Spanish equivalence surcharge
What an invoice with the surcharge holds, and whether it pays.
| Taxable base | €1,000.00 |
|---|---|
| VAT at 21% | €210.00 |
| Surcharge at 5.2% | €52.00 |
| Total | €1,262.00 |
| Base if you divide by the VAT alone | €1,042.98 |
| What that divisor overstates by | €42.98 |
- Art. 154.Tres forbids passing the surcharge on: the retailer charges the customer the ordinary rate «without, in any case, being able to increase that percentage by the amount of the surcharge». The surcharge comes out of the margin.
- Nothing paid in is deductible (art. 154.Dos), and the deductible proportion of this separate sector is zero. The VAT on the invoice is a cost, not an advance.
- A total carrying the surcharge holds 26.2 points, not 21. Dividing by 1.21 overstates the base by €42.98 per €1,000 of base.
- Which VAT rate a product carries is decided by art. 91 LIVA and not by this page: olive oils moved to 4% in 2025 and sweetened drinks sit at 21%.
What the scheme does, in one sentence
The retailer pays their supplier a surcharge on the same base as the VAT and, in exchange, loses almost all of their VAT life: no form 303, no settlement, no VAT ledgers and no deduction of anything they pay in (arts. 154.Dos LIVA and 61.2 RIVA). The supplier pays it in for them. What almost no page says is the other half of art. 154: paragraph Tres expressly forbids passing the surcharge to the customer, because the retailer charges the ordinary rate «without, in any case, being able to increase that percentage by the amount of the surcharge». The consumer never sees the surcharge. It comes out of the shop's margin and from nowhere else.
The divisor is not 1.21, and that is the expensive mistake
An invoice with the surcharge in the standard band holds 21 points of VAT and 5.2 of surcharge, so the total is the base times 1.262. Whoever takes the total and divides it by 1.21 to get the base overstates it: on a €1,262 total the real base is €1,000.00 and the wrong divisor gives €1,042.98, nearly €43 too much per thousand. In the reduced band the divisor is 1.114, in the super-reduced one 1.045 and on tobacco 1.2275. The panel prints both bases side by side on purpose, because a divisor error does not stand out: the number that comes out is perfectly plausible.
The break-even margin, which is the only way to answer «is it worth it?»
Here is the arithmetic nobody publishes. A retailer in the normal scheme charges VAT, deducts the VAT they pay and remits the difference, so VAT costs them nothing: it passes through. One in the surcharge scheme pays 26.2 points on what they buy without deducting a single one, charges 21 on what they sell and keeps all of it. With cost C and sale V, their net VAT cash is 0.21·V minus 0.262·C, while in the normal scheme it is exactly zero. The two meet when the markup on cost equals surcharge divided by VAT, that is 5.2 over 21, or 24.76%. Above that markup the surcharge pays; below it, it costs money. And the break-even margin is NOT the same in the four bands: 24.76% at 21%, exactly 14.00% at 10%, exactly 12.50% at 4% and 8.33% on tobacco. That two of those come out round is no accident, and tobacco's 8.33% is the order of a licensed tobacconist's statutory commission: the legislator calibrated the surcharge sector by sector.
A company is never in it, and two identical partnerships can fall on opposite sides
Art. 148.Uno reserves the scheme to individuals and to income-attribution entities, and art. 156.1.º says the same from the other side, requiring the surcharge on supplies to retailers «that are not commercial companies». So an SL with a shop on the high street is in the normal scheme because of its legal form and for no other reason. With a comunidad de bienes the answer is finer than it looks: the second paragraph of art. 59.1 of the Regulation brings them in only «when all their partners, heirs, co-owners or participants are individuals». Two comunidades identical in trade, in size and in product fall on opposite sides because one has a company among its members. There is also the art. 149 condition: selling untransformed, and directing more than 80% of those sales to someone who is neither a business nor a professional.
Fifteen articles the scheme will not take
Art. 59.2 of the Regulation closes the scheme for fifteen categories, and the list is startlingly wide: motor vehicles, trailers, boats and aircraft, and the accessories and spare parts of all of them; jewellery and objects of gold or platinum, excepting plating under 35 microns; luxury furs, with a list of animals that runs half the article; works of art, antiques and collectors' items; goods already used before their transfer, which takes out the entire second-hand trade; poultry and beekeeping equipment; petroleum products subject to excise duty; industrial machinery; building materials; minerals other than coal; unmanufactured metals; and investment gold. And art. 157 adds four more cases in which there is no surcharge even though the buyer is in the scheme, among them the most everyday one: goods the retailer is not going to resell, such as their own counter or their computer.
