SPAIN Law and Practice Contributed by: Carolina del Campo, Joan Hortalà, Jaime Collado and Pablo Álvarez, Cuatrecasas
Cuatrecasas Diagonal 191 08018 Barcelona Spain
Tel: +34 932 905 000 Fax: +34 932 905 001 Email: barcelona@cuatrecasas.com Web: www.cuatrecasas.com/en/global/offices/barcelona-1
1. Rules Governing Transfer Pricing 1.1 Statutes and Regulations Applicable Law and Regulations Spain’s transfer pricing (TP) regime is grounded in Article 18 of the Corporate Income Tax Law 27/2014 ( Ley del Impuesto sobre Sociedades , LIS) and detailed in Articles 13 to 17 of the Corporate Income Tax Regu - lations approved by Royal Decree 634/2015 ( Regla- mento del Impuesto sobre Sociedades , RIS). Content Article 18 sets the arm’s length principle, defines “related parties”, lists recognised methods, estab - lishes documentation duties, provides for primary/ secondary adjustments and frames advance pricing agreements (APAs). The RIS develops functional anal - ysis, methodology selection, comparability analysis, documentation (master file/local file) and APA proce - dures. Documentation must be made available from the end of the voluntary filing period for the corporate tax return to the Spanish Tax Administration. 1.2 Current Regime and Recent Changes Evolution of TP Framework in Spain Spain modernised TP in stages: major reforms began with Law 36/2006 (anti-fraud), continued with LIS 27/2014 and RIS 634/2015 (eliminating method hierarchy, permitting unspecified methods, detailing documentation and formalising APAs) and have been refined by subsequent amendments. Spain has also legislated the EU 15% minimum tax through Law 7/2024 (the “Complementary Tax”) and its implementing regulation (Royal Decree 252/2025),
generally effective for periods beginning 31 Decem - ber 2023 (with staged elements). These instruments expressly reference OECD/EU materials in their inter - pretive guidance. Currently, administration practices are being reshaped by the Strategic Plan 2024–27 of the Spanish Tax Agency ( Agencia Estatal de Administración Tributaria , AEAT). AEAT’s Strategic Plan 2024–27 The Plan pivots to data-driven risk management via a central Segmentation, Analysis and Risk Committee and a unified multiyear “risk map”, and formalises a 360-degree strategy that co-ordinates APAs, targeted inspections and mutual agreement procedures (MAPs) for long-term certainty. International information exchanges will weigh more heavily in TP selection, with new data streams (e-com - merce platforms, cross-border payments, crypto- assets, beneficial ownership registers) integrated into analytics. Co-operative compliance tools are strengthened through the Good Tax Practices Code and a voluntary transparency report, now allowing optional TP docu - mentation sharing. Digital initiatives (EU ViDA, Spain’s e-invoicing system and Veri*factu) and AI-supported analytics (excluding generative AI for enforcement) aim to stabilise transaction-level inputs. The Plan also operationalises Pillar Two (effective for periods starting 31 December 2023) and prepares
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