In order to start selling products and services to other EU countries, it is necessary to comply with a series of requirements, including registration in the Register of Intra-Community Operators (ROI).
The ROI is a census of entrepreneurs and professionals -also known as VIES (VAT Information Exchange System)-, which can be consulted on the Tax Agency’s website when we are going to carry out operations with customers in the European Union. This is very important, because if our client is an intra-Community operator, the invoice will be subject to and exempt from VAT.
Registration with the ROI is done through Form 036, by ticking boxes 582 and 584 on page 5. The time of enrollment may be once the registration with the Tax Authorities is made, although it is advisable to do it later, once you are sure that you will be carrying out intra-Community transactions. After registering with the ROI, the Tax Administration has a period of three months to accept the inclusion in the census.
It is increasingly common for the Tax Authorities to carry out checks prior to accepting the registration in the ROI to verify the need to be included in it. It is common for a tax inspector to visit the company’s headquarters, with or without prior notice. Among the documentation that is usually required is:
- the provision of a rental contract or other title relating to the address visited,
- VAT record books,
- a brief description of the company’s operations,
- the reason for the ROI request, or
- the provision of pro-forma invoices, contracts, emails related to potential EU suppliers/customers.
All these actions are taken as tax fraud prevention measures.
Once the documentation provided has been analyzed, and if there are no incidents, the Tax Authorities will include you in the ROI and assign you a VAT number consisting of the Spanish prefix, ES, followed by the Tax Identification Number (NIF). If the Tax Authorities reject your registration in the ROI, you will not be able to issue or receive VAT-exempt invoices for intra-Community transactions.
Once you are registered in the ROI, you will be obliged to file Form 349 with the corresponding frequency according to the volume of intra-Community transactions, breaking down each of these and indicating:
- NIF-VAT of each operator together with the country code, the name or company name
- the type of intra-Community transaction and
- total amount of the operations for each operator and type of transaction.
This information must necessarily coincide with the information provided in the VAT Form 303 for the same period, as well as in the annual summary, Form 390.
Roberto Cerrato
