Year-end checklist for a small business in Spain: what to check before December 31

General information about Spanish rules, checked on October 18, 2026 against the official gazette (BOE) and the official taxpayer calendar. It is not professional advice: your tax scheme, your legal form and your exact deadlines should be confirmed by your accountant or tax advisor.

If your business runs on the calendar year, your financial year ends on December 31. For a Spanish company (an SL or SA) that is the rule unless the bylaws say otherwise (article 26 of the Spanish Companies Act). If you are self-employed (autónomo), your personal income tax (IRPF) period is the calendar year (article 12 of the IRPF law).

In Spain, many small businesses have an outside accountant, often a gestoría, that handles the formal close and the filings. But much of what they need comes from your day-to-day work: missing invoices, payments that slipped, a stockroom nobody has counted. This list helps you reach January with all of that sorted.

Sales invoices: 2026 work belongs in 2026

In Spain, VAT (IVA) accrues when the sale happens, not when you invoice or get paid: for goods, when they are made available to the client; for services, when they are performed. If you take an advance payment first, VAT accrues when you receive it, on the amount received (article 75 of the VAT law).

When the client is a business or a professional, the invoice can be issued "before the 16th of the following month" (article 11 of the invoicing regulation). Work finished in December can be invoiced in early January, but its VAT belongs to the last 2026 period. Before December 31, check:

• Goods delivered or services performed in 2026 that you have not invoiced yet.
• Advance payments for work you will do in 2027: VAT is due from the moment you collect them.
• Invoices with mistakes. In Spain you fix them with a corrective invoice (factura rectificativa), which is mandatory when the original misses a required detail or the VAT is wrong (article 15 of the same regulation). You never delete or overwrite the original.
• Numbering: within each series, invoice numbers must be sequential (article 6).

In UTILIA OS, you issue invoices with VAT or IGIC and withholding from Finance and, if there is a mistake, the corrective invoice.

Purchase invoices and the year's expenses

Ask your suppliers now for any invoices you are missing. To deduct input VAT, the document that counts is the invoice; a proof of payment is not enough (article 97 of the VAT law).

If a 2026 invoice arrives late, you do not lose the VAT: you can deduct it in the return for the period in which you received it or in later ones, within four years (article 99.Tres). For your profit for the year, though, accrual is what matters: a service received in December is a 2026 expense even if the invoice arrives in January (more on this below).

Keep invoices and receipts in order: the Spanish Commercial Code requires businesses to keep them for six years from the last entry in their books (article 30).

If you track expenses in UTILIA OS, supplier invoices and receipts are read automatically, duplicates are flagged, and each expense can go through approval before it is accepted.

Unpaid invoices and bad debts

Pull the list of overdue invoices and chase them in writing before year-end. Besides helping you get paid, a written claim matters for tax purposes.

For corporate income tax

A loss from a client who does not pay is deductible if, when the tax accrues (the last day of the tax period), one of these applies (article 13.1 of the corporate income tax law):

• Six months have passed since the due date. An invoice that fell due on or before June 30, 2026 and is still unpaid on December 31 already qualifies.
• The debtor has been declared insolvent (concurso).
• The debtor is being prosecuted for concealing assets (alzamiento de bienes).
• The debt has been claimed in court or is subject to litigation or arbitration on which payment depends.

Debts owed by public bodies are not deductible (unless there is litigation or arbitration over their existence or amount), nor are debts owed by related parties (unless they are in insolvency proceedings that have reached liquidation), nor general estimates of risk. The exception is smaller companies, those with net revenue under EUR 10 million the previous year: they can deduct a general allowance of up to 1% of their receivables at year-end (article 101 and article 104).

For VAT

If you charged VAT on an invoice you never collect, you can recover it by reducing the taxable amount with a corrective invoice (article 80.Cuatro of the VAT law). The main conditions:

• One year has passed since the VAT accrued without payment, or six months if your turnover the previous year did not exceed EUR 6,010,121.04.
• The sale is recorded in your VAT registers.
• The client is a business or a professional or, if not, the taxable amount is over EUR 50.
• You have claimed payment in court, through a notary or by any other means that provides reliable proof of the claim.

The correction must be made within six months after that six-month or one-year period ends, and reported to the tax administration within the time set by regulation. That is why it pays to chase now, in a way that leaves proof.

Do the same with what you owe: suppliers, social security contributions and withholdings still pending. Reaching January knowing what has to be paid avoids surprises in your cash in the first quarter.

If you collect by card from UTILIA OS (Stripe), the invoice is marked as paid, and your clients can view, download and pay their invoices in the client portal.

Bank and cash: make every balance match

Ask each bank for a balance certificate at December 31 and compare it with your records. The differences are usually direct debits nobody recorded, bank fees, card settlements that land days later, or transfers between your own accounts.

If you keep petty cash, count it on the last day. If you have loans or credit lines, split what falls due in 2027 from what falls due later, because short-term and long-term debt are reported separately. This step saves your accountant a lot of time: a balance that does not match in January usually ends in a hunt for a transaction from March.

Equipment and other long-term assets, up to date

List what you bought in 2026 to use for more than a year: computers, machinery, furniture, vehicles, software. For each item, note the purchase date, the date it went into use and the price, and flag anything you sold or retired during the year so it can be written off.

For corporate income tax, the deductible amount is the one matching the actual wear and tear, and the coefficients in the official table are accepted. New tangible items worth up to EUR 300 each can be written off freely, up to EUR 25,000 per tax period (article 12 of the corporate income tax law, sections 1.a and 3.e).

If you are self-employed under the simplified direct method (estimación directa simplificada), you write assets off on a straight-line basis using a simplified table of your own (article 30 of the IRPF regulation).

