Law 18/2022 Crea y Crece — B2B mandate

Spain's Ley 18/2022 on company creation and growth, known as Crea y Crece, sets in its article 12 the universal principle of mandatory B2B e-invoicing between Spanish businesses. The implementing decree — after two passes through the EU TRIS procedure — remains expected in late 2025.

Article 12 of Ley 18/2022

The founding text of Spain's B2B mandate is a relatively short article inside Ley 18/2022. It modifies Law 56/2007 on "measures promoting the information society" to insert a general obligation of electronic exchange between professionals.

Ley 18/2022, de 28 de septiembre, de creacion y crecimiento de empresas
Article 12. Electronic invoice between entrepreneurs and professionals.

1. All entrepreneurs and professionals shall issue, send and receive
   electronic invoices in their commercial relations with other
   entrepreneurs and professionals.

2. The recipient and the issuer of electronic invoices shall provide
   information on the status of the invoice.

3. The obligation shall be enforceable:
   a) For entrepreneurs and professionals with annual turnover above
      8,000,000 EUR: one year after the publication of the implementing
      decree.
   b) For all other entrepreneurs and professionals: two years.

4. Technological solutions and platforms offered by e-invoicing service
   providers shall guarantee free interoperability.

Three principles emerge from the text:

• Universal B2B — the obligation applies to every empresario and profesional, with no minimum threshold (no exemption tier for micro-businesses). Only B2C remains optional.
• Mandatory invoice statuses — both the issuer and the recipient must provide information on the invoice status (accepted, refused, paid), through the interoperable hub API. This is the hidden e-reporting dimension of the law.
• Free interoperability — providers of e-invoicing platforms must guarantee interoperability at no cost to the user. The law forbids private platforms from charging for the mere interconnection between them.

Implementing decree: end-2025 status

Article 12 paragraph 3 conditions the enforceability of the mandate on a "desarrollo reglamentario" — an implementing decree fixing the formats, the hub, the APIs and the calendar. The decree journey has been bumpy:

• June 2023 — Initial draft. First notification to the European Commission through the TRIS procedure under reference 2023/0276/ES (Information Society and Media Services Directive 2015/1535). 3-month standstill.
• October 2023 — Detailed opinion. The European Commission issued a detailed opinion, extending the standstill by a further 3 months. Main concerns: insufficient interoperability, excessively national formats, unclear articulation with PEPPOL.
• 2024 — Revision and new public consultation. The Ministerio de Asuntos Economicos y Transformacion Digital published a revised version, added EN 16931 conformance, and reopened public consultation in Spain in November 2024.
• 2025 — TRIS re-notification. The draft was resubmitted to Brussels in March 2025 under a new reference. The lifting of the detailed opinion should allow publication in the BOE between Q4 2025 and Q1 2026.

2026-2027 phased timeline

The article 12.3 timeline is anchored on the publication date of the implementing decree. Assuming a Q4 2025 - Q1 2026 publication, the expected milestones are:

The actual timeline may shift depending on the effective publication date of the Reglamento. The EU ViDA package (VAT in the Digital Age, Council agreement of 5 November 2024) sets a hard deadline of 1 July 2030 for universal intra-EU B2B e-invoicing.

Multi-platform interoperability

The Spanish model draws on the French "5-corner" pattern: several private platforms coexist and exchange through a mandatory interoperable hub, with AEAT collecting tax statistics.

+--------------------+        +-----------------------+        +--------------------+
|  Issuer (company)  |        |  Interoperable hub    |        |  Recipient company |
|  + Platform A      | -----> |  mandatory            | -----> |  + Platform B      |
+--------------------+        +-----------------------+        +--------------------+
        |                              |                              |
        |  any format                  |  Facturae 3.2.x              |
        |  (Facturae, UBL,             |  EN 16931 Spain CIUS         |
        |   CII, Facturae 3.2.2)       |  AEAT statistical routing    |
        |                              |                              |
        +------------------------------+------------------------------+
                          AEAT (statistical concentrator)
                                 invoice-status
                                 (submitted, accepted, rejected,
                                  paid, credited)

• Private platforms — Spanish vendors (Datadis, EDICOM, SERES, Voxel) or European ones (Pagero, Tradeshift, Tungsten, Basware) operate the e-invoicing platforms. The draft Reglamento is expected to introduce a certification regime, still under discussion.
• Interoperable hub — central node ensuring that any issuer on platform A can reach any recipient on platform B. The draft envisages a privatised but regulated hub, supervised by AEAT.
• Free public solution — for micro-enterprises and self-employed, the draft Reglamento provides a solucion publica de facturacion electronica (SPFe) operated by the State, free of charge, playing a role analogous to the French PPF fallback mode.

Formats and Spanish CIUS

The draft Reglamento accepts several syntaxes, all conforming to the European EN 16931 standard or its national extension:

• Facturae 3.2.x — Spain's historical XML format signed with XAdES-Bes-Long. Remains the reference format for B2G (FACe) and accepted in B2B.
• UBL 2.1 + Spanish CIUS — equivalent syntax adopted in the PEPPOL context. The Spain CIUS (Core Invoice Usage Specification) adds national fields: NIF, administrative identification codes, IGIC / IPSI clauses.
• UN/CEFACT CII D16B — equivalent syntax, accepted for interoperability with large German-speaking accounts and Factur-X models.

Penalties and exemptions

Ley 18/2022 art. 12.4 outlines a penalty framework further specified in the draft Reglamento:

• Failure to issue an electronic invoice: administrative penalty up to 10,000 EUR per missing invoice in the adversarial mode (after a formal notice has not been cured). On recurrence, exclusion from public procurement bidding.
• Failure to receive (unjustified refusal): the same symmetric penalty for a recipient that refuses without legitimate reason a compliant electronic invoice.
• Failure to transmit statuses: 5,000 EUR per fiscal year, repeatable. Failing the status-reporting obligation is classified as a "minor to serious" infringement.

Exemptions provided in the draft:

• Occasional sales between private individuals — out of scope, B2C and therefore not affected.
• Operations between a Spanish company and a non-resident with no permanent establishment in Spain — out of the domestic scope, governed by the EU ViDA directives from 2030.
• Operations under IGIC (Canary Islands) or IPSI (Ceuta / Melilla) — special tax regime, dedicated treatment to be specified in the Reglamento.

Cross-links

• Spain hub — full e-invoicing mandate overview
• Verifactu — billing software compliance regime
• Facturae — Spanish XML format, XAdES signature
• FACe — Spanish B2G hub
• SII — large taxpayer near-real-time reporting
• CTC 5-corner model (France comparator)
• Ley 18/2022 (BOE)
• TRIS notification 2023/0276/ES (European Commission)