Spain: Order HAC/1028/2026 Is Published, the B2B E-Invoicing Clock Started on 6 October 2026, and the Obligations Now Apply from 6 October 2027, 2028 and 2029

On 5 October 2026 the Spanish Official State Gazette (BOE no. 247) published Order HAC/1028/2026 of 2 October 2026, issued by the Ministry of Finance, which regulates the public electronic invoicing solution (SPFE) under the third final provision of Royal Decree 238/2026.

The Order entered into force on 6 October 2026, the day after publication, and that is the event from which the phase-in periods for Spain’s business-to-business e-invoicing mandate are counted.

The tax administration (AEAT) has confirmed the resulting calendar: 6 October 2027 for businesses with turnover above EUR 8 million, 6 October 2028 for all other businesses and professionals, and 6 October 2029 for invoice status and payment reporting by natural persons and income-attribution entities.

Background

Spain’s B2B e-invoicing obligation originates in the Crea y Crece Act, Law 18/2022 of 28 September 2022. Royal Decree 238/2026 of 25 March 2026, published in the BOE on 31 March 2026, develops the system and amends the invoicing regulations approved by Royal Decree 1619/2012.

The Royal Decree deliberately left the start of application open: its periods of 12 and 24 months run from the entry into force of the ministerial order that regulates the public solution.

KGT reported on 25 August 2026 that the clock had not started because the Order remained unpublished, and on 15 September 2026 on the draft Order, whose entry into force and calendar were projections from 1 October 2026.

This update records that the Order has now been published in final form. The projected 1 October dates in our September update are superseded: the correct dates are those of 6 October set out below.

The Legislative Change

Order HAC/1028/2026 is subordinate legislation. It contains 11 articles, two additional provisions, one final provision and two annexes, and it regulates the technical and functional elements of the public solution run by the AEAT. Its final provision provides that it enters into force on the day after publication in the BOE. The BOE page does not state 6 October 2026 in terms; it follows from publication on 5 October, and the AEAT states it expressly.

Article 3 requires invoices issued or interconnected through the public solution to follow the EN 16931 semantic model in UBL syntax, with at least the data elements of Annex I. Such invoices are immediately available to the administration, so no faithful copy is to be sent for them. An invoice issued without an underlying transaction can be withdrawn with traceability preserved, and embedded files are not permitted, although the electronic signature may be sent separately.

Article 4 governs the faithful copy that a business using a private platform must send to the public solution simultaneously with issuing the invoice, in UBL and flagged with the copy indicator (Annex I, field BT-ES-1).

Article 5 sets out submission through a web form or web services, syntactic and semantic validation, and the grounds for rejection, which include a duplicate faithful copy and a copy of an invoice already issued as an original through the public solution. A rejected copy is treated as not admitted and the original invoice remains valid. If a technical fault attributable to the public solution lasts more than 24 hours, submission may be made within four business days after the fault is resolved.

Article 6 defines the unique invoice code, combining the issuer’s tax identification number, series, number and issue date.

Articles 7 and 8 establish the status and payment communications: the recipient reports rejection, full payment and due date, and the issuer may report receipt of payment or non-payment. An invoice is presumed accepted where there is neither a rejection nor a later corrective invoice, and the payment reporting duty is treated as met where the invoice or its copy carries a payment date on or before the issue date.

Article 9 requires private platforms to retrieve the invoices exchanged through the public solution, Article 10 provides for consultation and download, and Article 11 provides for authentication by electronic certificate and, for some forms, Cl@ve, with representation under the existing tax procedure rules. The second additional provision requires the public solution to be available at least two months before its first effective application.

The Order does not mention Facturae or PDF. Both appear in Royal Decree 238/2026, which admits CII, UBL, EDIFACT and Facturae for invoices exchanged between private platforms and requires businesses above EUR 8 million to attach a legible PDF for the first 12 months, but states that the public solution itself works in UBL.

Scope

Scope follows Article 3 of Royal Decree 238/2026: businesses and professionals obliged to issue invoices where the recipient has its seat of activity, a permanent establishment or its habitual residence in Spain. Simplified invoices are excluded other than qualified simplified invoices.

The Royal Decree also excludes regulated electricity market activities, the regulated gas market operator and IATA clearing systems (CASS, BSP, SIS-ICH), and the foral territories of the Basque Country and Navarre follow their own arrangements with the State tax agency. Turnover is measured by reference to the previous calendar year under Article 121 of the VAT Act.

