ROI registration: the intra-community VAT number and VIES census

The Registry of Intra-Community Operators (ROI) is part of the Census of Entrepreneurs, Professionals and Withholders managed by the Tax Agency. Being registered means you are assigned a VAT identification number, the NIF-IVA, which is your NIF (tax identification number) with the ES prefix in front, and this number is listed in the European VIES census, the system through which the tax administrations of the Member States check with each other who can operate without VAT within the Union.

The practical consequence is very specific. When your company is listed in VIES, the supplier from another Member State invoices you without VAT and you self-assess and deduct the tax in your own return, and your sale to a company in another Member State can be exempt. When it is not listed, the foreign supplier is obliged to charge you the VAT of their country (a VAT that you cannot deduct in your Spanish return) and your sale cannot benefit from the exemption: it must include Spanish VAT.

The VAT number is not a mere formality. It is the key that opens the destination taxation regime, and without it the operation immediately becomes more expensive and the money takes months to recover.

The Tax Agency outlines 4 scenarios. First, anyone who is going to carry out intra-community deliveries or acquisitions of goods subject to the tax. Second, legal entities that do not act as entrepreneurs when their intra-community acquisitions are subject to it. Third, anyone who is the recipient of services provided by entrepreneurs not established in the territory where the tax applies and is the taxpayer for those services. And fourth, anyone who provides services that, due to location rules, are understood to be carried out in another Member State when the taxpayer is the recipient.

The third and fourth scenarios are the most overlooked. A company that only buys advertising or software from a community supplier, without moving a single box, is already obliged to register in the ROI and submit form 349, even if it does not sell anything outside Spain.

The timing is prior to the operation. The census declaration is submitted before the circumstances that justify inclusion in the registry occur, and it indicates the expected date for the first operation. Requesting registration when the invoice is already issued is late and is, furthermore, one of the reasons why the AEAT examines the file closely.

Registration is requested using census declaration form 036, for registration if the company is not yet in the census or for modification if it already is. You check box 582 to request registration in the Registry of Intra-Community Operators and enter the expected date for the first operation in box 584. Voluntary deregistration is requested with the same form by checking box 583 and indicating the date in box 584.

Submitting form 036 does not grant anything on its own. It opens a census verification procedure in which the Administration verifies that the declared data corresponds to reality, and to do so it can examine documentation and also the company's premises and establishments. The resolution period is 3 months.

The effect of silence is what confuses many companies: if the Tax Agency does not resolve within 3 months, the assignment of the number can be considered denied. Positive silence does not apply. Once that period has passed without an express resolution and without appearing in VIES, you are not registered, no matter how much form 036 is submitted and receipted.

If during the processing the Administration detects a discrepancy, it will notify you of a requirement or directly a proposed resolution, and the hearing process opens. Tax regulations set this period at no less than 10 days and no more than 15, and in practice the Tax Agency usually grants 10 working days. Always check the specific deadline indicated in the notification: it is, in practice, the real opportunity to save the file.

The ROI is the gateway to the fraud known as VAT carousel, and the Administration treats it as such. Census control over new registrations is strict and is not limited to reviewing papers: it is common for a tax agent to show up at the declared address to verify that there is a real activity there.

Denials are always repeated for the same reasons. A tax address that turns out to be just a mail reception address, with no trace of the company. Absence of material or human resources consistent with the volume of trade announced. Activity not started, without a single movement to support the forecast. Headings of the Tax on Economic Activities that do not fit with what is said to be bought or sold. And lack of any document identifying the foreign supplier or client with whom you are going to operate.

A file that holds up includes, at a minimum, proof of address (lease agreement and utilities in the company's name), proof of resources (employee registrations, service contracts, assets), identification of the community supplier or client with their VAT number verified in VIES, and proof of the commercial relationship: orders, accepted quotes, emails, pre-agreements, proformas or framework contracts. The more specific the first planned operation is, the less room there is to deny due to lack of evidence.

Managora prepares that file and submits form 036 for you, and attends to the requirement or the visit if the AEAT proposes them. You can see the updated amount in the form 036 file.

There are 2 avenues against the denial resolution, and neither can be used at the same time as the other: the optional appeal for reconsideration (recurso de reposición) before the same office that issued the act, and the economic-administrative claim. In both cases the deadline is 1 month from the day following the notification. If the denial comes by silence, the period is counted from the day the procedure can be understood as dismissed.

Appealing makes sense when the resolution ignores evidence that you did provide, when it is not motivated or when it is based on a false fact (for example, that there was no one at the address on the day of the visit, when there was). In those cases the appeal is won with the file: receipts, dated photographs, contracts and emails that dismantle the assessment of the management body.

Appealing does not make as much sense when the denial is correct. If resources were lacking, activity was lacking or documentation from the foreign client was lacking, an appeal only consumes the 1 month period and several more months of waiting. The effective thing then is to correct what was missing and submit a new application with form 036 and a better built file. The 2 avenues are not mutually exclusive: you can reapply for registration while the appeal runs its course.

Managora drafts and submits the appeal for reconsideration for you, with the ordered evidence and the request that the VAT number be assigned to you. You can see the updated amount in the AEAT appeal for reconsideration file.

Since 1 March 2020, the exemption of the intra-community delivery ceased to be a formal issue. To apply it, it is not enough for the merchandise to leave Spain: the acquirer must have communicated a VAT number attributed by a Member State other than Spain, and you must have included the operation in form 349. These are material conditions of the exemption, not formal requirements that can be corrected later without consequences.

The verification is done in the European Commission's VIES validator or at the Tax Agency's electronic headquarters, in the query for non-Spanish intra-community operators, which requires identifying yourself with a certificate or electronic ID and indicating your NIF as the applicant, the operator's country and their VAT number. The Commission itself warns that VIES is a search engine that queries national databases in real time, and that today's validity does not guarantee tomorrow's.

That is why the query is archived. The result must be saved, with its date, together with the invoice for the operation. If months later the client loses their VAT number and a verification arrives, that receipt is what proves that you checked the number on the day you invoiced. Without it, the discussion is lost and your company ends up paying the VAT quota that it did not pass on.

The verification is done before each operation with a new client and is repeated periodically with recurring ones. Along with the receipt, it is advisable to keep proof of the transport of the merchandise, which is the other pillar of the exemption.

Yes. Registration is not for life. The Tax Agency can agree on a precautionary deregistration in the Registry of Intra-Community Operators through a motivated agreement, among other cases when it sees indications that the taxpayer participates in intra-community operations from which a tax breach or the improper obtaining of VAT refunds could derive. This precautionary deregistration becomes definitive when the census situation is rectified.

The signal that triggers the review is usually the same: stopping declaring. A registered operator who does not submit form 349 for consecutive periods, or whose VAT returns do not reflect any intra-community operation, is a natural candidate for census review. If you stop operating with the European Union, the clean thing is to request deregistration with form 036 and request registration again when needed.

Before invoicing without VAT, it is also advisable to check your own situation. The Tax Agency's headquarters allows you to consult the status of an intra-community operator and issues a tax certificate of intra-community operator that proves your registration to foreign clients and suppliers who request it.

Managora takes care of the registration, the file that supports it, the verifications in VIES and the form 349 for each period, and submits the appeal if the AEAT denies it. If your company is going to buy or sell within the European Union, leave the procedure in our hands before the first invoice, not after.