A corrective invoice is a document issued to correct an invoice, to make a refund or to recover VAT on an unpaid invoice. Article 15 of the Spanish Invoicing Regulation establishes what a corrective invoice is and in which cases it should be used. Traditionally, the amending invoice was called a credit invoice. However, with the reform of the Invoicing Regulation in 2012, the credit invoice was called a rectifying invoice from 2013 onwards.
Corrective invoice
When to issue a corrective invoice?
The corrective invoice is designed for the following cases:
- Correcting an invoice when it does not comply with the indispensable legal requirements as regards its content.
- Correcting an amount of an issued invoice.
- For a partial or total refund of an order.
- To recover VAT declared in a previous quarter on an unpaid invoice.
- When the tax liability is not correctly calculated.
The corrective invoice must be issued as soon as any of these situations arise. The Regulation allows several invoices to be corrected in a single corrective invoice.
How to issue a corrective invoice?
In order to issue a corrective invoice, the following must be taken into account:
- The identification details of the invoice to be corrected must be indicated.
- The general content of an amendment invoice corresponds to that of an ordinary invoice, as set out in articles 6 and 7 of the Invoicing Regulations.
- Corrective invoices should only be issued in the cases indicated above, which are those listed in Article 15(1) and (2) of the Invoicing Regulation.
If a corrective invoice is issued for a simplified invoice, it must be issued with the same regulatory content as the simplified invoice.
Requirements for an amending invoice
For the amendment invoice to be valid, it must contain the following elements:
- It must state that it is an amending invoice.
- There must be a description of the reason for the rectification.
- It must refer to the invoice that is being corrected.
- It must state the rectification that is made.
In addition to these specific requirements, the amendment invoice must comply with the general mandatory contents of an invoice template:
- Number of the amending invoice.
- Date of issue.
- Details of the issuer and the customer (name or company name, address and NIF/CIF).
- Description of the products or services, including the unit price.
- The tax rate (VAT and, where applicable, withholding for PIT and the tax liability.
- The amount.
In short, the general contents of the corrective invoice must coincide with those of the invoice to be corrected, but with the specifications mentioned in this section.
The numbering of a corrective invoice
Corrective invoices must have their own numerical series. This means that they cannot follow the numerical series of ordinary invoices. The numerical series of corrective invoices, like the numerical series of ordinary invoices, must be correlative and may not contain jumps.
Corrective invoice or credit note
Credit note is the most common international name for credit invoices. In Spain, it was decided in the last reform of the Invoicing Regulations to unify credit invoices under the name of amending invoice.