Activating a Business in Spain

A company gets a tax CIF number the day after incorporation. This number is provisional, until documents are correctly registered in the Provincial Mercantile Register.

General compliance rules

The company is active the day that they receive their provisional number, and can start trading. They must start filing standard company documents including:

• Returns about retention of monies paid to self-employed people.
• VAT returns.
• Accounts.

VAT paid out prior to the date of start of business can be reclaimed.

Censural forms about activating a business

The form 036 is used for the initial registering of the business. It also needs to be submitted again to inform censural authorities that business has started. When the company advises authorities that business has started, they usually backdate the date of the start of business to the first date of trading.

Filing the 036 advising of start of business does not have anything to do with an obligation to pay VAT on invoices, to retain monies paid by subcontractors or reclaiming VAT on inputs. It also has nothing to do with international VAT number registers.

International VAT registers - such as the EU register

The CIF is a unitary number for all taxes. International registers compiling VAT numbers, take their information from Mercantile Register records. These registers are Provincial, so there are 52 in Spain. There is no central way of compiling information, so each register updates International company registers in their own way and time.

It is important for a client to know this, because a client may immediately expect their company to appear on International registers of VAT numbers.

Responsibility for Filing Documents

Many records can be filed on-line. We can file these for you, but this must be agreed in advance. The amount of work we need to do depends on the company but a guide to fees is linked.