Spanish Quarterly VAT Return (Modelo 303) Calculator
Work out the VAT you owe or carry forward this quarter from the invoices you issued and received, with the result broken down box by box and the two deadlines that are not the same date: filing and direct debit.
Enter the net amounts of the invoices you issued and the VAT amount on the invoices you received. Sales figures are the amounts before VAT; input VAT is the tax itself, not the net amount.
If you want it collected by direct debit, your deadline is shorter: you must file by 15 April 2026. Filing after that date is still valid, but direct debit is no longer available and you will have to pay another way.
Other rates and purchases from foreign suppliers
The reduced and super-reduced rates, and the purchases where you charge yourself the VAT: intra-EU acquisitions and other reverse-charge cases. With full deduction that amount cancels itself out, because it appears as output tax and as input tax at the same time.
Capital goods, partial exemption and earlier credit
Capital goods go in their own box. The partial-exemption percentage applies only if you have exempt activity: it is the share of input VAT you may deduct, and the law always rounds it up.
How the result is reached, box by box
| Output VAT at 21 %box 9 | €2,520.00 |
| Total output VATbox 27 | €2,520.00 |
| Input VAT on ordinary domestic purchasesbox 29 | €900.00 |
| Total deductiblebox 45 | €900.00 |
| Result under the general regimebox 46 | €1,620.00 |
| Result of the returnbox 71 | €1,620.00 |
Educational estimate, not tax advice. It settles the general regime and does not cover the recargo de equivalencia, the simplified regime or the cash-basis scheme. The return itself is filed on the Agencia Tributaria's online office.
What is actually being declared
The modelo 303 is not a tax on what you earn. It is the settlement of a tax you collect on the Treasury’s behalf. Each quarter you add up the VAT you charged on the invoices you issued, subtract the VAT you were charged on the invoices you received, and the difference is either paid or carried forward. Article 99.Uno of the Spanish VAT Act puts it plainly: in each liquidation period the deductible input tax is deducted globally from the total output tax. It is a netting of the whole quarter, not an invoice-by-invoice calculation, and that is why a quarter with one large purchase can come out negative even though you invoiced normally.
Quarterly or monthly, and why it is almost always quarterly
Article 71.3 of the Regulation sets the liquidation period as the natural quarter. It becomes monthly in four cases, and only four: turnover above 6,010,121.04 euros in the previous calendar year, registration in the monthly refund register, the special group-of-entities regime, or holding fuel tax warehouses. No self-employed person reaches the first by accident. The second is sometimes chosen voluntarily, and it is worth knowing that registering obliges you to file every month regardless of turnover, and to join the immediate information supply system.
The two dates that are not the same date
This is where most money is lost to carelessness. Article 71.4 of the Regulation gives the first twenty calendar days of the month following the quarter, and thirty days of January for the fourth. But if you want the bank to collect the amount, final provision three of Order EHA/3786/2008 closes the direct-debit window on the 15th in April, July and October, and on the 25th in January. Filing on the 18th is perfectly valid and perfectly useless if you were counting on direct debit: the return is filed and the debt is unpaid, with its own late-payment surcharge. And mind the days: they are calendar days, not working days, although if the last one falls on a Saturday, Sunday or public holiday the deadline moves to the next working day.
A negative quarter is not one thing but three
When input VAT exceeds output VAT, article 99.Cinco offers two routes and article 115 imposes a timing condition that almost no tool explains. The default route is carry-forward: the credit rolls into later returns and stays there until a positive quarter absorbs it. The other route is to claim a refund, but that is only available in the last return of the year, because article 115.Uno speaks of the balance standing at 31 December. For a quarterly filer that means Q4 and nothing else. And if you opt for the refund you may not also carry the same credit forward: it is one or the other.
The two four-year clocks, which are not the same clock
They are constantly conflated and they measure from different events. Article 99.Tres gives four years to exercise the right to deduct an input tax amount, counted from when that right arose, meaning from when you received the invoice. Article 99.Cinco gives four years to carry a surplus forward, counted from the FILING of the return in which that surplus arose. Two clocks with two starting points, and that is why the form keeps the credit pending from earlier quarters in its own box instead of merging it with the current quarter’s: each pot expires on its own date. If the window runs out before the credit could be used, it is not lost outright, but recovering it then requires a claim for undue payment.
