Veri*Factu
What is Veri*Factu?
Veri*Factu is a Spanish tax regulation that requires businesses to use certified invoicing software capable of sending invoice records to the national tax agency, the Agencia Estatal de Administración Tributaria (AEAT), automatically and in near real time. Every invoice generated under the system carries a QR code that lets anyone check with AEAT that the invoice was properly reported. The rule is part of Spain's broader anti-fraud law and targets manipulation of billing records.
Veri*Factu isn't a payment method or a new invoice format. It's a compliance layer sitting on top of the invoicing software a business already uses, so the software itself has to meet AEAT's technical certification standards.
Key requirements
- Invoicing software must be certified against AEAT's technical specification, with built-in controls that prevent silent edits or deletion of invoice records.
- Each invoice must display a QR code and the text "VERI*FACTU," which a customer or tax inspector can scan to confirm the invoice was reported.
- Invoice records must be transmitted to AEAT in a secure, sequential, and largely automatic way, rather than batched and filed later.
- Records need to stay traceable and unaltered, since the whole point of the system is to make retroactive changes to invoices visible to the tax authority.
Who it applies to
Veri*Factu applies to businesses and self-employed professionals (autónomos) operating in Spain, the Canary Islands, Ceuta, and Melilla that issue invoices through computerized systems. Companies already reporting under the Suministro Inmediato de Información (SII) system are exempt, since SII already sends detailed VAT and invoice data to AEAT in real time and covers the same transparency goal.
Following a Royal Decree-Law approved in December 2025, mandatory compliance was pushed back: companies subject to corporate tax must comply from January 1, 2027, and self-employed individuals from July 1, 2027. Businesses can adopt certified software voluntarily before those dates.
Penalties for non-compliance
Using invoicing software that isn't certified, or issuing invoices without the required QR code, can expose a business to fines of up to €50,000 per fiscal year. Software providers that sell or distribute non-compliant invoicing systems face separate penalties of up to €150,000. Because the fines apply per tax year rather than per invoice, the exposure grows the longer a business delays certification.
