Carmen makes ceramics in a workshop in Talavera de la Reina and sells them in her online shop and at fairs. Since 2025 she has bought her glazes and part of her clay from an Italian supplier, about €3,000 per quarter, which invoices her without VAT because she gave it her intra-community VAT number. Since she never had anything to pay on those purchases, Carmen did not file a single Modelo 349, the recapitulative statement of intra-community transactions. In June 2026 she received a request from the Agencia Tributaria, the Spanish tax agency, asking about her intra-community acquisitions. Her first reaction was: «But I haven't failed to pay anything».
Nothing to pay does not mean nothing to declare
It is true: the 349 carries no tax, so there is no such thing as «not paying the 349» in the strict sense. There is no enforcement surcharge and no providencia de apremio (formal demand for payment) for this return. What exists is the obligation to report, and failing to meet it has consequences of its own, which are what this page explains: the fine for not filing, the effect on the VAT on those purchases and, if the fine is not paid, the usual path of any debt.
How the tax office learned of Carmen's purchases
The Italian supplier files its own recapitulative statement in its country, showing that it has sold to Carmen, with her VAT number, for €3,000 every quarter. That information travels between administrations through the VIES system, the EU's VAT number exchange. The Agencia Tributaria receives it, cross-checks it against the 349s filed in Spain and finds that Carmen has declared none. The request is the natural consequence of that cross-check. What almost nobody tells you is that nobody needs to investigate anything: the cross-check is automatic and the discrepancy flags itself.
The bill for not having filed
Article 198 of the Ley General Tributaria, Spain's General Tax Act, penalises failure to file information returns at €20 for each item or set of items relating to the same person, with a minimum of €300 per return. Carmen had five quarters with purchases from the same supplier, from the first of 2025 to the first of 2026:
- Items per return: one, the Italian supplier. €20, below the minimum.
- Penalty per return: €300.
- For five returns: €1,500.
- With the 40 % reduction for prompt payment: €900.
| Scenario | Per return | Five quarters | With prompt payment |
|---|---|---|---|
| Files on her own initiative, before any request | €150 | €750 | €450 |
| Files after the request (Carmen) | €300 | €1,500 | €900 |
| Does not respond to the request | It gets complicated | A possible further offence for obstruction | — |
The first row is the one Carmen missed: filing on her own initiative, the fine and its limits are halved. The last is the one to avoid at all costs: not answering a request adds a new problem to the one that was already there.
The VAT on the purchases, which was missing too
If Carmen did not declare her purchases on the 349, she most likely did not declare them on the 303 either, the quarterly VAT return. An intra-community acquisition of goods obliges the buyer to charge themselves Spanish VAT and, if their activity carries the right to deduct, to deduct it in the same quarter. For Carmen, who sells with VAT, the cash effect is zero: €630 charged and €630 deducted every quarter. But not having entered it is not irrelevant. The Spanish VAT Act, in its article 170, has a specific offence for failing to enter on the self-assessment the VAT for which you are liable under the reverse charge, with its own proportional fine, which is checked in the article. The 303s affected have to be corrected, and it is best done at the same time as answering the request.
Had she been under the recargo de equivalencia (the equivalence surcharge scheme many small retailers are on, where the supplier collects the VAT through a surcharge), intra-community purchases would be treated differently, with another return, and the cost would be real. If you buy from European suppliers and are unsure how you have declared it, the form for the internationally self-employed lets us check before the letter arrives.
Carmen's underlying mistake was thinking that, with no money involved, nobody would find out. With intra-community transactions exactly the opposite happens: your European supplier or client declares the transaction in its country with your number, and that information reaches Spain on its own. Not filing the 349 hides nothing; it only guarantees that the tax authorities know before you do and that, when they write to you, the halving is no longer available.
How Carmen's request was answered
A request about intra-community transactions asks for specific things, and it is best to answer exactly that: no less, because it is treated as ignored, and not much more, because it opens fronts nobody had asked about. In Carmen's case three blocks were provided:
- The Italian supplier's invoices for the five quarters, in date order.
- The five Modelo 349s filed after the request, with their receipts.
- The corrected 303s for the same periods, with the self-charge and deduction for those purchases.
Along with them, a short letter explaining the mistake, without adjectives, and acknowledging the facts. That does not avoid the 349 fine, which comes anyway for having filed after the request, but it does close the file quickly and prevents the check from extending to other years or other taxes. The more orderly the reply, the fewer questions it raises.
Quarters without purchases, and the calendar from now on
Carmen does not buy every quarter. In periods with no intra-community acquisition she does not file the 349, because this return is not filed as a nil return, and that is not a failure to comply. What she does have to watch is the invoice date: a purchase invoiced on 30 June belongs to the second quarter even if the goods arrive in July. With purchases of about €3,000 a quarter she is very far from the €50,000 limit that would oblige her to file monthly, so her calendar is quarterly: from 1 to 20 April, July and October, and until 30 January.
So as not to repeat the story, Carmen now keeps a sheet of her purchases from the Italian supplier and checks it each time she prepares the 303. If there is a row in the quarter, there is a 349.
And if the fine is not paid
The penalty is a debt like any other. If Carmen does not pay it within the voluntary period stated in the notice, it enters the periodo ejecutivo, the enforcement stage, with the 5 %, 10 % or 20 % surcharges in article 28 of the Ley General Tributaria, depending on when she pays, and it can end in a seizure of her accounts. She also loses the 40 % reduction, which requires paying on time and not appealing. On €1,500, not paying in time turns €900 into €1,800 plus interest in the worst case.
Carmen answered the request on time, filed the five 349s, corrected the 303s and paid the fine with the reduction. Since the second quarter of 2026 she has declared her purchases every quarter. The guide on registering in the ROI and the VIES explains why her VAT number is what sets everything in motion, and the one on what to answer and what not to helps you prepare a reply to a request without saying too much or too little.