That they never file is false in three cases
Art. 61.3 of the Regulation lists three cases in which a retailer in the scheme does file. The first is the commonest: an intra-EU acquisition or a reverse-charge operation, where art. 158.2.º makes the retailer themselves pay the VAT AND the surcharge, on form 309, in the first twenty calendar days of April, July and October and the first thirty of January. The second is refunding VAT to travellers, recovered with form 308. And the third is selling a property subject to and not exempt from VAT, which art. 154.Dos expressly carves out of the scheme: on that property the retailer charges, settles and pays like anyone. Beyond those three, entering and leaving is not free either: art. 155 requires an inventory of stock, payment of the VAT and surcharge on it on the way in and deduction of both on the way out, and art. 60 of the Regulation gives fifteen days to file that inventory with the tax agency.
Worked example
A stationer receives an invoice for €1,262.00. Divided by 1.21 it would give a base of €1,042.98, but the right divisor is 1.262 and the real base is €1,000.00: €210.00 of VAT and €52.00 of surcharge. Those €262 are neither deductible nor passable to the customer. If the stationer resells for €1,400 before VAT, they charge €294.00 of VAT and keep all of it, so their net VAT cash is €294.00 less €262.00, that is €32.00 in their favour: their 40% markup is above the 24.76% at which the two schemes tie, and the surcharge pays. With the same cost and a €1,245 sale their markup would be 24.5% and they would lose €0.55.
Frequently asked questions
Can I charge the surcharge to my customer?
Why does my invoice not add up when I divide by 1.21?
Can a limited company be in the equivalence surcharge scheme?
What about a comunidad de bienes?
I am in the scheme: do I ever file form 303?
What happens if I buy stock from another EU country?
Do I have to tell my supplier I am in the scheme?
What happens the day I enter or leave the scheme?
Can I opt out of the equivalence surcharge?
Do the surcharge rates change every year?
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Sources
- Ley 37/1992 del IVA, artículo 148: el régimen se aplica «a los comerciantes minoristas que sean personas físicas o entidades en régimen de atribución de rentas», y la actividad minorista es en todo caso un sector diferenciado · Boletín Oficial del Estado
- Ley 37/1992, artículo 149: es comerciante minorista quien vende sin someter los bienes a proceso alguno de fabricación y dirige más del 80 % de esas ventas a quien no es empresario ni profesional · Boletín Oficial del Estado
- Ley 37/1992, artículo 154: el minorista no liquida ni ingresa el impuesto, no deduce nada de lo soportado, su prorrata es cero, y repercute el tipo ordinario «sin que, en ningún caso, puedan incrementar dicho porcentaje en el importe del recargo de equivalencia» · Boletín Oficial del Estado
- Ley 37/1992, artículo 155: al iniciar el régimen se ingresa el IVA y el recargo del inventario de existencias, y al cesar se deduce, con una tercera base -- el valor de mercado -- cuando el cese viene de una transmisión no sujeta · Boletín Oficial del Estado
- Ley 37/1992, artículos 156 a 158: el recargo se exige en las entregas a minoristas «que no sean sociedades mercantiles», y en una adquisición intracomunitaria o una importación lo paga el propio minorista · Boletín Oficial del Estado
- Ley 37/1992, artículo 161: los cuatro tipos del recargo -- 5,2 %, 1,4 %, 0,50 % y 1,75 % para las labores del tabaco -- en su versión vigente desde el 1 de septiembre de 2012 · Boletín Oficial del Estado
- Real Decreto 1624/1992, artículo 59: una entidad en atribución de rentas sólo entra «cuando todos sus socios, herederos, comuneros o partícipes sean personas físicas», y el apartado 2 cierra el régimen para quince categorías de artículos · Boletín Oficial del Estado
- Real Decreto 1624/1992, artículos 60 y 61: el inventario se presenta en la AEAT en quince días, no se llevan registros de IVA, y hay tres supuestos en los que el minorista sí presenta declaración-liquidación · Boletín Oficial del Estado
- Orden HAC/3625/2003, apartado Primero.Dos.3.º y apartado Tercero: el modelo 309 es el que presenta un minorista en recargo por sus adquisiciones intracomunitarias, en los veinte primeros días de abril, julio y octubre y los treinta de enero · Boletín Oficial del Estado
- Orden EHA/3786/2008, artículo 2.2.c): el modelo 308 es la solicitud de devolución del minorista en recargo que ha reembolsado el IVA a viajeros con arreglo al artículo 117 de la Ley del IVA · Boletín Oficial del Estado
Author: Thorben Rasmus Idel · Reviewed by: Nahar Geva · Last reviewed: