Verifactu was about to drop. The Government has just postponed it

The Government has delayed until 2027 the obligation to Verifactu, the electronic billing system that the Tax Agency wanted to impose on self-employed workers and SMEs from January 2026.

• Companies that pay Corporate Tax will now have until January 2027 to adopt it.
• The self-employed and small businesses, until July 2027.

Why is it important. This is not a technical or administrative measure but a political concession disguised as pragmatism. Sánchez has openly admitted it in RAC1framing it as one of his “non-compliances” with Junts that he now intends to resolve.

The system seeks to certify each invoice issued using approved software, guaranteeing its authenticity and allowing the Treasury immediate control. Fines for non-compliance can reach 50,000 euros. But only 8% of self-employed workers and SMEs had it implemented in mid-November, with another 15% in process.

Between the lines. The postponement reveals three uncomfortable truths for the Executive:

1. The Administration has designed a system that not even it itself can implement in a timely manner. The figure of 8% adoption at the threshold of the deadline is an obvious operational failure.
2. Junts has more veto power over Spanish fiscal policy than the PSOE would like to acknowledge. We are not even talking about a budget negotiation, but rather the ability to delay legislation already approved.
3. The “Catalan business community” – the euphemism that Sánchez uses – functions as a lever of effective political pressure when other groups, such as ATA, They had been demanding the same thing for weeks without success.

Yes, but. Lorenzo Amor, from ATA and CEOE, hailed the announcement as a victory for “common sense”. Maybe it is. But that common sense has arrived not through technical merit or business pressure, but through mere parliamentary arithmetic.

The relief is real for all self-employed workers who did not have the resources or time to digitize their billing in a few weeks. The question is whether in 2027 they will be more prepared or if we will see the same script again.

Go deeper. Verifactu doesn’t die, it’s just postponed. The Treasury’s objective remains the same: full traceability of each transaction, immediate control and reduction of tax fraud.

In theory it is a more modern and efficient system. In practice, it is also an administrative burden that many small businesses cannot assume without help.

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Featured image | PexelsXataka