Obligations / Spain

What a company files in Spain [ES]

Every entry below is the rule as Spain publishes it. It is a reference, not a calendar: where a deadline runs from something only you know, this page says so instead of showing a date.

A template, not your deadline

This is the rule as published by the registry, checked against the primary source on the date shown. It is not your filing date. Where a deadline runs from incorporation, from a fiscal year the company itself elects, or from an event only you know about, no date can be derived here at all — the figure you see is the formula, not the answer. Extensions, transitional regimes and entity-specific exemptions are not reflected. Confirm with the registry before you rely on a date.

How the financial year is set — Chosen by the company

The financial year is chosen by the company in its articles, and the calendar year is only what applies when the articles are silent. Article 26 of the Capital Companies Law states: «A falta de disposición estatutaria se entenderá que el ejercicio social termina el treinta y uno de diciembre de cada año.» The wording is a fallback, not a definition, so a company whose articles close the year on another date is not departing from the law but exercising a choice the law gives it. That is why every duty below that counts from the close of the year carries a formula rather than a printed date: until the company says when its year ends, no date can be computed for it. The accounting year also drives a second date that is not the close itself. The ordinary general meeting that approves the accounts must be held, under article 164 of the same law, «dentro de los seis primeros meses de cada ejercicio», and two of the duties below — the deposit of the accounts at the Commercial Registry and the beneficial ownership form that accompanies them — run from the approval rather than from the close. Two further duties do not depend on the financial year at all: the value added tax return runs from the end of each settlement period, monthly or quarterly, and that period is fixed by the tax rules and not by the articles.

Real Decreto Legislativo 1/2010 (texto refundido de la Ley de Sociedades de Capital), article 26 on the ejercicio social: «A falta de disposición estatutaria se entenderá que el ejercicio social termina el treinta y uno de diciembre de cada año.» Consolidated text published by the Boletín Oficial del Estado. Article 164 on the ordinary general meeting, «dentro de los seis primeros meses de cada ejercicio», is reproduced in the resolution of the Dirección General de Seguridad Jurídica y Fe Pública of 10 December 2024, published at https://www.boe.es/boe/dias/2025/02/08/pdfs/BOE-A-2025-2394.pdf, where it appears in the appellant's submission rather than in the resolution's own reasoning. · checked 2026-10-16

Annual corporate income tax return (modelo 200)

Formula, not a date
Filed to
The Agencia Estatal de Administración Tributaria, electronically through its sede electrónica, on the model approved each year by a ministerial order. The Tax Agency's own practical manual states that the tax has no single filing date for everyone: each taxpayer has its own window, counted from the end of its own tax period, and the window stated below for a calendar-year company is only the most common case of that rule. The payment is made through the same filing, so a return accepted without the money is not the duty discharged.
Who it applies to
Every entity in the jurisdiction
Every taxpayer of the tax, which in practice means every company resident in Spain, and permanent establishments and foreign entities under the attribution regime with a presence in Spanish territory, which file the same forms. There is no turnover floor below which the return is not owed: a company with no activity in the year still has a tax period and therefore still has a filing window.
Deadline
Within 6 months after the end of the financial year.
No date can be derived here. This deadline runs from something this page does not know — the financial year the company itself elects, or an event only you can date. What is published is the rule, not the day.
If missed
No current figure is asserted here. The Tax Agency page read for the deadline does not set out the consequences of a late or missing return, and the general penalty provisions of the Ley General Tributaria were not read in a primary source for this entry, so the amounts are deliberately left empty rather than filled from a secondary summary. What the deadline page does say is that the window itself can move: where a company's filing window opened before the annual ministerial order approving the forms took effect, it files within twenty five natural days of that date unless it uses the forms of the previous order.
Proof of filing
The acknowledgement of receipt that the Tax Agency's electronic office returns for the submitted modelo 200, carrying its secure verification code and the date and time of submission, together with the proof of payment or of the direct debit arranged in the same operation. Keep the approved accounts the return was built from alongside it, since they are what the figures must reconcile to if the return is later reviewed.
Primary source: Agencia Estatal de Administración Tributaria, Manual práctico Sociedades, «Plazo para presentar la declaración», citing article 124.1 of Ley 27/2014 del Impuesto sobre Sociedades: the return is filed within the «25 días naturales siguientes a los seis meses posteriores a la conclusión del período impositivo», so for a taxpayer «cuyo ejercicio económico coincida con el año natural» the window runs from 1 to 25 July of the following year; where the last day is not a business day the deadline moves to the next business day. The same page states that where a filing window opened before Orden HAC/657/2025 took effect the return is filed within twenty five natural days of that date unless the forms of Orden HAC/495/2024 are used.
checked 2026-10-16 · Rechecked every 24 months

