Spain remains on the frontline of a VAT compliance revolution, with major changes that will revolutionise the marketplaces and the e-commerce seller sector.

In the wider perspective, these changes form part of the EU-wide VAT in the Digital Age-also known as ViDA-designed to make it easier to efficiently collect the due revenues and limit fraud in the digital economy.

Since January 1, 2025, online marketplaces have been made more accountable in terms of VAT collection. They are now required to pay VAT on B2C sales by sellers both from within and outside the EU that are conducted on their platforms. Spain has joined other European Union countries with this change to provide a consistent approach toward e-commerce taxation.

E-commerce sellers will find it very different now. The old distance selling threshold of €35,000 has been replaced by a pan-European threshold of €10,000. Above this threshold, sellers must register for VAT in Spain or use the OSS scheme to simplify their compliance across the EU. Spain is moving in a big way towards modernizing its taxing system through an expansion of its requirements for electronic invoicing in its commercial environment.

As electronic invoicing is already compulsory for Business-to-Government (B2G) transactions, Spain is moving towards electronic invoicing for Business-to-Business (B2B) transactions beginning in July 2025. It will have a phased rollout, stage 1 for larger companies (with over €8 million annual sales first off), and stage 2 for all companies in a 12-month period.

The electronic transformation in reporting taxes will streamline processes, make them transparent, and will make Spain’s commercial environment efficient in general. Another important novelty is the introduction of the Verifactu system. This e-invoicing requirement will force taxpayers’ computer billing software to meet certain standards by July 2025, but there are consultations about possibly extending this to January 2026. 

For both marketplace and e-commerce sellers, both opportunity and challenge arise in equal proportion with such changes: compliance requirements will increase, but the OSS scheme introduces one, less complex mechanism for reporting VAT in the EU. Business will have to re-think VAT requirements, retool, and possibly register for VAT in Spain, or utilize the OSS.

As Spain overhauls its VAT regime for the digital age, companies must adapt and inform. Only companies that adapt to such change will survive in Spain’s new era of e-commerce. With the go-live date near, it is high time for marketplace and e-commerce sellers to prepare for Spain’s new VAT compliance era.