Purchases from foreign suppliers pay for themselves
When you buy a service from a business in another EU country, the invoice arrives without VAT and it is you who must charge it to yourself. That is the reverse charge, and on the form it appears twice: as output tax and, if the purchase is deductible, as input tax. If you deduct in full the two figures cancel out and the transaction costs you nothing in VAT, though it still has to be declared. The surprise is for anyone with a partial-exemption percentage: the output side is paid in full and the input side only in part, so a purchase that looked neutral does have a cost.
Partial exemption, and the rounding that favours you
If alongside operations that carry the right to deduct you also carry out others that do not, you fall under the prorrata rule of article 102 and may deduct only a percentage of your input VAT. Article 104.Dos explains how that percentage is worked out and closes with a detail many tools skip: the resulting prorrata is rounded to the next whole unit. Always up. A prorrata of 80.1 per cent deducts 81 per cent, not 80. The percentage you apply during the year is provisional, and as a general rule it is the previous year’s final figure; the fourth-quarter return works out the year’s definitive percentage and adjusts what was over- or under-deducted.
No activity still means a return
This is the commonest mistake among the newly registered. Article 71.1 of the Regulation requires the periodic return to be filed even where no output tax arose and no deduction is taken. A quarter without a single invoice issued or received is filed all the same, ticking the no-activity box. The only real exception is in the same article: those carrying out exclusively the exempt operations of articles 20 and 26 fall outside the obligation. Not filing because you believed there was nothing to declare is an infringement with its own penalty, even though the result would have been nil.
If you got it wrong, you now fix it inside the form itself
This changed recently and much of what is written elsewhere is out of date. Until 2024, correcting a 303 meant a supplementary return if you had underpaid, or a rectification request if you had overpaid, two separate routes with two separate deadlines. Order HAC/819/2024 adapted the form to the rectificative self-assessment introduced by Act 13/2023, and since the third quarter of 2024 there is one route: tick the rectificative box, give the receipt number of the earlier return and state the reason. A single mechanism for both cases.
Worked example
Example: a self-employed designer invoices 12,000 € plus VAT at 21 % in the second quarter and has been charged 900 € of VAT on her costs. Output VAT is 2,520 € and deductible input VAT 900 €, so box 46 gives 1,620 € and that is the result: 1,620 € to pay by 20 July, or by 15 July if she wants it collected by direct debit. Now suppose she had bought equipment in the previous quarter and was left with a 2,000 € credit to carry forward. She then applies 1,620 € of that credit in box 78, the quarter’s result comes to zero, and the remaining 380 € stays pending in box 87 for the next quarter. She pays nothing, but files the return all the same.
Frequently asked questions
When is the modelo 303 filed?
Why is the direct-debit deadline different?
What happens if my modelo 303 comes out negative?
How long does the Spanish tax office take to refund VAT?
Do I have to file the modelo 303 if I invoiced nothing?
What is the difference between the modelo 303 and the modelo 130?
Can I deduct an invoice from two years ago in this quarter?
Does this calculator work if I am on the recargo de equivalencia or on módulos?
Related calculators & reading
- What the modelo 303 is and how to fill it in →
- Spanish VAT calculator: add it to or strip it from an amount →
- Modelo 130 calculator: the quarter’s income tax →
- Self-employed contribution calculator →
- Spanish VAT rates: 21 %, 10 % and 4 % →
- Modelo 111 calculator: withholding on payroll and invoices →
- All calculators for the self-employed →
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Sources
- Spanish VAT Act 37/1992: article 99 (right to deduct and carry-forward) and article 115 (refunds) · Boletín Oficial del Estado
- Spanish VAT Regulation (RD 1624/1992): article 71, liquidation period and filing deadlines · Boletín Oficial del Estado
- Order EHA/3786/2008 approving the modelo 303: deadlines and the direct-debit window · Boletín Oficial del Estado
- Order HAC/819/2024: adapts the modelo 303 to the rectificative self-assessment of Act 13/2023 · Boletín Oficial del Estado
- The modelo 303 and its official instructions, box by box · Agencia Tributaria
Author: Thorben Rasmus Idel · Reviewed by: Nahar Geva · Last reviewed: