Raúl, an electrician with a small workshop in Murcia and two employees, had a difficult year for cash flow in 2025. He filed the Modelo 111 returns for the first two quarters without paying the amount, intending to pay them "when the money came in", and in January he filed the 190 with all the year's withholdings, €7,200, as if they had been paid. When it cross-checked the two returns, the Agencia Tributaria, the Spanish tax agency, saw that the annual summary included €3,600 of withholdings that had never been paid in. What Raúl wanted to know was what was going to happen to him.
The title of this page contains a catch: Modelo 190 is not paid, because it is an information return. What goes unpaid are the withholdings in the 111s that the 190 summarises, or the fine imposed for filing the summary late or wrongly. What follows explains both. The general framework for a self-employed person who withholds tax is on self-employed in Spain.
Withholdings filed without payment: the enforcement route
Raúl did the least bad thing: he filed the 111s. A self-assessment filed without payment does not give rise to a penalty on that amount, but the debt enters the enforcement period (periodo ejecutivo) the day after the voluntary period ends (21 April and 21 July in his case), and from then on the surcharges in article 28 of the Ley General Tributaria, the General Tax Act, run.
| When payment is made | Surcharge | On €1,800 for one quarter |
|---|---|---|
| Before the enforcement order (providencia de apremio) is notified | 5 % (enforcement) | €90 |
| Within the enforcement order's deadline | 10 % (reduced enforcement) | €180 |
| After that deadline | 20 % (ordinary enforcement) plus interest and costs | €360 plus interest |
With the two quarters, if Raúl pays within the enforcement orders' deadline, the added cost is €360; if he waits for the seizure, €720 plus late-payment interest and costs. And there is an aggravating factor: these debts cannot be deferred (article 65.2 of the General Tax Act), so applying for deferral does not take them out of enforced collection. We explain it in debts that cannot be deferred.
Withholdings neither filed nor paid: a penalty
Had Raúl not filed the 111s, the story would be different. The Agencia Tributaria, with the 190 in hand, would have established that he withheld and did not declare, and would have assessed the withholdings with interest and a penalty for failing to pay (article 191 of the General Tax Act). That penalty starts at 50 %, and the law treats withholdings made and not paid in with particular severity: depending on their weight in the penalty base, they can make the offence serious or very serious, with higher percentages. In Raúl's case, €3,600 of undeclared withholdings would mean a fine of at least €1,800 before reductions.
The paradox is that the 190 itself is the evidence. Whoever files the summary with withholdings they did not pay in is admitting the withholding; whoever files neither the 111 nor the 190 only delays the moment it is detected, because their employees will declare what was withheld from them.
The recipient loses nothing
For Raúl's employees, nothing changes: the withholding he made counts on account of their IRPF (personal income tax) even though he has not paid it in. They can deduct it in their return with the certificate. The debt belongs only to the person who withheld, and the Agencia Tributaria pursues him.
For Raúl, on the other hand, more than the surcharge changes: with debts in the enforcement period he will not obtain the certificate showing he is up to date with his tax obligations. For an electrician who works for comunidades de propietarios (the owners' associations of apartment buildings) and the odd public body, that certificate is a requirement for getting paid or for continuing to receive work, and not having it can cost more than the debt itself.
And if what you do not pay is the fine for the 190
When the 190 is filed late or with errors, a fixed fine per recipient is imposed, with a minimum, under article 198 of the General Tax Act. If it is not paid within the period stated in the notification, it follows the same path as any debt: enforcement surcharge, enforcement order and seizure, and in addition the 40 % reduction for prompt payment is lost. A €300 penalty left to run ends up at €360 or more.
What gets seized
The legal order (article 169 of the General Tax Act) starts with money: the self-employed person's bank accounts, which are usually also the business's accounts. Next come the amounts owed to them, such as unpaid invoices, which the Agencia Tributaria can seize by notifying the client directly. For an electrician like Raúl, a client receiving a seizure notice over what they owe him is sometimes more damaging than the amount itself. If you want to know which phase you are in and how to get out, tell us about it in the self-employed form.
When an unpaid withholding stops being an administrative matter
Above certain amounts this is no longer administrative. Article 305 of the Código Penal, the Criminal Code, punishes tax fraud against the Treasury above €120,000, and for withholdings and payments on account the amount is calculated per calendar year. A self-employed person with few employees is a long way from that figure, but a family business that for years uses its staff's withholdings as financing can get close to it.
And the way out of the problem is almost always the same: first pay whatever is most expensive to leave running. Between a withholding in enforcement and a supplier's invoice, the withholding generates surcharges and seizures from clients; the supplier normally waits. Prioritising payments is not easy, but it has to be done with that information.
The withholding arises when you pay, not when you receive the invoice
A detail that helps anyone with cash-flow problems: the obligation to withhold arises when the income is paid or credited (article 78 of the IRPF Regulation). If a collaborator invoices you in March and you pay them in May, the withholding is paid in with the second-quarter 111, not the first. The cash-basis scheme some people know from VAT has nothing to do with this: here the date of payment is what counts.
That means the 111 reflects what you paid, not what you were invoiced. It also means that, if you do not pay a professional, there is not yet any withholding to pay in on their invoice. What you cannot do is pay the invoice in full, without withholding, and so save yourself the 111: the obligation to withhold is still there, and the Agencia Tributaria demands it from the person obliged to withhold as if they had withheld.
The 190 has to reflect the truth: what was withheld from each recipient. You cannot remove from the summary what you did not pay in, because you would harm your employees and commit another offence. What has to be done is to file it correctly and deal with the outstanding 111s, knowing that the cross-check between the two will be immediate.
Raúl paid the two quarters within the enforcement orders' deadline, with the 10 % surcharge, before any of his clients received a seizure notice. Another way of doing it would have been to talk to his banks earlier. What we could not promise him was that the Agencia Tributaria would not also review the rest of the year; what we could do was make sure that, if it did, everything added up. If your problem is how to pay what is outstanding, we explain it in how to pay Modelo 190.