Carmen Ruiz has two tourist apartments in the old town of Cádiz. In August 2026 the Agencia Tributaria, the Spanish tax agency, notified her of an income tax (IRPF) assessment of 14,600 € because she had charged personal expenses to the flats. Her income is very seasonal: between June and September she clears about 2,500 € a month, and from November to March, with luck, 700 €. She wants to ask for the longest instalment plan possible "to have breathing room", and asks how many months she can be given.
The answer people usually look for is a number. The one that serves her is a different one: the number of months is chosen from the instalment Carmen can pay in February, not from the maximum the screen will accept.
What the rules say about the term
Neither the Ley General Tributaria (the General Tax Law) nor the Reglamento General de Recaudación (the General Collection Regulations) sets a general maximum number of months. Article 65.1 of the law only requires that the debtor's financial situation prevents them from paying "temporarily", and article 51.1 of the Regulations tells the authorities to examine "the lack of liquidity and the capacity to generate resources".
Article 52.1 adds two rules that are worth keeping in mind:
- The decision "may set terms and conditions different from those requested". Asking for 24 months does not oblige them to grant 24.
- Due dates must fall on the 5th or the 20th of each month. You cannot choose another day to fit in with when your salary or a platform's payment comes in.
The maximums for automated processing
Where there are numbers is in the Agency's own internal criteria for applications of up to 50,000 € without a guarantee, which are decided automatically. Under those criteria (Instruction 2/2023 of the Agency's Collection Department), applied since 15 April 2023, the maximum term is 24 months for individuals and 12 months for legal entities.
Those limits are not in a law or in a regulation: the Agency sets them in internal instructions and can change them without amending any rule. Before filing, check on the Agency's website which criterion is currently in force. And remember that the system may grant a shorter term than the one requested.
Beyond those terms, or above 50,000 €, the application leaves the automated circuit and is examined by an official. At that point the documents required by article 46.3.c) of the Regulations carry much more weight: you have to show that the difficulties exist and are temporary, and if you ask for the guarantee to be waived, provide a viability plan.
The four factors that weigh in the decision
| Factor | What is looked at | How it plays out in Carmen's case |
|---|---|---|
| Amount | The accumulated debt with the Agency, not just this one | 14,600 €, with no other debts: within the automated circuit |
| Kind of debt | Whether it can be deferred and which period it is in | Income tax assessed in the voluntary period: can be deferred |
| Record | Earlier deferrals not complied with, debts in the enforcement period | None |
| Consistency of the schedule | Whether the instalment bears a relation to the ability to pay | This is where her risk lies |
The record deserves a line of its own. An instalment plan not complied with in the past does not prevent you from applying for another, but it is on file, and in applications that an official does review it counts. Anyone who has defaulted before would do well to propose a shorter schedule with instalments that are clearly affordable.
Carmen's figures, month by month
To compare schedules you need to calculate the late-payment interest, which is paid with each instalment from the day after the end of the voluntary period until its due date, under article 53.2 of the Regulations. We use an assumed rate of 4 % a year; the real one is checked on the Agency's website before deciding. The instalments start in November 2026.
| Months | Principal of each instalment | Total interest (approx.) | Payment in the last month (approx.) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 6 | 2,433 € | 219 € | 2,490 € |
| 12 | 1,217 € | 364 € | 1,265 € |
| 18 | 811 € | 511 € | 860 € |
| 24 | 608 € | 657 € | 660 € |
The instalments are not all the same: each one carries the interest for its own length of time, so the last ones weigh slightly more than the first.
Now the step that decides it:
- Carmen's worst month leaves 700 € free.
- Over 12 months, the payment is around 1,250 €. It fails in November.
- Over 18 months, about 850 €. It fails all winter.
- Over 24 months, about 660 € at worst. It fits, with a margin of 40 €.
The 24-month schedule costs her about 290 € more in interest than the 12-month one, but it is the only one she can keep to. An instalment plan that is broken in the third month turns out far more expensive than any difference in interest, as we explain in what happens if you miss an instalment.
How to make the most of seasonal income
Carmen's temptation is to ask for 24 months and then do nothing more. There is a better way to use the summer:
- Ask for the schedule that fits the worst month, in this case 24 months.
- In July and August, when she has cash to spare, pay in advance through the Agency's website. The Agency allows early payment and cancellation of a deferral that has been granted, and the sooner you pay, the less interest accrues.
- If summer 2027 is good, she can cancel the whole instalment plan a year early and save a good part of those 657 €.
The opposite, asking for 12 months in the hope that "I'll sort it out in winter", is the decision that breaks the most instalment plans. The guide on how to propose a schedule that holds up develops this method with more cases.
While it is being decided, you pay
There is a detail in article 51.2 of the Regulations worth knowing before proposing the schedule: while the application is being processed, the debtor "must pay the proposed instalment or instalments". If they fail to do so, the authorities may refuse the application on the view that the difficulties are structural, not temporary.
In practice, this means that the schedule you propose starts running even though you have not yet had an answer. Proposing a first payment in November and not having the money that month is the quickest way to get a refusal.
If you would like us to work out the schedule with you from your real income before you file the application, you can send us the figures through the deferral form. We will propose the number of months you can sustain, without being able to guarantee that the Agency will accept it as it stands.
Companies: a year as the benchmark
If the debt belongs to a company and not to an individual, the automated criterion drops to 12 months. A company that needs more time will have to leave the automated circuit and show with documents that its problem is temporary. The balance sheet, the profit and loss account and a cash-flow forecast are the minimum, and if the guarantee is also to be waived, article 46.5 requires the financial statements for the last three years and a viability plan.
For companies there are also debts that do not go into any schedule at all, such as withholdings or corporate income tax payments on account. They are in which debts can never be deferred.
If the debt exceeds 50,000 €, the term is negotiated in parallel with the guarantee, which we deal with in how much can be deferred without a guarantee. And the full cost of each option is in how much interest you pay to defer.
At Salama Tax the schedule is built the other way round from how the screen on the Agency's website presents it: first the payment for the worst month, then the number of months.