If you run a veterinary practice in Spain and you go looking for information about VeriFactu today, a good part of what you will find is out of date. Software vendors' websites, blog posts and even accountants' circulars are still quoting deadlines of 1 January and 1 July 2026. Those dates are no longer in force.
Royal Decree-Law 15/2025, of 2 December pushed the entire calendar back by a year. The date that affects your practice is in 2027. This article explains what VeriFactu is in plain language, who it applies to and from when, which part of the work is yours and which part belongs to your practice management software, and what to ask your provider before the deadline arrives.
The deadlines in force today: 1 January 2027 for corporate income tax payers — practices set up as a company, typically an SL. 1 July 2027 for everyone else covered by the rules, including vets practising as self-employed (autónomos). Source: Royal Decree-Law 15/2025, of 2 December (BOE), first final provision.
What VeriFactu actually is
Spain's anti-fraud legislation requires the programs used to issue invoices to meet a set of requirements, the core one being that every invoice leaves a trail that cannot later be deleted or quietly edited. That trail is called an invoicing record (registro de facturación). Each invoice generates its own, carrying a digital fingerprint that chains it to the previous one — so if anyone tampers with a single invoice, the chain breaks and it shows.
The logic will feel familiar, because it is the same one you already apply to clinical records: a signed entry is not deleted. If you got something wrong, you correct it, and the correction is logged with its own timestamp. Same idea, applied to invoices.
The regulation allows two ways of complying. Under the VERI*FACTU mode, the software sends each record to the Spanish tax agency at the moment the invoice is issued. Under the alternative mode, records are not transmitted, but the system must sign them electronically, retain them and keep an event log that an inspector can review. The first option is simpler for the user and is what gives the whole regime its everyday name. The second demands more of the software and leaves more of the retention burden on the practice.
In day-to-day terms there is one visible detail: invoices produced by a compliant system carry a QR code, and in VERI*FACTU mode they additionally carry a legend that lets your client verify that invoice on the tax agency's website.
Which practices it applies to, and from when
The distinction that sets your date has nothing to do with the size of your practice or how many invoices you issue a month. It depends on how you are taxed:
- If your practice is a company — an SL, typically — and therefore pays corporate income tax: your date is 1 January 2027. The systems must be adapted before that day.
- If you practise as a self-employed vet, as an individual under personal income tax: your date is 1 July 2027. The systems must be operational before then.
Throughout 2026, use is voluntary. The tax agency has had its receiving services in production since 23 April 2025, so anyone who wants to move early can; it is simply that nobody is required to yet.
Two caveats worth raising with your accountant, because they change how the rules land. First: the regulation governs computerised invoicing systems. If you issue your invoices with a program, that program has to comply; if your situation is different, ask specifically how it applies to you. Second: the Basque Country and Navarre operate their own regional systems, with their own calendars and their own requirements. If you are taxed there, that is a different conversation.
One point that sometimes causes confusion: none of this depends on your nationality or on where your qualification comes from. If you invoice in Spain, Spanish invoicing rules apply to you exactly as they do to any other practice here.
What your software has to do, and what you have to do
Part of this regulation is not your job at all, and it is worth knowing so you do not end up paying for something already covered. Whoever produces the software must issue a declaración responsable — a formal declaration in which the manufacturer certifies that its system meets the requirements of the regulation. That declaration is signed by the software producer, not by the practice, and it has to be accessible.
It is also the one deadline in the whole calendar that was not postponed: the software producer's obligation has been in force since 29 July 2025. In other words, programs on sale today were already required to be in order, even though you as a user are not yet required to run them in VeriFactu mode.
What is on you is short: use a program that complies, have it switched on when your date arrives, and keep whatever the rules require you to keep. The manufacturer's declaration is not yours to sign: it comes signed with the program, and your provider should be able to show it to you without any need to press.
What happens if you invoice with a spreadsheet or an unadapted program
Right now, in 2026, nothing happens: you are not yet obliged. The invoices you issue today, with a spreadsheet or with anything else, are valid as long as they meet the long-standing requirements of the invoicing regulation.
From your date onwards, though, a spreadsheet stops working by definition: it is an editable document, and the entire regime is built around non-alterability. The same applies to an older program that has not been adapted.
The penalty regime in Spain's General Tax Act (article 201 bis) gives you the measure of how seriously this is taken: up to €50,000 per financial year for holding invoicing systems that do not comply, and up to €150,000 per financial year for producing or marketing them. Note the wording of the first one: it penalises holding a non-compliant system, not only misusing it.
Seven questions for your current software provider
This is probably the most useful thing you can take away today. Send your provider these questions in writing, and keep the reply:
- Have you published the declaración responsable for your invoicing system? Where can I see it? A good answer is a link. An evasive answer is data too.
- Which mode does the program work in: VERI*FACTU, or the alternative with retention and an event log? If it is the second, ask who retains what, and for how long.
- Is it already active on my practice's account, or does it need switching on? A program being ready does not mean your particular installation is. Ask them to confirm it in writing, with a date.
- What do I have to do to activate it, and how long does it take? It usually involves supplying tax details and signing something with a digital certificate. Better to know months ahead than the week before.
- Does it cost extra, or is it included in what I already pay? Ask explicitly whether your price changes on the day it is switched on.
- How do I correct or cancel an invoice once it has been issued? The right answer is never "you delete it". It should be a credit note or a cancellation that leaves a trail.
- If I ever want to move my data elsewhere, how does that work? Not a VeriFactu question, but this is the best moment to ask it, since you are reviewing the arrangement anyway.
What you do not need to rush
Through 2026 this is voluntary. There is no reason to switch practice management software in a hurry, to buy an "urgent adaptation" package, or to pay a premium to get ahead of a deadline that is more than a year away.
If someone is pressing you with 2026 dates, check the source before deciding anything. The BOE link at the top of this article takes a minute to read and is the reference that governs.
What is worth doing now, unhurried and at no cost: note your date in the calendar according to whether you are a company or self-employed, send the seven questions to your provider, and raise it with your accountant at your next conversation. Do that, and 2027 will be a formality rather than a scramble.
Where Artiprax stands on this
For transparency, and because it is exactly what we suggest asking any provider: Artiprax includes an invoicing module with its declaración responsable for invoicing systems (RD 1007/2023 and Order HAC/1177/2024), signed and accessible from within the application itself. Transmission of invoicing records to the Spanish tax agency in VERI*FACTU mode is carried out through an approved external component and is enabled for each practice when it completes its registration; until that registration is complete, the practice issues its invoices as normal, without transmission — which is entirely valid until the VERI*FACTU obligation reaches issuers on the dates above.
Please note: this article is informational and is not a substitute for tax advice. The dates come from the text published in the BOE and were in force on 10 August 2026; for your specific circumstances, and particularly if you are taxed in the Basque Country or Navarre, speak to your accountant.