Deposit of the approved annual accounts at the Commercial Registry

Formula, not a date
Filed to
The Registro Mercantil of the province where the company has its registered office, on the official forms, electronically or on paper. The duty is counted from the approval of the accounts and not from the close of the year: article 279 of the Capital Companies Law opens with «Dentro del mes siguiente a la aprobación de las cuentas anuales». The same article requires the directors to file, besides the accounts, «los administradores presentarán también, el informe de gestión, si fuera obligatorio, y el informe del auditor,» «cuando la sociedad esté obligada a auditoría por una disposición legal o esta se hubiera acordado a petición de la minoría» «o de forma voluntaria y se hubiese inscrito el nombramiento de auditor en el Registro Mercantil». Approval itself has its own date: the ordinary general meeting must be held, under article 164, «dentro de los seis primeros meses de cada ejercicio».
Who it applies to
Every entity in the jurisdiction
Every capital company registered in Spain, whatever its size and whether or not it traded in the year. Size changes which forms are used — abbreviated or ordinary — and whether an auditor's report must accompany the filing, but it does not remove the duty itself. A company whose meeting did not approve the accounts is not thereby released: the Commercial Registry Regulation, article 378, apartado 5, provides for that case where «Si las cuentas anuales no se hubieran depositado por no estar aprobadas por la Junta general» and states that «no procederá el cierre registral cuando se acredite esta circunstancia», but the certificate evidencing it must be filed inside the same one-year window, «debiendo justificarse la permanencia de esta situación cada seis meses por alguno de dichos medios».
Deadline
Counted from an event, not from the calendar.
No date can be derived here. This deadline runs from something this page does not know — the financial year the company itself elects, or an event only you can date. What is published is the rule, not the day.
If missed
The consequence that is certain is not a fine but a closed registry. Article 282 of the Capital Companies Law provides that «el incumplimiento de la obligación de depositar, dentro del plazo establecido, los documentos a que se refiere este capítulo» «dará lugar a que no se inscriba en el Registro Mercantil documento alguno referido a la sociedad mientras el incumplimiento persista». The Commercial Registry Regulation fixes when that bite arrives, in article 378, apartado 1: «Transcurrido un año desde la fecha del cierre del ejercicio social sin que se haya practicado en el Registro» «el depósito de las cuentas anuales debidamente aprobadas, el registrador Mercantil no inscribirá ningún documento» «presentado con posterioridad a aquella fecha, hasta que, con carácter previo, se practique el depósito». In practice that stops a change of directors, a capital increase or a change of registered office from being recorded. A money fine also exists under article 283 of the same law, but no current amount is asserted here: the figure met in the sources read appeared in a party's submission inside a registry resolution and not in the text of the article, and the article itself could not be read in a primary source for this entry.
Proof of filing
The registry's receipt of presentation and, once the deposit has been entered, the registrar's note recording it, which is what any counterparty or bank later checks. Keep with it the minutes of the general meeting that approved the accounts, since the approval date is what the one-month count runs from and is the fact a late filing will be judged against.
Primary source: Resolución of the Dirección General de Seguridad Jurídica y Fe Pública of 16 July 2025, published in the Boletín Oficial del Estado, reproducing article 279.1 of the Ley de Sociedades de Capital, «Dentro del mes siguiente a la aprobación de las cuentas anuales», article 282 of the same law, «el incumplimiento de la obligación de depositar, dentro del plazo establecido, los documentos a que se refiere este capítulo» «dará lugar a que no se inscriba en el Registro Mercantil documento alguno referido a la sociedad mientras el incumplimiento persista», and article 378, apartado 5, of the Reglamento del Registro Mercantil. Article 378, apartado 1, with the one-year count, «Transcurrido un año desde la fecha del cierre del ejercicio social sin que se haya practicado en el Registro el depósito de las cuentas anuales debidamente aprobadas, el registrador Mercantil no inscribirá ningún documento presentado con posterioridad a aquella fecha, hasta que, con carácter previo, se practique el depósito», is reproduced in the resolution of the same Dirección General of 18 November 2021, at https://www.boe.es/diario_boe/txt.php?id=BOE-A-2021-20044. The additional documents required by article 279 after the reform by Ley 22/2015 are reproduced in the resolution of 10 December 2024, at https://www.boe.es/boe/dias/2025/02/08/pdfs/BOE-A-2025-2394.pdf.
checked 2026-10-16 · Rechecked every 24 months

