Spain VAT tax representative for non-EU sellers (AEAT, representante fiscal)

A business established outside the EU that makes taxable sales in Spain names a representative with a domicile in mainland Spain or the Balearic Islands, the representante fiscal, and tells the Agencia Tributaria before its first taxable operation. The duty is in Ley 37/1992 art. 164.Uno.7º and Reglamento del IVA art. 82.1. The Act names no exempt state. The tax agency’s own page names one, Norway, so on that page a UK or US business needs one. A business that uses the one-stop shop needs none, and neither does one established in the Canary Islands, Ceuta or Melilla. No threshold applies. This page is only what Spain adds to EU VAT registration; the role itself is on fiscal representative, and the other Spanish rules are on selling in Spain as a non-EU company.

A business outside the EU names a representative before its first taxable sale

The representative is any person or company with a domicile in mainland Spain or the Balearic Islands. That is the territory where the VAT Act applies, because the Canary Islands, Ceuta and Melilla are outside it (Ley art. 3; the tax agency’s distance-sales page gives it as “Península y Baleares”). You name it, and tell the tax administration, before your first taxable operation. It then acts for you in meeting the duties of the VAT Act and the Reglamento (Reglamento art. 82.1). That domicile is the one condition the article sets. It names no accreditation, no solvency test and no guarantee. The general tax act requires a non-resident to name a representative where a tax rule says so, and the notice goes to the administration as that rule sets it (Ley 58/2003 art. 47). For VAT the notice is made in the census declaration, form 036, which carries the representative’s name, NIF, tax domicile and nationality (Real Decreto 1065/2007 art. 8.1.c).

The art. 164 representative carries no liability. Neither art. 164 nor art. 82 makes it answer for your VAT. The general rule is that a third person’s liability is subsidiary unless a law says otherwise (Ley 58/2003 art. 41.2). The Act makes the refund representative answer jointly (art. 119 bis.Uno.1º). It binds an importer’s fiscal representative to the duties of certain imports (art. 86.Tres) and makes those who import in their own name for importers answer jointly for the import VAT (art. 87.Dos.3º). The VAT stays due from you (art. 84.Uno.1º).

The tax agency names one non-EU state: Norway

A business that needs no representative still owes Spanish VAT on a taxable sale. A non-established taxable person files its own census declaration (Orden EHA/1274/2007 art. 2.1.f).

You register in Spain when your sale is Spanish

Stock you keep in Spain can make you established there. A permanent installation you run to store and later deliver your own goods is a permanent establishment (art. 69.Tres.2º.e), and one that takes part in your sales makes you established (art. 84.Dos). Then you name no representative and your business customers do not reverse-charge. No text read says whether stock at a third-party warehouse counts.

The general cases are in EU VAT registration and EU VAT for online sellers.

No threshold applies to you

The Act sets no turnover limit that excuses a taxable person from the duties of art. 164, and the EUR 10,000 limit of art. 73 is for a business established in one other EU country, which you are not. The EU rule is in VAT OSS.

How you register, in order

1. Name the representative. Any person or company with a domicile in mainland Spain or the Balearic Islands, named before your first taxable operation (Reglamento art. 82.1). If the natural person who acts as the entity’s representative has no Spanish NIF, that person requests one with form 030 (tax agency).
2. Request your NIF and register in the census with form 036. The declaration of registration is filed before your first delivery, purchase, receipt or payment for the business (Real Decreto 1065/2007 art. 23.2 and art. 9.4). It carries your representative’s details. On the same form you ask to join the register of intra-EU operators if you trade with EU businesses (art. 9.3.g).
3. File it at the representative’s tax office. On paper, handed in or sent by registered post to the Administración or Delegación of the tax agency for the representative’s tax domicile, or electronically with a recognised certificate (Orden EHA/1274/2007 art. 12.1 and 12.3). The electronic route needs a NIF you already hold (art. 13.2.a). The agency also lists a remote NIF request for entities on its form 036 page.
4. Give the founding papers. The agency assigns the NIF within 10 days. It is provisional until you give the deed or equivalent founding document, the statutes and, where there is one, a public-register certificate; the pending papers are due within one month of the registration or of the founding documents. The signer shows that they act for the entity. The agency may require a Castilian translation of papers in a language that is not official in Spain (Real Decreto 1065/2007 art. 24).
5. Choose how you report. For the OSS, form 035 registers you and form 369 is the return (tax agency). Spanish sales that stay outside the OSS go on form 303.

The agency may require a Castilian translation of invoices for goods delivered in Spain (Ley art. 164.Cuatro).

You file and pay in Spain

You claim Spanish VAT back through a representative

If you have no taxable Spanish operations and only paid Spanish VAT on costs, you do not register. You claim it back under Ley art. 119 bis, and the claim needs a representative resident in Spain, named beforehand, who answers jointly with you for a refund paid in error. The tax office may require a sufficient guarantee, a caución, from that representative. Your state must give Spanish businesses reciprocal treatment, recognised by a resolution of the Director General of Taxes. The route is closed to a business that made Spanish sales other than the few the article lists, such as sales to a customer who owes the VAT (art. 119.Dos.2º, which art. 119 bis applies). A business that reports through the OSS or IOSS claims the VAT on those operations without recognised reciprocity and names no representative for it (art. 163 tervicies.Dos; art. 163 octovicies.Dos).

You file form 361 electronically on the tax agency’s refunds page. The claim covers a period of 3 months up to a calendar year and is due by 30 September of the year after the one in which you bore the VAT. The minimum is EUR 400 for a period under a year and EUR 50 for a full year or for what remains of a calendar year. It comes with a certificate from your own tax authority that you carry on VAT-taxable business there, and, the first time the representative files for you, its power of attorney (Reglamento art. 31 bis).

What happens if you do nothing

The VAT is due from you whether or not you named a representative. The agency then assesses it, with the consequences below.