VAT and digital tax records for venues: Spain's Verifactu and TicketBAI, and the UK's Making Tax Digital

Spain is moving to tamper-proof billing software (Verifactu, or TicketBAI in the Basque Country), with official deadlines of 1 January and 1 July 2027 that have already moved twice. The UK charges 20% VAT on hospitality and is phasing in Making Tax Digital for sole traders.

By Marta Ruiz

Product design

Monday, 7 September 2026 5 min read

Illustration of a till receipt curling off a till and ending in a square code pattern, beside an open ledger and an olive branch

If you run a venue in the UK and have heard about “Verifactu”, or you are opening a second site in Spain, here is what it is, who it applies to and when. Then the UK side: what hospitality pays in VAT and what Making Tax Digital asks of you. I am writing from Madrid, so Spain comes first.

Spain: what Verifactu is

Verifactu is the nickname for Spain’s regulation on invoicing software (Royal Decree 1007/2023). It does not change what you charge or the VAT you collect. It regulates how the software behaves, so that records cannot be altered without leaving a trace. The tax agency, the AEAT, says the aim is to guarantee integrity, preservation, accessibility, legibility, traceability and inalterability of billing records (AEAT, general questions).

In practice each invoice produces a billing record, chained to the previous one by a hash code. There are two valid modes: VERIFACTU, where records are sent to the AEAT, and a mode where records are kept in your own system. What a customer sees is a QR code on invoices and simplified invoices and, depending on the mode, a “verifiable invoice” or VERIFACTU legend (AEAT). As a designer, I would note that a mandatory QR on a narrow thermal receipt has to fit, scan and not crowd everything else.

The official dates

Update, 3 November 2026. On 5 October 2026 the Ministry of Finance published an information note saying it plans to postpone the pending Verifactu obligations until October 2028, to line up with electronic invoicing between businesses. The note is an announcement, not a rule: the dates below stay the legal ones until a change is published in the BOE, and the sources we checked on 21 October 2026 still showed none. Check the AEAT page before relying on either date.

The dates have moved twice, so distrust older articles. The original text set July 2025, Royal Decree 254/2025 moved it to 2026, and Royal Decree-law 15/2025 of 2 December moved it again. The AEAT summarises the current position: entities filing Corporate Income Tax must have their systems adapted before 1 January 2027, and all other taxpayers before 1 July 2027 (AEAT, 3 December 2025).

For a venue, that means a limited company has the first date, and a self-employed person has the second. These dates are set by regulation and have changed before, so check the AEAT’s invoicing-systems page before you plan around them.

The Basque Country and Navarra

Verifactu does not cover everyone. According to a summary of the AEAT’s FAQ, those taxed under foral rules for income tax or corporate tax are outside it, which in practice follows your tax residence (summary of the rules).

Álava, Bizkaia and Gipuzkoa use TicketBAI, each with its own calendar. In Álava the final mandatory phase was 1 December 2022 (Álava provincial council). In Gipuzkoa it has applied to everyone with an economic activity since 1 June 2023. In Bizkaia it is part of Batuz, and the published calendar put hospitality companies (SMEs) in from 1 January 2025 and self-employed hospitality from 1 July 2025 (calendar summary). Unlike Verifactu, sending the record to the provincial tax office is mandatory.

Navarra uses neither TicketBAI nor Verifactu for those under foral rules. Its own system, NaTicket, is in development, with no mandatory calendar published at the time of writing.

Spanish VAT on hospitality

Restaurant services and food and drink supplied for consumption on the spot are taxed at Spain’s reduced rate of 10% (AEAT, VAT rates 2025). That rate has to be reflected in each transaction’s billing record.

The UK: VAT on hospitality

The standard rate of UK VAT is 20% (GOV.UK, VAT rates). Hospitality had a temporary reduced rate: 5% from 15 July 2020 to 30 September 2021, then 12.5% from 1 October 2021 to 31 March 2022. From 1 April 2022 the standard rate applies again to restaurants, cafes and pubs (GOV.UK, VAT reduced rate for hospitality). You must register for VAT if your taxable turnover is above 90,000 pounds (GOV.UK, how VAT works).

The UK: Making Tax Digital

Making Tax Digital for VAT is already in force: GOV.UK now says all VAT-registered businesses should be signed up (GOV.UK, charging VAT).

For income tax, it is being phased in for sole traders and landlords by qualifying income (gross self-employment and property income). HMRC’s guidance sets the start at 6 April 2026 for qualifying income over 50,000 pounds in the 2024 to 2025 tax year, 6 April 2027 for over 30,000 pounds in 2025 to 2026, and 6 April 2028 for over 20,000 pounds in 2026 to 2027. Partnerships will follow at a later date (GOV.UK, find out if and when you need to use MTD for Income Tax). You keep digital records in compatible software and send quarterly updates (GOV.UK, quarterly update direction). If you trade as a limited company, this one is not about you.

Two countries, one habit

The two systems come from different places, but the habit they reward is the same: records made at the point of sale, kept in software, not rebuilt at the end of the quarter. If you are choosing a till, ask where the tax logic lives and who maintains it.

What ORDR does about this

For venues in Spain, ORDR issues receipts that meet Verifactu and TicketBAI requirements, so the QR and the billing record come out of the payment itself. Which system and which date apply to you is for your adviser or the tax authority to confirm. More in the ORDR help centre.