Guide · Customs & VAT
Buying from Spain into Italy: intra-community acquisition VAT and reverse charge, step by step
If you are an Italian business buying goods from a Spanish supplier and they move by road from Spain to Italy, this is not an import in the customs sense — both countries are in the EU, so there is no customs declaration, no T1 transit, no import VAT at a border and no EORI to arrange. What there is, instead, is an intra-community acquisition that you self-account for on your own Italian VAT return using the reverse charge. This guide walks the mechanism end to end, on both the Spanish and the Italian side, with a worked €20,000 example that nets to zero. It is general information, not tax advice — confirm the specifics with your commercialista.
7 min read
Why this is not an 'import' in the customs sense
When goods travel from Spain to Italy by road, it is tempting to call it an import and to expect customs, duty and import VAT at a border. None of that applies. Spain and Italy are both EU member states, so the goods are already in free circulation and stay that way for the whole journey — including the transit leg through France. There is no export declaration in Spain, no import entry in Italy, no T1 or NCTS transit movement, no duty and no import VAT collected at any frontier. There is also no EORI requirement for the move itself, because EORI is a customs identifier for trade with countries outside the EU.
What replaces the customs machinery is a pair of VAT obligations that the two traders handle on their own VAT returns. On the Spanish side the supplier makes an intra-community supply (an entrega intracomunitaria) and zero-rates it. On the Italian side the buyer makes an intra-community acquisition (an acquisto intracomunitario) and self-accounts for the VAT through the reverse charge. No money for VAT changes hands across the border; the tax is declared, not paid at a barrier.
The practical upshot for an Italian buyer is that the paperwork that actually travels with the truck is short — a commercial invoice, the CMR consignment note and a packing list — and the VAT work happens afterwards, in your accounting system and on your periodic returns. The corridor itself is covered in our Spain → Italy corridor guide; this guide is purely about the VAT mechanism.
Before you buy: the partita IVA must be VIES-enabled
The single precondition that makes the whole zero-rated mechanism work is your VAT number. As the Italian buyer you must hold a partita IVA that is enabled for intra-EU operations and therefore listed as valid in VIES — the EU's VAT Information Exchange System, the public database suppliers use to check a counterparty's VAT number before zero-rating a cross-border supply.
An Italian partita IVA is not automatically active for intra-EU transactions. A business has to be included in the VIES register (the inclusion is requested through the Agenzia delle Entrate), and until that inclusion is in place your number will return as not valid for intra-EU purposes when the Spanish supplier checks it. If that happens, the supplier is right to refuse to zero-rate the sale and will instead charge Spanish VAT — which is the most common and most avoidable cause of an unexpected tax cost on this lane.
So the first step, well before the goods are dispatched, is to confirm that your partita IVA is VIES-enabled and to give the supplier the full number in the correct IT format. Equally, check that the supplier's Spanish NIF-IVA is itself VIES-valid, since both numbers belong on the invoice. It costs nothing to verify a number in VIES and it removes the most expensive surprise on the whole transaction.
The Spanish side: zero-rated entrega intracomunitaria
From the supplier's point of view, an intra-community supply to a VAT-registered business in another member state is exempt with credit — zero-rated — provided two conditions are met. First, the customer must have a valid VAT number in another member state, verified in VIES; that is your VIES-enabled partita IVA. Second, the supplier must hold proof that the goods physically left Spain and arrived in another member state — the transport evidence. The CMR consignment note, signed on delivery, is the standard piece of that proof.
When both conditions hold, the supplier issues the invoice at 0% Spanish VAT, marks it as an intra-community supply, and reports the transaction on the recapitulative statement, the Spanish modelo 349 (the periodic listing of intra-EU supplies and acquisitions). The modelo 349 is the Spanish trader's own filing obligation; it is not something a carrier files or touches.
If either condition fails — your VAT number is not VIES-valid, or the supplier cannot evidence dispatch — the supplier cannot safely zero-rate and will charge Spanish VAT to protect itself in a future audit. That Spanish VAT is then difficult and slow for an Italian buyer to recover. Getting the VIES status and the transport evidence right up front is what keeps the supply correctly zero-rated.
