ViDA Spain: digital VAT reporting bill approved on second reading

Madrid, 3 July 2026 – Legal and tax platform Confilegal published an in-depth analysis this week of a legislative step that makes ViDA Spain considerably more concrete: Spain’s Council of Ministers (Consejo de Ministros) gave definitive approval on second reading on 16 June 2026 to the bill transposing part of the European ViDA directive (VAT in the Digital Age) into national VAT law. The bill now moves into parliamentary debate at the Cortes Generales.

What the bill regulates

Spain’s bill amends the national VAT law (Ley 37/1992) to partially implement Council Directive (EU) 2025/516 of 11 March 2025, through which the Council of the European Union adopted the ViDA directive. Specifically, the bill covers the technical changes that must already take effect from 1 January 2027: a clarification and improvement of the three special One Stop Shop VAT schemes, an extension of the scope of the union scheme to services supplied to consumers outside the EU, and an obligation for businesses or professionals not established in the Union to appoint a representative when requesting VAT refunds through the One Stop Shop schemes. The larger ViDA milestones, such as the digital reporting requirement for cross-border B2B transactions, only follow in Spain from 1 July 2028 and 1 July 2030.

This step follows an earlier draft bill (anteproyecto) that the Council of Ministers had already approved on 25 November 2025. With definitive approval on second reading on 16 June 2026, the bill moves forward as a full proyecto de ley to parliament, bringing Spain’s ViDA transposition a step closer to actual legislation. In the Spanish legislative procedure, approval on second reading means the text has been reviewed in light of earlier advice, including from the Council of State, and that the government has definitively fixed the text before it enters parliamentary debate at the Cortes Generales. Amendments are still possible during that parliamentary stage, but the broad outlines of the bill are now largely settled.

ViDA Spain in the wider European context

Spain is not the only EU country to have taken steps in ViDA implementation in recent weeks. Peppol.now previously reported on how the EU Council is discussing ViDA implementation progress, with Czechia and Sweden also taking legislative steps. That member states are transposing the directive at different speeds, but steadily, underlines that businesses operating internationally need to account for a gradually shifting VAT landscape per member state, even though the core ViDA obligations (digital reporting for cross-border B2B) still lie a few years ahead.

For companies active in multiple EU member states, this uneven progress means no single European timeline will emerge over the coming years that can simply be relied upon. Some member states are moving ahead of the European minimum requirements with domestic obligations, while others, including the Netherlands, are still weighing how far to go domestically. That fragmentation makes it all the more important to track which legislation has actually been adopted per country, rather than relying on the original ViDA timeline alone.

What this means for businesses

For companies trading across borders with Spanish partners, this specific bill changes little in the short term: the technical changes to the One Stop Shop schemes only take effect from 1 January 2027. It is, however, a concrete signal that Spain is approaching its ViDA transposition seriously and in phases, and that the larger obligations around digital VAT reporting and e-invoicing by 2028 and 2030 are closer than the generous deadlines sometimes suggest. ViDA Spain is therefore a file worth continuing to watch: businesses invoicing internationally would do well to follow the Spanish parliamentary process and assess in good time which infrastructure, such as the Peppol network, best prepares them for the next ViDA phases.

1. Confilegal: El IVA en el ámbito de la economía digital (3 July 2026)
2. Ministerio de Hacienda: approval of the bill transposing the ViDA directive
3. La Moncloa: Council of Ministers press reference, 16 June 2026

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