What it is
Until now the till software was your business. The tax office saw what you declared, not how you had produced it. VeriFactu changes that: from 2027, the program you print receipts with has to store every sale in a way that cannot be touched afterwards and, in the mode the system is named after, send it to the Agencia Tributaria as it happens.
The regulation calls it a “sistema informático de facturación”, which sounds grand but means anything that produces receipts: the till at the bar, the program on the office laptop, an app on the tablet. And yes, receipts count. Factura simplificada is the official name for the receipt, and it is in scope.
When
The dates have already moved twice, so it is worth checking what year the article you are reading is from. This one was revised on 17 September 2026, and the dates in force were set by Real Decreto-ley 15/2025 of 2 December:
- 1 January 2027 if the bar is a company (an SL, typically).
- 1 July 2027 if you are self-employed (autónomo), a comunidad de bienes, or anything else that does not pay corporation tax.
One detail that gets overlooked: those of us who make software are already obliged to sell compliant programs. If you change tills in 2026, whatever they install has to comply now. If they sell it to you without that, you are off to a bad start.
What if my bar…?
Almost every bar around here will be in scope. The ones that are not:
If you are already on the SII, the VAT reporting system for large companies (over six million in turnover, or anyone who opts in). That system already does the same job and VeriFactu does not apply to you.
If the bar is in the Basque Country or Navarre. They have TicketBAI and the system Navarre is preparing, which are a different story.
If you invoice entirely by hand, with no software at all. The law regulates programs, not receipt books. In a bar with any trade it is hard to imagine, but it exists.
And then there is the módulos case, the one we get asked about most and the least clear. If you are taxed under the simplified regime, there are sales for which you are not obliged to issue an invoice, and about those the regulation says nothing. But the moment you produce an invoice with a program, because a customer asks for one or because you sell to another business, that program has to comply. Our advice is not to trust an article on this, this one included, and to go through it with your gestoría with your own figures in front of you.
What the customer will see on the receipt
Not much, really. A QR code which, if they scan it, takes them to the AEAT’s site and lets them check that the receipt exists. And a line reading “VERI*FACTU”, or “Factura verificable en la sede electrónica de la AEAT”, if your program sends the records.
What sits behind the receipt is what matters: a record carrying the fingerprint (the hash, if that rings a bell) of the previous record. If someone removes one from the middle, the chain breaks and it shows. That is the whole trick, and it is a good one.
What your program has to do
We are summarising, because the regulation runs to quite a few pages.
Record every sale when it is issued, chained to the previous one.
Never allow anything to be deleted or altered. If you get a bill wrong, a cancellation record is made, and it goes on the chain too. The wrong sale does not disappear: it is cancelled, and the fact that it was stays on record.
Keep the records and be able to export them in the tax office’s format when asked.
If it works in VERI*FACTU mode, send each record to the AEAT as it is issued and keep the response. The other mode exists: the program signs the records and stores them on your own equipment, and the person responsible for them still being there in four years is you. We do not use it, and we would not recommend it to a bar.
And the vendor has to sign a declaración responsable that all of this is met. It is a document with the program’s version and a date. Ask for it. If the answer is “yes, yes, we comply” but the document never appears, draw your own conclusions.
Then there is what it must not do, which is precisely what the law is out to stop: keeping two sets of books, having a “test” mode that prints real receipts without recording them, letting a sale be deleted. Be careful here: having a program installed that allows it is already an offence, even if you never used that option.
What it can cost you
It is in article 201 bis of the Ley General Tributaria, and the fines are fixed amounts, not percentages.
50,000 euros per tax year for whoever has or uses a program that does not comply. For having it. The tax office does not need to prove you hid anything.
150,000 euros per tax year for whoever makes or sells it, plus a thousand euros for every copy sold without the declaración responsable. That part is ours, and it is why we take this as seriously as you do.
Will my current till do?
It depends on the till, and you will not know until you ask. Three questions for whoever sold it to you or maintains it:
- Will you give me the declaración responsable, for the version I actually have installed?
- Are the records chained and impossible to delete? Can I see them and export them myself?
- Does it send to the AEAT or store locally? And if locally, who is responsible for the records still being there?
A traditional cash register with no connection and no updates is not going to pass. A till with software that gets updated probably will, if the vendor has done their homework. What makes no sense is waiting until December to ask: if something has to change, better in a quiet month than at the height of the season.
How Comanda does it
We work in VERI*FACTU mode. Every sale produces its record, is chained to the previous one and is sent to the AEAT with its acknowledgement. The waiter takes payment exactly as before; the rest happens on its own. On the Audit screen you can see every record, its hash, whether the AEAT accepted it or not and why, and export the lot as CSV or XML without asking us. It is part of the subscription, not a separate module.
Comanda’s declaración responsable is being prepared and you will have it before your date arrives. We hand it over at installation, with its version and date, which is how anyone should do it.
There is more detail on VeriFactu software for restaurants.