The Italian side: the reverse charge, step by step
Integrate the supplier's invoice
You receive an invoice from Spain with no VAT on it. Under the reverse charge — in Italian, the inversione contabile — you do not simply file that invoice; you integrate it. Integration means taking the supplier's net amount, applying the Italian VAT rate that the goods would carry domestically (the standard rate is 22%, with reduced rates for specific categories), and recording that self-charged VAT figure against the invoice. You become responsible for accounting for the tax that the supplier did not charge.
The point of the reverse charge is that the obligation to account for VAT shifts from the seller to the buyer. Spain hands the transaction across the border with no VAT; Italy collects it from you, conceptually, by making you charge it to yourself.
Register it in both VAT ledgers
The integrated invoice is then entered into two of your VAT registers at once: the sales register (registro delle vendite) and the purchases register (registro degli acquisti). Recording the self-charged VAT in the sales ledger creates the output VAT — the tax you owe as if you had made the sale to yourself. Recording the same figure in the purchases ledger creates the input VAT — the tax you are entitled to deduct as a business cost.
For a business that is fully taxable — one that makes only VAT-able sales and can therefore deduct its input VAT in full — the output VAT and the input VAT are identical and cancel out. The acquisition is cash-neutral: nothing is actually paid to the Treasury for this purchase, because the tax you charge yourself equals the tax you reclaim. The mechanism exists to record the transaction and to put it on an equal footing with a domestic purchase, not to extract cash from a fully-taxable buyer.
Send the electronic integration (TD18) and file INTRASTAT
Italy requires the integration of cross-border invoices to be transmitted electronically through the Sistema di Interscambio (SdI) — the same system that handles Italian e-invoicing, which has absorbed the old esterometro reporting of foreign transactions. For an intra-community acquisition of goods, the integration document is sent with the document type code TD18. Your accounting software or your commercialista generates and transmits it; it is part of routine Italian e-invoicing compliance.
Separately, intra-EU movements of goods are reported for statistical purposes through INTRASTAT. As the Italian buyer you may have to file an INTRASTAT declaration for arrivals (acquisti) once your intra-EU purchases cross the reporting thresholds; below the threshold the obligation may not arise, and the rules and thresholds change periodically. INTRASTAT is the trader's filing, made by you or your adviser — like the Spanish modelo 349, it is not a carrier function. SAVA does not file INTRASTAT, the SdI integration or any VAT return on your behalf.
A worked example: a €20,000 invoice that nets to zero
Take a concrete case. Your Spanish supplier sells you goods for €20,000 and, because you have given a valid VIES-enabled partita IVA and the goods are dispatched to Italy with CMR proof, invoices them at 0% Spanish VAT. The invoice total you pay the supplier is €20,000 — no VAT line.
On the Italian side you integrate that invoice. Applying the standard 22% rate, you self-charge €4,400 of Italian IVA (22% of €20,000). You record €4,400 as output VAT in the sales register and the same €4,400 as input VAT in the purchases register. Assuming you are fully taxable and can deduct input VAT in full, the €4,400 you owe and the €4,400 you reclaim offset exactly: the net VAT effect of the purchase is zero, and no VAT cash leaves your business for this transaction.
The figure changes only if your right to deduct is restricted. A business that cannot fully recover input VAT — for example one with partly exempt activities subject to a pro-rata, or a purchase of a category with a deduction limit — will deduct less than the €4,400 it self-charges, and the difference becomes a real cost. The 22% used here is the standard Italian rate for illustration; the rate that actually applies depends on what the goods are, and the deductibility depends on your VAT position. This is an indicative example, not a ruling for your specific case — confirm the rate and your recovery position with your adviser.
Documents that travel with the truck
Because there is no customs file on an intra-EU move, the documents the driver actually carries are few — but they have to be right, because they are what the supplier relies on to zero-rate and what Italian goods-in teams reconcile against the physical load. Three documents do the work.
