Close Together

Because Verifactu slipped a year and the B2B mandate only got dates in March 2026, large Spanish businesses now face both in close succession: Verifactu's company deadline (1 January 2027) lands about nine months before the B2B mandate's first phase (1 October 2027, turnover above €8 million). Plan vendor selection and budget for both as a single 12-month project rather than two sequential ones.

Resources

Last updated: 12 August 2026. We track official sources (BOE, Agencia Tributaria, European Commission) and update this page whenever mandate dates change.