Most files that are lost are not lost on the merits: they are lost because the time limit was counted wrongly. And it is counted wrongly almost always for the same reason, which is believing that the period starts on the day you read the letter. With electronic notification there are two clocks in a chain, and the first one runs on its own.
The first clock: when you are deemed notified
Where electronic notification is compulsory, or where the taxpayer has chosen it, making the document available in the electronic mailbox opens a period of its own. The mailbox is the Dirección Electrónica Habilitada, the government's electronic notification address, which you reach through the tax office portal or the DEHú, the shared inbox for public notifications. From that point there are two possible outcomes:
- You open the content. Notification is deemed made at the moment of access, with its date and time. That is day zero.
- You do not open it. Once ten calendar days have passed since it was made available without the content being accessed, the notification is deemed rejected and treated as made. That is also a day zero, and it arrives on its own.
Calendar days means calendar days: Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays count. And "rejected" is not an offence and carries no further consequence; the procedure simply carries on as if the letter had been read.
A counter-intuitive consequence: if you open the mailbox on the second day, notification is made on the second day and the period to answer starts then. Had you not gone in, it would have started on the tenth. Nobody is suggesting you should not check the mailbox (we will see why that is a bad idea), but it is worth knowing that the day you access it is a decision with effects, especially when a notice is opened just before a trip or a busy close of period.
The second clock: the period to answer
Once notification has been made, the time granted starts to run. Here the unit of counting changes, and that is the second source of mistakes.
| Unit of the period | How it is counted | Where it appears |
|---|---|---|
| Working days | From the day after notification, leaving out Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays | Formal requests and hearing stages: the classic "ten days" |
| Calendar days | Every day counts | The ten days a notice is left available in the mailbox |
| Months | From date to date, starting the day after notification; if the month of expiry has no equivalent day, the last day of that month | The one month allowed for appeals |
The holidays that are left out are not only national ones: regional and local holidays of the relevant place count too. A period of ten working days can last longer in one city than in another, and that detail is checked in the official calendar of non-working days, not from memory.
August counts, and this sinks files every year
There is a widespread belief that August is a non-working month. In the courts it generally is, and that is where the confusion comes from. In administrative tax matters, August is a working month like any other: the time limits for formal requests, for submitting arguments and for appeals all run through August.
Someone who receives a formal request on 28 July and decides to answer it "when I get back" finds the period used up by mid-August. And someone who goes on holiday without checking the electronic mailbox finds both clocks exhausted at once: ten calendar days of availability plus ten working days to answer fit comfortably inside an ordinary holiday.
The courtesy days, which exist and almost nobody uses
There is a tool designed precisely for this. Taxpayers within the electronic address system can mark up to 30 calendar days in each calendar year during which the Agencia Tributaria will not place notifications in their electronic mailbox. They are requested in the tax office's own electronic portal.
| Rule | Detail |
|---|---|
| How many | Up to 30 calendar days per calendar year |
| How far ahead | At least 7 calendar days before the chosen period begins |
| What they do | They stop notifications from being made available on those days |
| What they do not do | They do not suspend a period that has already started, nor affect notifications made available earlier |
The first: they are requested in advance, so they cannot plug a hole that has already opened. The second: the rule itself allows the Administration, where the immediacy or speed of the action requires it, to notify by other means during those days. They are a useful cushion, not a suit of armour.
The extension of the time limit, which is granted almost by itself
The General Regulations on tax management and audit procedures (known in Spain as the RGAT) allow the time limits for procedural steps to be extended, and the conditions are far more favourable than people assume:
- The extension cannot exceed half of the period originally granted. Ten working days become fifteen.
- It must be requested before the last three days of the period you want to extend. Asking on the second-to-last day is too late.
- It is deemed granted automatically for half the period simply by filing the request in time, unless an express refusal is notified before the period expires.
- The same period cannot be extended more than once.
It is free, it is almost automatic and it turns an impossible deadline into a reasonable one. The reason it is used so little is that people discover it when the three days have already gone.
A full timetable, step by step
A formal request with ten working days to answer, made available in the mailbox on Tuesday the 3rd of any month, with no public holiday in between and without anyone opening it:
| When | What happens |
|---|---|
| Day 3 | Made available. The ten calendar days start to count |
| Day 13 | Once the ten calendar days have passed without access, notification is treated as made |
| Day 14 | It is a Saturday, so it does not count. The period to answer starts on Monday 16 |
| Friday 27 | The ten working days expire, skipping weekends and public holidays |
| Up to three days before that expiry | Last chance to ask for the extension of five more days |
From day 3 to expiry, a good three weeks have gone by. It looks generous until it collides with a holiday, a sick leave or a change of adviser.
Who watches the mailbox
The practical conclusion of all this is that the electronic mailbox is not checked when you happen to remember: it is checked as a routine. There are three real options: check it yourself every few days, switch on the portal's email alerts (which are a courtesy alert and not a notification, so if one fails to arrive no time limit is extended), or give a power of representation to whoever handles your affairs.
We work with a power of representation entered in the Agencia Tributaria's own register, so notifications arrive at the same time in the client's mailbox and in ours. It is not a luxury: it is the only way to stop the first of the two clocks from running in silence. If you want us to check whether anything is pending in your mailbox right now, tell us through the tax office letter form.
How a particular period is counted depends on the applicable calendar of non-working days and on the exact date of notification, which is recorded in the file. The dates in the example are illustrative. If the period is tight, the right thing is to check the real date in the electronic portal before assuming anything.
Who is obliged to receive notices electronically
Not everyone is under the same regime, and that changes the starting point of the count.
| Who | Regime | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Companies and other legal entities | Compulsory | The period runs from the moment the notice is made available, whether opened or not |
| People entered in certain registers or regimes | Compulsory | The same |
| An individual who has signed up voluntarily | Voluntary | The same, within the procedures signed up for |
| An individual neither obliged nor signed up | Paper | Notification at the tax address, with two attempts and, failing that, notification by appearance following a public notice |
The last row hides a risk of its own. Someone who receives notices on paper and has an out-of-date tax address can end up notified by public notice without ever having seen anything, and the procedure goes ahead all the same. How to correct it is in when the tax register does not keep up.
What people ask about your tax office letter
I did not open the notification. Can I argue that I never knew?
No, if electronic notification was compulsory or you had signed up to it: once ten calendar days have passed since it was made available without being opened, it is deemed made. The period to answer runs from then.
Does August count when answering a formal request?
Yes. In administrative tax matters August is a working month. August being non-working is a rule of the courts, and that is where the confusion comes from, a confusion that costs files every year.
When do I have to ask for the extension?
Before the last three days of the period. If filed in time, it is deemed granted automatically for half the period unless an express refusal is notified before the original period ends. Only one is granted.
Do the courtesy days stop a period that is already running?
No. They stop notifications from being made available on the days marked, which must be requested at least seven calendar days ahead. They do not suspend anything already under way and they are not absolute: the Administration can notify by other means when the action requires it.