The Government has given the green light to a royal decree that mandates the use of B2B electronic invoicing in all operations between companies and professionals. This measure seeks to advance the digitalization of the productive fabric, reduce commercial delinquency and ensure that companies, especially SMEs, collect payments more quickly and securely.
With this regulation, the B2B electronic invoice is defined as a structured and automatically readable file, leaving behind formats such as PDF, spreadsheets or paper. In addition, companies must communicate the status of each invoice, including its acceptance and the effective payment date, which adds transparency and facilitates the control of transactions.
Alternatives for exchanging electronic invoices
Companies will be able to choose between two ways to manage their electronic invoices. The first consists of using private platforms, which must be interconnected so that no supplier is forced to operate on their client's platform. The second option is the public and free solution developed by the State Tax Administration Agency (AEAT), open to any company or professional, including freelancers with a reduced volume of monthly invoices.
The implementation will be staggered: one year for companies with turnover exceeding 8 million euros and two years for the rest, counted from the publication of the ministerial order, expected before July 1, 2026. Therefore, the obligation of use will foreseeably extend until July 2027 or 2028, depending on the size of the company.
According to the Minister of Economy, Carlos Cuerpo, what is intended with this royal decree "is to facilitate the adoption of this measure in particular by SMEs and to establish, therefore, a sufficiently broad transitional period also taking into account the size of the companies of the obliged subjects".
This royal decree is approved in parallel with another project from the Ministry of Finance, known as Verifactu, which has already come into force, although its practical effects are postponed until 2027. While Verifactu is aimed at combating tax fraud and establishes obligations for developers of billing software, the B2B electronic invoice is designed to simplify companies' administrative management and reduce operating costs.
Savings and efficiency for companies and SMEs
The decree is integrated into the European strategy of VAT digitalization, aligned with the European Commission's VIDA initiative, and develops article 12 of the Create and Grow Law (18/2022). The Government highlights that B2B electronic invoicing will allow significant time and cost savings, by automating the management of hundreds or thousands of annual invoices in a structured format, avoiding manual data entry from PDF or paper. This system has already been adopted in sectors such as mass consumption, automotive, healthcare supplies, hospitality, and travel agencies.
Currently, Spain exchanges more than 550 million electronic invoices per year, with an estimated saving of over 2.7 billion euros. As a reference, in Italy, where the B2B system has been operating since 2019, more than 2 billion electronic invoices are managed per year. “When we reach that level of 2 billion electronic invoices per year, we estimate savings of more than 8 billion for all companies in our country,” said Carlos Cuerpo.