Beneficial ownership declaration filed with the annual accounts

Formula, not a date
Filed to
The Registro Mercantil, on the official beneficial ownership form that travels with the annual accounts, from where the data reaches the Registro Central de Titularidades Reales. The registrars' own guidance on the accounts forms states that «Todas las cuentas individuales deben acompañarse del formulario oficial, debidamente cumplimentado, del Titular real.» and that the duty reaches «todas las personas jurídicas domiciliadas en España que depositan cuentas en el Registro Mercantil». A registry resolution has settled which moment the form must describe: the declaration «deberá referirse a la situación existente en el momento de la aprobación de las cuentas», so it is not a snapshot of the filing day nor of the year end.
Who it applies to
Every entity in the jurisdiction
Every legal person domiciled in Spain that deposits accounts at the Commercial Registry. The registrars' guidance excepts companies listed on a regulated market but not those traded on the Mercado Alternativo Bursátil. Two further duties sit alongside this annual one and are not the same duty. First, a change during the year must be reported without waiting for the next accounts: Real Decreto 609/2023, disposición adicional tercera, apartado 4, provides that «cuando se produzcan cambios en la titularidad real, deberá presentarse en el Registro Mercantil correspondiente por los administradores nueva declaración», within ten days counted from the day after the directors become aware of the change. Second, an entity that has not declared through a register at all declares electronically to the Registro Central instead, with one month from incorporation, ten days to «posteriormente actualizar los datos en el plazo máximo de diez días cuando se produzcan cambios en la titularidad real», and, in that route, «En todo caso, se realizará una declaración anual por medios electrónicos en el mes de enero». Which of the two routes a given company sits in is not decided here.
Deadline
Counted from an event, not from the calendar.
No date can be derived here. This deadline runs from something this page does not know — the financial year the company itself elects, or an event only you can date. What is published is the rule, not the day.
If missed
No amount is asserted here. What the sources read do establish is that the form is a condition of the deposit itself: registry resolutions published in the Boletín Oficial del Estado turn on a registrar refusing to deposit accounts over the beneficial ownership form, so the practical consequence of an absent or defective form is a rejected deposit and, if the year runs out, the closed registry described in the entry on the deposit of accounts. The information must also be kept current throughout the life of the entity, which the Reglamento puts as «se conservará y actualizará durante la vida de las personas jurídicas»; the fines attached to the anti-money-laundering regime were not read in a primary source for this entry and no figure is given.
Proof of filing
The completed official form as filed, kept with the registry receipt for the accounts it accompanied, and the minutes of the meeting that approved them, since the approval date is the moment the form must describe. Where the chain of ownership was traced through intermediate entities, keep the documents that established it, because the form states a conclusion that only those documents support.
Primary source: Real Decreto 609/2023 creating the Registro Central de Titularidades Reales and approving its Reglamento, consolidated text published by the Boletín Oficial del Estado: disposición adicional tercera, apartado 4, «cuando se produzcan cambios en la titularidad real, deberá presentarse en el Registro Mercantil correspondiente por los administradores nueva declaración»; Reglamento article 1.4 on the electronic route, «posteriormente actualizar los datos en el plazo máximo de diez días cuando se produzcan cambios en la titularidad real» and «En todo caso, se realizará una declaración anual por medios electrónicos en el mes de enero»; Reglamento article 3.2, «se conservará y actualizará durante la vida de las personas jurídicas». The form accompanying the accounts is described by the Colegio de Registradores in its questions and answers on the accounts forms, «Todas las cuentas individuales deben acompañarse del formulario oficial, debidamente cumplimentado, del Titular real.», citing Orden JUS/319/2018, at https://www.registradores.org/documents/33383/147535/FACOMDEPCUENTAS.pdf. The moment the declaration must describe, «deberá referirse a la situación existente en el momento de la aprobación de las cuentas», is stated in the resolution of the Dirección General de Seguridad Jurídica y Fe Pública of 12 November 2024, at https://www.boe.es/diario_boe/txt.php?id=BOE-A-2024-25404.
checked 2026-10-16 · Rechecked every 24 months