Inventory: count what is there

If you sell products or work with materials, do a physical count as close to December 31 as you can. The year-end inventory is part of a company's mandatory books (article 28 of the Commercial Code).

• Value stock at cost: purchase price or production cost.
• If something is worth less today than it cost (obsolete, damaged, out of season), its value is written down and the difference is an expense for the year.
• Include stock held by clients or in transit, and leave out what belongs to others.

The first two points come from standard 12 of the Spanish accounting plan for small and medium-sized companies (Royal Decree 1515/2007), which the ICAC, Spain's accounting standards body, also publishes.

Accruals: every expense and every sale in its own year

Expenses and income are assigned to the year in which they happen, "regardless of the date of payment or collection." That is the accrual principle in the conceptual framework of the same accounting plan. What tends to slip through:

• An annual insurance policy paid in October 2026: the part covering 2027 is a 2027 expense.
• A service received in December whose invoice arrives in January (electricity, shipping, advisory fees): it is a 2026 expense.
• An annual fee you bill a client in advance: the part of the service you will provide in 2027 is 2027 income.
• Bonuses or incentives earned in 2026 that you will pay in 2027.
• Projects in progress: note how much is done at December 31 so your accountant can reflect it.

Hand this list to your accountant: it is exactly what does not show up in the paperwork unless someone says so.

The December and January deadlines

Before December 31, 2026

According to the official 2026 taxpayer calendar:

• By December 21: the December corporate income tax installment for the current year, if your company has to make one.
• By December 31: opting out of the simplified direct method or the flat-rate scheme (módulos) for 2027 onward, or revoking that choice; and opting into the VAT cash accounting scheme for 2027. Both go through the census declaration (declaración censal).

In January 2027

As of October 18, 2026, only the 2026 taxpayer calendar has been published: the 2027 one is not out yet. For reference, these were the 2026 deadlines for wrapping up 2025:

Check the 2027 dates in the official calendar once it is published, and get your December figures to your accountant in the first week of January: January deadlines are short and they pile up.

The UTILIA OS financial summary shows income, expenses and VAT for the period, calculated from your invoices and expenses: useful for going over the quarter with your accountant. Taxes in UTILIA OS are coming soon.

Company or self-employed: what changes

The list above applies to both, but the obligations after year-end differ. The dates in the table assume a financial year ending on December 31, 2026.

Your December checklist

Ten checks. If one is not done yet, that is your next step.

1. Everything delivered or performed in 2026 has been invoiced, or its invoice is ready before January 16 if the client is a business or a professional.
2. Invoices with mistakes have been fixed with a corrective invoice.
3. You have every 2026 supplier invoice, and you have asked for the missing ones.
4. Overdue invoices have been chased in writing, and you know which ones are more than six months overdue.
5. Every bank account and the petty cash balance agree with your records at December 31.
6. You have a list of the equipment and other assets bought, sold or retired during the year.
7. Stock has been counted and obsolete items are flagged.
8. Expenses and income that straddle the two years are noted down for your accountant.
9. Any change of tax scheme for 2027 is decided before December 31.
10. You have a meeting with your accountant in the first week of January, with all of the above.

What UTILIA OS does, and what your accountant still does

UTILIA OS keeps invoices, expenses and payments in the same place as your clients and your projects, so they reach whoever closes your books in order. See how it works on the invoicing page and on pricing.

Accounting and taxes in UTILIA OS are coming soon: for now your accountant keeps doing your books, as we explain on accounting and taxes, coming soon.

UTILIA OS and its AI do not replace professional advice from your tax advisor, accountant, lawyer or financial analyst.

Do you have employees? December is also a good time to check how vacation, public holidays and overtime show up in your time records: see vacation, public holidays and overtime in Spain's time records.

Sources

Consolidated texts from the BOE and official pages, checked on October 18, 2026. All are in Spanish.

1. Law 37/1992 on Value Added Tax (Ley del IVA) Articles 75 (accrual), 80.Cuatro (uncollectible debts), 97 (the invoice as proof for deduction) and 99.Tres (four years to deduct).
2. Royal Decree 1619/2012, invoicing regulation (Reglamento de facturación) Articles 6 (sequential numbering), 11 (deadline to issue) and 15 (corrective invoices).
3. Law 27/2014 on Corporate Income Tax (Ley del Impuesto sobre Sociedades) Articles 12 (writing off long-term assets), 13.1 (bad debts), 101 and 104 (smaller companies) and 124 (filing deadline).
4. Law 35/2006 on Personal Income Tax (Ley del IRPF) Articles 12 (tax period) and 28 (net business income).
5. Royal Decree 439/2007, Personal Income Tax Regulation (Reglamento del IRPF) Articles 30 (simplified direct method) and 68 (bookkeeping and registers).
6. Spanish Commercial Code (Código de Comercio) Articles 25 (mandatory books), 28 (year-end inventory) and 30 (six-year retention).
7. Royal Legislative Decree 1/2010, Spanish Companies Act (Ley de Sociedades de Capital) Articles 26 (financial year), 164 (annual general meeting), 253 (preparation) and 279 (filing).
8. Law 14/2013 on support for entrepreneurs Article 18: mandatory books are submitted online to the Commercial Registry within four months of year-end.
9. Royal Decree 1515/2007 (Spanish accounting plan for small and medium-sized companies) Conceptual framework (accrual principle) and recognition and measurement standard 12 (inventories). Also published by the ICAC.
10. Spanish Accounting and Audit Institute (ICAC), national accounting standards Accounting plans in force and their updates.
11. Taxpayer calendar (calendario del contribuyente), official website The 2026 calendar, checked on October 18, 2026; the 2027 calendar had not been published.