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Guide · Non-EU sellers with stock in Spain

Spain VAT for stock in a 3PL warehouse, as a non-EU seller: what you pay in Spain and what you pay at home

Your company is outside the EU, your stock sits in a third-party logistics warehouse (a 3PL) or a marketplace fulfilment centre in Spain, and you sell from there to Spain and the rest of the EU. What does that create in Spain, and what stays at home?

DPL Asesores · November 2026 edition, with the rules in force at that date · General information, not an analysis of your case

The one-page map

Taxes on goods follow the goods: your stock is imported, stored and shipped from Spain, so duties, import VAT, VAT on sales and packaging rules are Spanish or European. Tax on profits follows the company: as a general rule, it is paid where your company is established, unless you have a permanent establishment in Spain.

Registering in Spain: from the first sale

With your goods in Spain when you sell them, imported in your own name, you register for VAT in Spain before your first operation (art. 9.4 of Real Decreto 1065/2007).

• No €10,000 threshold. It is only for businesses established in a single EU Member State. A business established outside the EU charges the customer’s VAT from the first sale (arts. 68.Tres.a and 73 of the VAT Act, Ley 37/1992).
• Marketplace-only sellers register too: the European Commission says they register where the stock is held, and Spain’s refund route without registration is not open to them (arts. 119 and 119 bis).
• Your registrations: entry in the Spanish tax census as a foreign entity, Spanish VAT registration, the register of intra-Community operators (ROI) if you sell to EU businesses or move stock, and your own EORI registration for customs, never your forwarder’s.
• A tax representative, appointed before the first operation (art. 164.Uno.7.º of the VAT Act). The Spanish tax agency (AEAT) says the exception currently covers only Norway. What counts is where the business is established, not passports. Do not rely on the One-Stop Shop exception if you also import and sell in Spain: its reach is not settled.

More on the registration and the returns you file here: Spanish VAT registration and returns for sellers from abroad and fiscal representative, EORI and Intrastat in Spain.

Customs and import VAT: the declaration in your name

You are the importer. The customs declaration (the DUA) names your company, with its Spanish tax and EORI identification, and a customs agent established in the EU lodges it as your indirect representative.

• Duty is a cost: it is not recovered.
• Import VAT is recovered in your Spanish VAT return (form 303), with the DUA in your name as proof.
• Deferral. With monthly returns, which a new seller gets through the monthly refund register (REDEME), import VAT is included and deducted in the same 303 instead of being paid at the border (art. 74.1 of the VAT Regulation). There is no express ruling on non-established businesses joining the REDEME: have it confirmed first.

Selling: your own store or a marketplace

On a marketplace, the platform is treated as the seller to consumers for VAT, because your business is established outside the EU (art. 8 bis of the VAT Act). In your own store, you are the seller.

The OSS. Your store’s sales to consumers in other EU countries go in one quarterly return in Spain, under the Union scheme: you join with form 035 and file form 369 within the month after each quarter, even with no sales. It deducts nothing; your input VAT goes in the 303. The IOSS (consignments of up to €150 shipped from outside the EU) is not for you. Your store platform can calculate the VAT at checkout, but declaring and paying it is yours. More in OSS and IOSS for online stores; if you sell through Amazon FBA, tax for Amazon sellers.

Marketplace cash. If you sell mostly on marketplaces, your 303 shows a refund every quarter. Without the REDEME, the balance is only claimed in the last return of the year.

Deadlines, as a rule. The quarterly 303, from the 1st to the 20th of the month after the quarter (for the fourth, by 30 January); the 369, within the following month.

Packaging: EPR and the plastic tax

• You are usually the producer. Importing in your name and selling directly to consumers in Spain makes you, as a general rule, the producer of your packaging for extended producer responsibility (EPR): an authorised representative in Spain, registration, membership of a compliance scheme and your registration number on your invoices. Your 3PL and the marketplace will ask for that number; neither does it for you.
• Country by country. EPR is met in every EU country where you sell to consumers, under its rules.
• The plastic tax: €0.45 per kilo of non-recycled plastic in non-reusable packaging (Ley 7/2022), paid on the customs declaration, exempt when it does not exceed 5 kilos in a month. Stock arriving from another EU country goes through form 592.

Profits: what stays at home

With a tax treaty, your company’s profits are taxed only at home unless it carries on business in Spain through a permanent establishment (art. 7 of the treaties). Without one, there is also, as a general rule, no Spanish withholding on your sales of goods.

An independent 3PL is not, as a general rule, a permanent establishment. In rulings V3248-20 and V0452-23, the Directorate General for Taxes (DGT) found that the operator’s warehouse was not at the company’s disposal. That holds while:

• the 3PL is independent and works for several clients;
• the contract is for logistics services, not a lease of a defined area;
• you visit with notice and an escort, for specific matters;
• nobody in Spain negotiates or signs contracts in your name.

What can change it: space in the warehouse at your disposal; someone in Spain who habitually signs contracts in your name; assembling or processing the goods here with your own means; a related company in Spain that does part of the business; running the company from Spain, which is a question of residence. Hiring staff in Spain changes the permanent establishment analysis.

Marketplace fulfilment centres: no DGT ruling for profits tax; by analogy the same reasoning applies, unconfirmed.

A US LLC registers itself for VAT and customs. For profits, if taxed through its members, the Spain–US treaty only protects the share of members taxed in the US as residents (art. 1.6, as amended by the 2013 Protocol). No treaty with Spain? Spanish law alone applies and several points are unsettled: have the case analysed before you start.

Before the first container

• The 3PL contract is for services, not a lease of a defined area.
• VAT registration in Spain, with an N tax number and, as a general rule, a tax representative.
• The DUA in your company’s name, with its Spanish tax and EORI identification, and a customs agent as your indirect representative.
• Tariff codes, duty rates and Spanish VAT rates checked; the REDEME and deferral decided.
• Form 035 filed if your store sells to other EU countries; packaging producer registration done.

Questions

Official sources

General information, not an analysis of your case. November 2026 edition, with the rules, rates and thresholds in force at that date.