Electronic legalization of the mandatory company books

Formula, not a date
Filed to
The Registro Mercantil of the company's registered office, electronically. Article 18 of Ley 14/2013 requires the books that businesses must keep — among them the minutes book and the register of members or shareholders — to be kept in electronic form and legalized at the registry, and it fixes the count from the close of the year: the books are to be presented «antes de que trascurran cuatro meses siguientes a la fecha del cierre del ejercicio». The registry does not approve the content; it attests to its own intervention, and the registrar «certificará electrónicamente su intervención en la que se expresará el correspondiente código de validación». That code is what later proves a minute existed on the date it bears, which is the whole point of the exercise.
Who it applies to
Every entity in the jurisdiction
Every company obliged to keep the mandatory books, whatever its size, and the duty recurs every year rather than once at incorporation: what is legalized is the set of entries made during the year that closed. The same article also allows a voluntary filing more often than once a year, so that the registry can attest to the fact and date of its intervention over a shorter period, which is useful where a decision taken mid-year may have to be proved later.
Deadline
Within 4 months after the end of the financial year.
No date can be derived here. This deadline runs from something this page does not know — the financial year the company itself elects, or an event only you can date. What is published is the rule, not the day.
If missed
No amount is asserted here. The article read sets out the duty, the four-month count and the registrar's certification, but no fine for a late or missing legalization, and no other primary source for a penalty was found for this entry. The cost of being late is evidential rather than monetary: a minute that was never legalized is harder to rely on against a member or a third party who disputes when it was written, and that is the exposure to weigh rather than a sum.
Proof of filing
The registrar's electronic certification of intervention with its validation code, kept together with the electronic file of books that was presented. The code and the file belong together: the certification proves intervention over that exact file, so a later copy of the minutes that does not match it proves nothing.
Primary source: Ley 14/2013, de 27 de septiembre, de apoyo a los emprendedores y su internacionalización, article 18 on the legalización de libros de los empresarios, consolidated text published by the Boletín Oficial del Estado: the books are presented «antes de que trascurran cuatro meses siguientes a la fecha del cierre del ejercicio», and the registrar «certificará electrónicamente su intervención en la que se expresará el correspondiente código de validación».
checked 2026-10-16 · Rechecked every 24 months

Value added tax self-assessment (modelo 303)

Formula, not a date
Filed to
The Agencia Estatal de Administración Tributaria, through its electronic office. The period the return covers is not chosen by the taxpayer: the Tax Agency states that «Con carácter general, el período de liquidación es trimestral.» and that it «Será mensual para los que estén inscritos en el registro de devolución mensual,» as well as for «las Grandes Empresas (volumen de negocios del año anterior superior a 6.010.121 euros),» and «y los que apliquen el régimen especial del grupo de entidades» and the holders of fuel tax warehouses. So the same company can move between a quarterly and a monthly rhythm from one year to the next without any decision of its own, simply because the previous year's turnover crossed that line.
Who it applies to
Only registered foreign entities
Every taxpayer registered for the tax, and Spain sets no turnover threshold for that registration: a company that carries on a business or professional activity is inside the tax from its first operation, not from a level of sales, so there is no level of sales below which a company stays outside the tax. The figure that does appear above — the previous year's turnover above 6.010.121 euros — does not decide whether the duty exists but only how often it falls due, monthly instead of quarterly. The Tax Agency page states that figure without cents; the statutory figure is expressed in the tax rules with a decimal part, and no cents are asserted here because none were read in a primary source for this entry.
Deadline
Counted from an event, not from the calendar.
No date can be derived here. This deadline runs from something this page does not know — the financial year the company itself elects, or an event only you can date. What is published is the rule, not the day.
If missed
No amount is asserted here. The Tax Agency pages read give the filing windows but not the consequences of missing them, and the penalty provisions of the Ley General Tributaria were not read in a primary source for this entry. One mechanical point from those pages is worth carrying instead of a figure, because it changes the real last day: where the final day of a window is not a business day the deadline «se traslada al día hábil inmediato posterior.», and the same page treats Saturday as a non-business day, so a window that appears to end on a Saturday in fact ends on the following Monday.
Proof of filing
The acknowledgement of receipt for each period's modelo 303 with its secure verification code, together with the proof of payment or of the refund claimed, and the record books of invoices issued and received that the figures were drawn from. Keep them period by period rather than as a yearly bundle, since each period is its own duty and is examined on its own.
Primary source: Agencia Estatal de Administración Tributaria, Manual práctico IVA 2025, chapter 8, «Plazos de presentación»: quarterly self-assessments «Del 1 al 20 del mes siguiente al período de liquidación (abril, julio, octubre).» and «La autoliquidación del cuarto trimestre del año, se presentará del 1 al 30 de enero.»; monthly self-assessments «Del 1 al 30 del mes siguiente al período de liquidación.» and «hasta el último día del mes de febrero en el caso de la autoliquidación correspondiente al mes de enero.»; where the last day is not a business day the deadline «se traslada al día hábil inmediato posterior.» and Saturday is treated as a non-business day. Which rhythm applies is set out by the same Agency at https://sede.agenciatributaria.gob.es/Sede/iva/presentar-declaracion-iva-modelo-303/periodo-declaracion.html: «Con carácter general, el período de liquidación es trimestral.», monthly for those «inscritos en el registro de devolución mensual,», for «las Grandes Empresas (volumen de negocios del año anterior superior a 6.010.121 euros),» and for those applying «el régimen especial del grupo de entidades».
checked 2026-10-16 · Rechecked every 24 months

