Beatriz Lozano, an architect in Logroño, receives a communication from the Agencia Tributaria, the Spanish tax agency, on 15 September 2026 with three requests. The first: proof of 1,200 € of donations she deducted in her 2021 income tax return. The second: the 2016 purchase deed for commercial premises she sold in 2024. The third: the paperwork for a loss of 7,000 € that she declared in 2021 on the sale of an investment fund and has been offsetting in the following years. Beatriz has read that Hacienda, as the Spanish tax office is commonly called, can only look back four years, and believes she does not have to answer anything dated before 2022. She is right about one of the three things.
The four years and the day they start to run
Article 66.a) of the Ley General Tributaria, Spain's General Tax Law, provides that the authorities' right to determine the debt by means of an assessment becomes time-barred after four years. Article 67.1 sets the starting point: the day after the end of the regulatory period for filing the return. What counts is not the year the tax relates to, but the end of the period for declaring it.
For IRPF, Spanish personal income tax, the filing period ends at the end of June of the following year, and the exact date is set each year. For the years that matter here:
| Tax year | End of the filing period | Limitation period starts | Time-barred, with no interruptions |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | 30 June 2021 | 1 July 2021 | At the beginning of July 2025 |
| 2021 | 30 June 2022 | 1 July 2022 | At the beginning of July 2026 |
| 2022 | 30 June 2023 | 1 July 2023 | At the beginning of July 2027 |
There is some debate about whether the last day is 30 June or 1 July of the fourth year. In Beatriz's case it does not matter: in September 2026, if nothing has interrupted the period, the 2021 income tax is time-barred.
The guide on the four-year limitation period explains the special cases. Here what matters is how it applies to a specific request.
What interrupts the period and sets it back to zero
Before stating that a year is time-barred, you have to check that nothing has happened to interrupt the period. Article 68.1 sets out three groups of causes:
- Any action by the authorities notified to the taxpayer and aimed at regularising that obligation, even if it was initially directed at another one because of an error in the return.
- The lodging of appeals or claims, and the steps taken within them.
- Any verifiable action by the taxpayer aimed at assessing or self-assessing the debt: for example, a supplementary return or a request for rectification.
And article 68.6 adds the effect: once the period is interrupted, "the count will begin again". The time already elapsed is not deducted; another four years begin.
That is why, before replying, Beatriz has to check three things: whether she received any letter or request about 2021 between 2022 and 2026, whether she filed any supplementary return or rectification for that year, and whether she appealed anything related. If there is none of that, the 2021 income tax is time-barred. One exception worth bearing in mind: article 104.5 provides that the actions in a procedure that ended because it lapsed do not interrupt the limitation period.
Beatriz's three requests, one by one
The 2021 donations. They are only useful for checking the deduction applied in 2021. If that year is time-barred, the authorities cannot assess it, and on that point the request has no purpose. The correct answer is to point out that the year is time-barred and provide nothing more about that deduction.
The 2016 deed. It is old, but it is used to calculate the gain on a sale in 2024, a year that is still open. Article 70.3 keeps in place the obligation to justify information originating in transactions from time-barred periods for as long as the limitation period of the year they affect lasts. Without that deed, the acquisition value of the premises is not proved, and article 105.1 places the burden of proof on whoever relies on the figure. It has to be provided.
The 2021 loss offset later. A different rule applies here. Article 66 bis.2 establishes that the right to verify tax bases or amounts offset or pending offset becomes time-barred ten years after the end of the filing period for the year in which they arose. The authorities cannot change the 2021 tax, but they can check whether that loss existed and how much it was, because it has been used to reduce the tax in later years. It has to be justified.
A year being time-barred prevents that year from being reassessed. It does not prevent the authorities from examining facts from that year when they have effects on others that are still open: the cost of an asset sold later, a loss being offset, depreciation that is still being claimed.
How to reply when part of it is time-barred
The limitation period is applied automatically, "without the taxpayer needing to invoke or plead it" (article 69.2). Even so, it is advisable to argue it expressly, with the dates:
- Identify the tax year and the date on which the filing period ended.
- State that there is no record of any interrupting action having been notified, nor of any action of your own aimed at assessing that year.
- Conclude that the right to assess is time-barred and that no documents need be provided on that point.
- Reply normally, and within the deadline, to everything relating to open years or to information with effects on them.
What is not advisable is to answer only the part considered enforceable and stay silent on the other. A partial silence may be read as ignoring the request, with the consequences explained in what happens if I do not reply. A reasoned refusal is not.
If you are unsure which years in your request are still open, you can send it through the letter-from-Hacienda form together with the returns and the letters you have received in recent years. Checking the dates is the first thing done.
Periods that are not four years
Not everything becomes time-barred in the same way, and the general rule should not be stretched to where it does not reach:
- Pending bases and deductions. Ten years to verify them, as with Beatriz's loss (article 66 bis.2).
- Record-keeping obligations. The formal obligations linked to a year can be enforced as long as the right to assess it is not time-barred (article 70.1); anyone carrying on a business activity also has their own record-keeping periods under commercial law.
- Facts that may be a crime. Above the criminal threshold, the limitation period for the offence has its own term in the Criminal Code and is not governed by these rules.
- Assets and rights abroad. The consequences of not having reported them have their own regime, which has changed following European case law; the general rule should not be applied to them without reviewing it.
An overview of how many years Hacienda can review, outside the context of a request, is in how many years back Hacienda can claim from me. And if the request asks for documents that fall outside the scope of the procedure, even though the year is open, that is a different question: it is covered in which documents I have to provide.
Keeping papers: the practical test
A simple rule comes out of Beatriz's case: papers are kept as long as the year is not time-barred, and in addition the ones that justify the cost of something you still own, or a loss you are still offsetting, are kept indefinitely. Purchase deeds, invoices for property refurbishments, proof of purchase of shares and funds, and the documents for long-term loans belong in this second group. It is easier to keep them than to rebuild them twenty years later.
Checking limitation dates and replying to requests that mix open and time-barred years is described on the Salama Tax page on letters from Hacienda.