Timeline

• 28 September 2022 — Law 18/2022 (Crea y Crece) establishes the obligation.
• 31 March 2026 — Royal Decree 238/2026 published in the BOE (signed 25 March 2026).
• 2 October 2026 — Order HAC/1028/2026 signed; 5 October 2026 — published in BOE no. 247.
• 6 October 2026 — Order enters into force; the 12-month and 24-month periods begin to run.
• 6 October 2027 — businesses with turnover above EUR 8 million must issue, send and receive electronic invoices and report invoice statuses and payments. Private platforms must meet the platform obligations of Royal Decree 238/2026 (Articles 6, 8, 9 and 13) from the same point, and the 12-month PDF attachment period for these businesses ends.
• 6 October 2028 — all other businesses and professionals must issue, send and receive electronic invoices; legal persons with turnover of EUR 8 million or less must also report invoice statuses and payments. Subcontractors in public-sector contracts using FACeB2B have a maximum of 24 months from the Order’s entry into force.
• 6 October 2029 — natural persons and income-attribution entities must report invoice statuses and payments.
• No later than 6 August 2027 (calculated) — the public solution must be available at least two months before its first effective application.

Businesses Affected

Every business and professional within scope that invoices customers established in Spain. For multinational groups the critical population is the Spanish entities above EUR 8 million, whose obligation now has a fixed date of 6 October 2027, together with the private platforms and ERP landscapes that will exchange invoices with them.

Foreign suppliers invoicing Spanish recipients fall within the obligation where the recipient is established in Spain, and groups should confirm how the Order and the Royal Decree treat their own invoicing flows.

Required Actions

• Set the program plan against 6 October 2027 for Spanish entities above EUR 8 million and 6 October 2028 for the remainder, and retire any project calendar built on the 1 October 2026 projection.
• Decide whether invoices will be issued directly through the public solution or through a private platform that sends a faithful copy simultaneously with issuance, because the two routes have different technical consequences.
• Confirm that the ERP can produce EN 16931 UBL with the Spanish data elements of Annex I and the copy indicator, and that the unique code, the rejection handling and the 24-hour outage rule are covered in the interface design.
• Design the inbound side: platforms must retrieve invoices exchanged through the public solution, and recipients must report rejection and payment, so the accounts payable process needs status-handling and payment-date logic.
• Review certificates and powers of representation, because access to invoices and statuses depends on them.

Practical Implications

The decisive change is certainty. A mandate that depended on an unpublished Order now has a start date, and the calendar leaves roughly twelve months for the largest taxpayers. That is short for a program that touches output determination, master data, status messaging and payment reporting in an SAP landscape.

The design choice in Article 4 matters. A business that sends a faithful copy of every privately exchanged invoice effectively gives the administration real-time visibility of its invoicing, which is why syntax, semantic validation and the unique code have to be right at the point of issue rather than corrected afterwards. The status and payment reporting adds a data flow from accounts payable to the administration that has no equivalent in many ERP processes today.

Expected Next Steps

The AEAT is expected to publish the technical specifications, volumetrics and validation artifacts that the Order refers to its electronic office, and to make the public solution available at least two months before the first application date.

The AEAT pages read on 8 October 2026 did not list test or pre-production environment dates, so any date for those should be confirmed with the AEAT before it is relied on. Annex II, which sets the content of the status and payment messages, should be read in full from the BOE publication before interface design is finalized.

How Can KGT Support You?

KGT is a specialist indirect tax technology firm. We implement and run SAP Document and Reporting Compliance (SAP DRC) and deliver SAP-integrated e-invoicing add-ons where DRC does not yet cover a requirement or where a transformation programme makes a DRC rollout impractical in the available window. Our work is done inside the SAP landscape rather than around it, so VAT determination, document creation, transmission, status handling and reconciliation stay in one place.

For the Spanish mandate KGT can map the Order against your SAP invoicing, accounts payable and payment processes, define the target architecture (public solution or private platform with faithful copy), build and test the UBL and status interfaces, and run the readiness plan against the 6 October 2027 and 2028 dates.

This Country Update is provided for general information only and is not tax, legal or professional advice. No reliance should be placed on it without specific advice on the facts of your situation.