The RIC: Canary Islands investment reserve and form 282

The RIC is the star incentive of the Canary Islands Economic and Fiscal Regime. It is regulated in article 27 of Ley 19/1994 and allows companies with establishments in the islands to stop paying tax, conditionally, on the part of the profit they reinvest in the Canary Islands.

In Corporate Tax it works as a reduction in the taxable base: you can allocate up to 90% of the financial year's profit that you do not distribute as a dividend to the reserve, provided that this profit comes from establishments located in the Canary Islands. The reduction can never leave the taxable base negative, and undistributed profits are considered to be those intended to feed reserves, excluding the legal reserve.

Self-employed workers (autónomos) under the direct estimation method of Personal Income Tax can also apply it, but with a different mechanism: a deduction in the full tax quota calculated by applying their average tax rate to the annual allocation, with a limit of 80% of the part of the quota that proportionally corresponds to the yields of their Canary Islands establishments.

The saving is not an unconditional gift: it is a tax deferral that is only consolidated if you complete the entire cycle (allocate, account for, invest on time, maintain and declare). That is why it is advisable to plan it from the close of the financial year, not improvise it in July.

The reserve is allocated against the profits of the financial year when the application of the result is approved, and the reduction is applied in the tax return for that year (form 200 for Corporate Tax, form 100 for Personal Income Tax).

The materialisation period is 3 years counted from the accrual date of the tax corresponding to the financial year against whose profits the reserve was allocated. For a company with a closing date of 31 December, if it allocates the RIC against the 2025 profit, the accrual is 31 December 2025 and the deadline to invest ends on 31 December 2028: the effective margin from the close of the profit year does not reach 4 years.

The law also allows early investments: you can invest first and consider that investment as the materialisation of the reserve that you allocate against the profits of that same financial year or the following 3 years.

Once materialised, the investment must be maintained: the assets must remain in operation in the company for a minimum of 5 years (or their useful life if shorter), without being transferred, leased or assigned to third parties for their use, with special rules for companies whose business is precisely leasing. For land, the permanence period is reinforced (10 years) and securities must be kept for 5 uninterrupted years in the estate.

Section 4 of article 27 lists the eligible investments. The main ones are: initial investment (new fixed assets, tangible or intangible, for the creation or expansion of an establishment, diversification of activity or substantial transformation of the production process), job creation, certain assets that are not initial investment and the subscription of securities, including Canary Islands public debt.

Job creation counts in 2 ways: linked to an initial investment (the employment must be created within 6 months following the entry into operation of the investment, measured as an increase in the average workforce compared to the previous 12 months and maintained for 5 years, 3 in small companies) or without a link to an initial investment, in which case it operates with specific limits: the average computable cost per worker is capped at €36,000 and materialisation through this route cannot exceed 50% of the allocations for the financial year.

Land, whether built on or not, is only eligible in specific cases: promotion of protected housing intended for rent, development of certain industrial activities, rehabilitation in commercial areas and in declining tourist areas, among others. It is one of the grey areas where most regularisations occur.

Ley 6/2025 adds a new route, with effects for tax periods starting from 1 January 2025: materialisation in properties located in the Canary Islands intended for the rental of a primary residence, with strict conditions of effective rental, absence of links with the tenant and permanence. It is an interesting option, but with requirements that should be reviewed case by case before committing the investment.

The public debt of the Autonomous Community of the Canary Islands, of Canary Islands local corporations or of their public companies is the simplest route, but it has a cap: a maximum of 50% of the allocations for each financial year.

Accounting is not a minor formality: the reserve must appear on the balance sheet with absolute separation and an appropriate title (for example, "Canary Islands investment reserve, financial year 2025") and is unavailable while the assets in which it was materialised must remain in the company. Using it for something else, such as offsetting accounting losses, is an improper disposal and forces you to return the tax benefit, according to the repeated doctrine of the Directorate General for Taxes.

Furthermore, the RIC is a State aid authorised by the European Union. That is why form 282 exists: the annual informative return of aid received within the framework of the Canary Islands REF, approved by Orden HAP/296/2016. In it, the RIC and the rest of the REF incentives that you have applied are declared, to control the accumulation of aid and its European limits.

Form 282 is submitted exclusively electronically at the headquarters of the Spanish Tax Agency (Hacienda or AEAT), within the same deadlines as your Personal Income Tax or Corporate Tax return: for a company with a closing date of 31 December, from 1 to 25 July; for individuals, during the income tax campaign. It has no official fee (tasa) cost as it is an informative return, but failing to submit it can be punishable and leaves your RIC file incomplete.

Complete the circle with the notes to the annual accounts: as long as the reserve is active, there are mandatory mentions about its allocation and materialisation.

The typical causes for regularisation are: not materialising within 3 years, investing in non-eligible assets (the classic: land or properties that do not fit into the listed cases), disposing of the reserve prematurely, failing to comply with the 5 years of maintenance (selling or ceasing to exploit the asset), not sustaining the employment created and moving the activity outside the Canary Islands.

The consequence is in article 27 itself: the amounts that once reduced the taxable base are integrated into the base of the financial year in which the non-compliance occurs, and late payment interest is charged on the resulting quota, calculated from the last day of the voluntary payment period of the return in which the reduction was applied. That is, the saving is returned with interest for all the years that have passed.

There is an important practical difference: if you detect the non-compliance and regularise it in your own self-assessment, you pay the quota and interest; if the Tax Inspectorate discovers it, a penalty may be added. That is why the annual monitoring of the materialisation plan is not optional.

Managora reviews every year which reserves you have allocated, how much time is left for each one, whether the investments made are eligible and whether it is appropriate to regularise anything voluntarily before the Administration does so.

This is a quoted service: the optimal allocation and the materialisation plan depend on your accounts, the reserves you have already allocated and the legal deadline that each one has consumed. Managora studies your case, proposes the allocation, designs the calendar of eligible investments and submits form 282 to the AEAT. You can see the details and request your quote in the procedure file.

To start we only need your latest Corporate Tax or Personal Income Tax return and your annual accounts, trial balance or activity record books. With that we audit your complete RIC situation: active allocations, pending deadlines, investments already computed and regularisation risks.

Managora prepares and submits it for you: you decide the investment and we monitor the deadlines of each allocation, review the eligibility of each asset according to the rule and administrative doctrine, and submit the annual informative return. The final qualification of the investments corresponds to the tax Administration, but rigorous monitoring decisively reduces the risk of regularisation.