Iván Soto is a self-employed electrician in Murcia. In February 2026, within the voluntary period, he applied to pay his income tax (IRPF) in instalments: 11,400 € in twelve monthly instalments of 950 €, without a guarantee, charged to his account on the 20th. He paid April, May, June and July. On 20 August the bank returned the direct debit: a customer had paid him late and the account was empty. A week later Iván logs into the tax agency's website and sees the instalment marked as unpaid. His fear is the one everybody has in this situation: that he has lost the whole instalment plan.
Not necessarily. What happens now depends on a single question: which period the debt was in when the instalment plan was applied for.
The rule that decides everything
Article 54 of the Reglamento General de Recaudación (the General Collection Regulations) governs non-payment in deferrals and instalment plans. It distinguishes according to the kind of guarantee and according to whether the debt was in the voluntary or the enforcement period when the application was filed. For an instalment plan without a guarantee, like Iván's, the consequences are these:
| Situation when the instalment plan was applied for | What happens when an instalment is not paid | Can the rest be saved? |
|---|---|---|
| Debt in the voluntary period | Only the missed instalment goes to enforcement, with interest and surcharge | Yes, if what is demanded is paid within the period set by the enforcement order |
| Debt in the enforcement period | Enforcement continues for all the debts in the agreement | No |
| Deferral of a single payment | Enforcement starts or continues for the whole debt | There is no rest: it was a single due date |
Iván applied for the instalment plan in the voluntary period. He is in the first row, which is the one that leaves a way out.
Step one: the missed instalment goes to enforcement
Under article 54.2.b), the enforcement procedure is started for the missed instalment and the following is demanded:
- The amount of the instalment: 950 €.
- Late-payment interest on that instalment from the day after the end of the voluntary period, 21 February, until the instalment's due date, 20 August. At an assumed rate of 4 % a year, about 19 €.
- The enforcement-period surcharge on the sum of the two, about 969 €.
Which surcharge exactly depends on when Iván pays, under the general rules of article 28 of the Ley General Tributaria (the General Tax Law):
| If he pays... | Surcharge | Approximate amount | Total to pay |
|---|---|---|---|
| Before he is notified of the enforcement order | Enforcement surcharge, 5 % | 48 € | 1,017 € |
| Within the period the enforcement order opens | Reduced collection surcharge, 10 % | 97 € | 1,066 € |
| Later | Ordinary collection surcharge, 20 %, plus interest | 194 € or more | 1,163 € or more |
The difference between the first and second rows is small in euros. What is not small is what happens if he does not pay.
Step two: if it is not paid, everything falls due
The second paragraph of article 54.2.b) is the frightening one, and rightly so: if the amounts demanded for the missed instalment are not paid in, "the remaining outstanding instalments shall be deemed to have fallen due", and enforcement is started for all the debts.
For Iván, that would mean:
- Instalments outstanding from September to March: seven, for 6,650 € of principal.
- Interest on those instalments up to 20 August, the date of the missed instalment. At the assumed rate, about 132 €.
- Enforcement of the whole amount, with its surcharge. If he does not pay within the period set by the new enforcement order, the ordinary 20 % surcharge and the interest that keeps running.
Between having an orderly instalment plan and having about 6,800 € in the enforcement period, with bank accounts and payments from customers open to seizure, there is only one payment deadline.
The period opened by the providencia de apremio, the enforcement order, for the unpaid instalment, until the 20th or the 5th depending on the date of notification, is the window the rules leave for putting the situation right. If you let it go by, the rest of the instalment plan falls due all at once and there is no longer any way of getting it back as it was.
What to do this week
The practical order for someone in Iván's position is this:
- Do not wait for the enforcement order. If he can get together the 950 € plus the interest before it is notified, he pays with 5 % and not 10 %. On the website, in the debts section, the instalment usually appears with the option to pay.
- Check the notifications. Everything arrives at the enabled electronic address or on the Agency's website. A notification that is not opened is treated as served after ten days, and the time limit runs all the same. The guide on counting time limits and electronic notification explains how they are counted.
- Secure the next instalment. The one on 20 September goes ahead as normal. Missing two in a row makes any explanation far more complicated.
- Check the account being charged. If the account was the problem, the website allows the direct debit for a deferral that has been granted to be changed.
Asking for a change does not stop anything
A common reaction is to ask for the schedule to be changed: more months, smaller payments. You can ask, but article 52.3 of the Regulations says that such a request "shall in no case have suspensive effect". While it is being processed, the unpaid instalment continues on its way to enforcement and the rest falls due if what is demanded is not paid.
That is why a change makes sense before defaulting, when you see a bad month coming, and not afterwards. And even then it is processed as a new application, under the same criteria as ordinary ones.
If you are in this situation and need to know exactly how much you have to pay and by when, you can send us the instalment agreement and the notification through the deferral form. We will check whether the instalment has been calculated correctly and what time limit you have, without being able to guarantee that the Agency will not treat the rest as due if the payment does not arrive in time.
Other ways of breaking an instalment plan
Non-payment of an instalment is not the only cause. There are others that are less well known:
- Not being up to date while it lasts. Article 52.2 allows the agreement to be kept in force on condition that the debtor meets their tax obligations for as long as it lasts. Failing to file a Modelo 130 or 303 while paying an instalment plan can have consequences for that agreement.
- Set-off of refunds. In instalment plans where the guarantee has been waived, the same article treats the set-off of refunds that Hacienda, as the Spanish tax office is commonly called, owes the debtor as having been requested. If Iván's income tax return shows a refund, the Agency can apply it to the outstanding instalments and bring due dates forward.
- Changes in assets. Article 50.2 requires, for deferrals granted without a guarantee, any change that would make it possible to guarantee the debt to be notified.
If the whole instalment plan has already fallen due
When the window has closed and everything is in the enforcement period, you can apply for a deferral again, this time in the enforcement period, until the decision to sell assets is notified. But by then with the surcharge on your back and without that stopping the seizures. We explain it in if the enforcement order has already arrived.
Moreover, that new attempt carries a record of default with it, so the schedule proposed will have to be more conservative than the previous one. In how many months you can be given we explain how to work out a payment that holds up.
If an instalment plan has already gone wrong, at Salama Tax the first thing is to date the enforcement order for the unpaid instalment, because everything else depends on that time limit.