1. Timeline
Spain’s Ministry of Finance moved this file forward in two visible steps:
- 25 November 2025: the Council of Ministers approved an Anteproyecto de Ley (preliminary draft bill) to transpose a first part of the EU “VAT in the Digital Age” (ViDA) directive into Spanish VAT law.
- 1 December 2025: the text was published for public hearing as a draft amending Ley 37/1992 (Spanish VAT Law).
- Feedback window: multiple summaries noted stakeholders could submit comments until 23 December 2025.
2. Where this places in the broader EU ViDA roadmap
At EU level, the European Commission describes ViDA as a phased rollout to January 2035, with the most relevant milestones being:
- 1 Jan 2027: “minor legislative clarifications” affecting OSS/IOSS users
- 1 July 2028: deemed supplier/platform rules and single VAT registration measures start
- 1 July 2030: Digital Reporting Requirements (DRR) for cross-border B2B start
- 1 Jan 2035: existing domestic real-time reporting systems must align with EU standards
3. What Spain’s draft law does
A. One-Stop Shop (OSS) and distance sales: tighter clarifications
A central practical change is clarifying how the EUR 10,000 threshold works for intra-EU distance sales and certain electronic services.
B. Non-Union OSS scope: broadened application
The draft expands the Non-Union OSS so that non-EU suppliers can apply it more broadly to services supplied to final consumers in the EU, even where the consumer is not established in the EU.
C. VAT refunds for non-EU businesses: representative requirement
The draft introduces an obligation for certain non-EU businesses to appoint a representative to obtain VAT refunds in Spain in connection with OSS/IOSS-type activity (linked to the refund procedure in Article 119 bis of the VAT law).
D. Targeted exclusions and technical tweaks
The draft also includes targeted technical adjustments (for example, clarifying exclusions related to special cash-accounting rules for transactions reported under OSS regimes).
E. Transitional measures tied to later ViDA steps
Although the bill is “2027 wave,” it acknowledges later ViDA milestones by setting transitional mechanics, including:
- Call-off stock arrangements are noted as disappearing from 1 July 2028, with effects extended to 30 June 2029 (transitional rule).
- A temporary rule for certain energy supplies allowing OSS treatment until 30 June 2028, anticipating that these supplies become explicitly includable later.
4. What Spain did not include yet
Spain’s government communications around the draft were unusually clear that major ViDA changes dated 2028 and 2030 are not covered in this first transposition step.
From an e-invoicing perspective, that “missing scope” is the real story:
A. Platform deemed-supplier rules (from July 2028 at EU level)
EU-level guidance sets 1 July 2028 for deemed-supplier measures affecting platforms in short-term accommodation rental and passenger transport, plus other Single VAT Registration reforms. Spain’s domestic press coverage framed the draft as the first step toward making platforms collect VAT in certain cases, but the detailed deemed-supplier operational rules are part of the later wave rather than this 2027 OSS package.
B. Cross-border B2B e-invoicing + EU DRR (from July 2030 at EU level)
The Commission sets 1 July 2030 as the start date for Digital Reporting Requirements affecting cross-border B2B transactions.
This is the “structural shift” for e-invoicing programs: cross-border B2B invoicing becomes tied to near-real-time, transaction-level VAT data exchange across the EU.
As a concrete illustration of the direction of travel, ViDA materials describe shorter issuance timelines for invoices in scope (for certain intra-EU supplies) and a move toward standardized structured data.
C. Alignment of Spain’s existing real-time reporting (SII) by 2035
A key implementation point for Spain specifically: where countries already have domestic e-reporting systems they have until 1 January 2035 to conform with EU standards.
5. A 2027 step toward digital VAT
In summary, Spain’s December 2025 draft law is best understood as a targeted “Phase 1” ViDA transposition that prioritizes OSS-related refinements, distance-sales threshold clarifications, and certain non-EU refund/representation mechanics, with application planned from 1 January 2027. For e-invoicing stakeholders, the message is that the most consequential changes are still ahead. EU timeline points to the structured e-invoicing and digital reporting model for intra-EU B2B/B2G transactions from 1 July 2030, and eventual convergence of national reporting systems by 1 January 2035. Against that backdrop, businesses should treat Spain’s consultation draft as an early compliance signal while building implementation roadmaps that are technically capable of meeting the later, ViDA requirements.