Information return on related-party transactions (modelo 232)

Formula, not a date
Filed to
The Agencia Estatal de Administración Tributaria, electronically, on the model approved by Orden HFP/816/2017. This is a reporting duty separate from the corporate income tax return and it falls later in the year: article 4 of that order provides that filing «se deberá realizar en el mes siguiente a los diez meses posteriores a la conclusión del período impositivo» «al que se refiera la información a suministrar». The same order's preamble describes the timing differently, as a window some four months after the corporate income tax return is filed; the two statements are not reconciled here and both are carried, because the article is the operative text while the preamble is the explanation the Ministry gave for it.
Who it applies to
Only above a threshold — total related-party transactions > 250,000 EUR
Three separate triggers, any one of which brings the return into play, and the threshold recorded above is only the first of them. Article 2.1.a of the order catches transactions with the same related person or entity «siempre que el importe de la contraprestación del conjunto de operaciones en el período impositivo supere los 250.000 euros». Article 2.1.b catches so-called specific transactions «siempre que el importe conjunto de cada una de este tipo de operaciones en el período impositivo supere los 100.000 euros» — a much lower line, applied per type rather than per counterparty, and the one most often overlooked. Article 2.3 adds a rule against splitting, which applies «siempre que el importe del conjunto de dichas operaciones en el período impositivo sea superior al 50%» «de la cifra de negocios de la entidad». All three are expressed as strictly more than the figure, not as reaching it, so a total that lands exactly on 250.000 euros does not by itself trigger the return under that first head.
Deadline
Within 10 months after the end of the financial year.
No date can be derived here. This deadline runs from something this page does not know — the financial year the company itself elects, or an event only you can date. What is published is the rule, not the day.
If missed
No amount is asserted here. This is an information return, and the penalty regime for information returns sits in the Ley General Tributaria rather than in the order that approves the model; that law was not read in a primary source for this entry, so the figures are left empty. The separate and heavier exposure attached to related-party dealings — the adjustment of the transactions themselves and the specific penalties for defective transfer pricing documentation — belongs to the corporate income tax law and is not quantified on this entry either.
Proof of filing
The acknowledgement of receipt for the modelo 232 with its secure verification code, kept with the schedule of related-party dealings it was built from and the valuation documentation behind them. The schedule matters as much as the receipt: the return reports totals, and only the schedule shows how a total was reached and why a counterparty or a transaction type fell inside or outside each of the three triggers.
Primary source: Orden HFP/816/2017, de 28 de agosto, approving modelo 232, consolidated text published by the Boletín Oficial del Estado: article 2.1.a, «siempre que el importe de la contraprestación del conjunto de operaciones en el período impositivo supere los 250.000 euros»; article 2.1.b, «siempre que el importe conjunto de cada una de este tipo de operaciones en el período impositivo supere los 100.000 euros»; article 2.3, «siempre que el importe del conjunto de dichas operaciones en el período impositivo sea superior al 50%» «de la cifra de negocios de la entidad»; article 4, «se deberá realizar en el mes siguiente a los diez meses posteriores a la conclusión del período impositivo» «al que se refiera la información a suministrar». The preamble of the same order instead describes the timing as a window about four months after the corporate income tax return, and that divergence inside one source is left unresolved. The Agencia Estatal de Administración Tributaria repeats the article 4 formula on its own filing-deadline page at https://sede.agenciatributaria.gob.es/Sede/todas-gestiones/impuestos-tasas/declaraciones-informativas/modelo-232-decla_____s-territorios-calificados-fiscales/plazos-presentacion.html, «en el mes siguiente a los diez meses posteriores a la conclusión del período impositivo al que se refiera la información a suministrar».
checked 2026-10-16 · Rechecked every 12 months
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