Spain's Late-Payment Problem: Why E-Invoicing Is a Collections Tool
Spain's average SME wait is still around 80 days against a 60-day legal cap. The late-payment law has almost no sanctions. Crea y Crece attacks the problem with invoice status and a public debtor list, not with another slogan.
Spain's Late-Payment Problem: Why E-Invoicing Is a Collections Tool
Law 3/2004 already caps B2B payment at 60 calendar days and public-sector payment at 30. The cap is imperative. A 90-day clause is void. Statutory default interest runs automatically (ECB main refinancing rate plus 8 percentage points: 10.40% a year for 1 July to 31 December 2026). A €40 recovery lump sum accrues per unpaid invoice.
Spanish SMEs still wait. CEPYME's Observatorio de Morosidad put the SME average at 80.5 days at the end of 2025, 34% above the legal maximum, with a financial cost to SMEs of €1,957 million in the last quarter of that year. Only 15% of large companies paid inside the legal window in 2025, down from 26% the year before. Mid-size and large firms, in a Q1 2026 snapshot, collected in 50.25 days and paid suppliers in 29.42. The gap is the cash the smaller party funds.
Twenty years of statutes did not close it. Crea y Crece (Law 18/2022) did not add a general administrative fine for paying late. Several parliamentary groups asked for one in 2022. It was not included. A rule without a sanction is a published preference. The law's actual collections design is elsewhere: structured B2B invoices, mandatory status, and a public list.
What Crea y Crece Changes in Collections
Royal Decree 238/2026, in force since 20 April 2026, implements article 12. Both parties must report invoice status within 4 calendar days: acceptance, rejection with grounds, and effective payment with the date. The AEAT public solution receives a UBL copy of every invoice. Payment dates stop being a private argument between creditor and debtor.
The Observatorio Estatal de la Morosidad Privada publishes an annual report and a list of commercial debtors. Entry is not automatic for a single late invoice. The published bar (among other conditions) includes unpaid invoices totalling more than €600,000 as of 31 December of the prior year. The list is a reputational instrument, not a collections department. The 4-day status feed is what fills it.
Until the ministerial order starts the clock, the October 2027 (turnover above €8 million) and October 2028 (everyone else) issuance dates are the working calendar. The first twelve months after each deadline still require a PDF alongside the e-invoice for recipients not yet in scope. Status reporting is the part that turns tax plumbing into a collections record.
Interest You Already Have, and Rarely Use
| Instrument | Rule | H2 2026 figure |
|---|---|---|
| Maximum private B2B term | Law 3/2004, 60 calendar days | Not a target. A ceiling. |
| Public-sector term | 30 days | IGAE claims ~22 to 23 days for the central state in early 2026. The Plataforma Multisectorial contra la Morosidad still published ~70 days for public bodies in 2025. Treat official averages with care. |
| Default interest | ECB rate + 8 pp | 10.40% a year, 1 Jul to 31 Dec 2026 |
| Recovery lump sum | €40 per invoice | Automatic, on top of interest |
| Monitorio | LEC art. 812 | Documentary procedure if the invoice and the status trail are clean |
Interest and the €40 do not require a new e-invoicing law. Most SMEs never invoice them because the calculation is manual and because they fear the customer. Once the payment date is a reported fact, the days-late figure is no longer your word against theirs. The wezwanie equivalent in Spain is a requerimiento de pago that cites the invoice, the reported due date, the reported (or missing) payment date, the statutory rate, and the €40.
A rejection with grounds, filed inside four days, is the buyer's lawful dispute. Silence past the window, then a late payment date, is the dataset the Observatorio is for.
What This Is Not
US receivables products sell a credit line against unpaid invoices. That is a lending product. Crea y Crece is not invoice factoring. It does not pay you on day one. It makes lateness visible to the tax authority and, above a high threshold, to a public list.
Do not wait for the list to collect. Use the status feed as an AP/AR SLA:
- Issuer: chase on "no status" before you chase on "unpaid." A missing acceptance is a delivery or dispute problem. An accepted invoice with no payment date after day 60 is a collections problem.
- Recipient: reject with grounds inside four days or you have accepted the document for practical purposes. Using rejection as a delay tactic is visible.
- Both: report the effective payment date from the bank reconciliation, not from when someone ticked a box in email.
Plandesk writes Spanish B2B invoices as structured, signed documents, records acceptance / rejection / paid with the date, and keeps the aging bucket next to that status. Statutory interest is a calculated field on overdue accepted invoices. It is not a slogan on a collections page.
This material is information of a general nature and does not constitute legal or tax advice. For a specific situation, verify the current rules or consult a qualified adviser.