The commercial invoice is the centre of the set. For an intra-community supply it should show both VAT numbers — the Spanish supplier's NIF-IVA and your IT partita IVA — and carry wording that identifies the transaction as a zero-rated intra-community supply subject to reverse charge in the country of destination. That reverse-charge reference is what signals to everyone in the chain, including your own accountant, that the VAT is to be self-accounted in Italy rather than charged in Spain.
The CMR consignment note (the lettera di vettura CMR) is the international road-freight transport document, signed by the consignee on delivery. Beyond being the carriage contract, it is the supplier's primary evidence that the goods left Spain and reached Italy — the transport proof the zero-rating depends on. The packing list, one line per pallet or carton with net and gross weights, lets the Italian goods-in team book the load in and should match the invoice and the CMR on pallet count, weight and value. Reconcile all three before the truck leaves Spain; discrepancies trigger holds at goods-in even though there is no customs involved.
Common pitfalls and how to avoid them
Partita IVA not VIES-enabled
This is the costly one. If your VAT number is not active in VIES when the supplier checks it, they cannot zero-rate and will charge Spanish VAT on the invoice. Recovering Spanish VAT as a foreign business is slow and administratively heavy, and meanwhile you have paid tax you should never have been charged. The fix is entirely preventative: confirm your partita IVA is included in VIES before the order is placed, and give the supplier the number in the correct format.
Missing transport evidence
The supplier's right to zero-rate hinges on being able to prove the goods physically left Spain for Italy. If the CMR is not returned signed, or the transport evidence is thin, the supplier is exposed in a Spanish audit and may either decline to zero-rate or have the exemption challenged after the fact. Make sure the signed CMR makes its way back into the supplier's file — it is the single most important piece of dispatch proof, and it is generated as a matter of course on a properly run carriage.
Forgetting INTRASTAT
Because INTRASTAT is statistical rather than money-moving, it is easy to overlook — until thresholds are crossed and a return is due. A business that has been making regular intra-EU purchases can find it has an arrivals INTRASTAT obligation it has not been meeting. Track your intra-EU purchase volume against the current thresholds and have your commercialista confirm whether and when an arrivals declaration is required, alongside the TD18 integration that applies to each acquisition.
What SAVA does and does not do here
SAVA's role on this transaction is the physical move. We are the carrier on the Spain → Italy lane, running a scheduled groupage service with Monday, Wednesday and Friday departures from our Castellar del Vallès hub near Barcelona, on full truckload and LTL groupage across owned and partner carriers. We issue the CMR consignment note — which doubles as the supplier's transport evidence for zero-rating — and deliver against it, with the consignee's signature closing the loop.
What we do not do is the tax. We do not handle Italian VAT, we do not prepare or transmit the SdI integration (TD18), we do not file INTRASTAT, and we do not file the Spanish modelo 349. The reverse-charge accounting, the VAT-ledger entries, the VIES enablement and the statistical returns are the traders' own responsibilities, handled with your accountant or commercialista. As the CMR carrier we hold the statutory CMR liability — 8.33 SDR per kilogram of gross weight affected, an indicative €10–11 per kg at current SDR rates — which is below replacement value for high-value cargo; if your goods are worth more than that, ask us to arrange additional all-risks cargo insurance or source your own. We do not insure cargo beyond the CMR limit by default.
None of the above is tax or legal advice. It is general information about how the intra-community acquisition mechanism works on the Spain → Italy lane, and the rates, thresholds and procedures change. Confirm your specific position with a qualified Italian tax adviser before relying on it.
Quick-reference: before you book
Partita IVA confirmed VIES-enabled — your IT VAT number is active for intra-EU operations and verified in VIES, and the supplier's Spanish NIF-IVA is VIES-valid too. This is the precondition for the zero-rated supply; without it the supplier charges Spanish VAT.
Invoice carries both VAT numbers and the reverse-charge wording — the Spanish NIF-IVA, your IT partita IVA, 0% Spanish VAT, and a note identifying the supply as intra-community and subject to reverse charge in Italy.
Reverse-charge process lined up with your accountant — integrate the invoice with Italian IVA, register it in both the sales (vendite) and purchases (acquisti) ledgers so output and input VAT net to zero for a fully-taxable business, and transmit the SdI integration as document type TD18.
INTRASTAT checked — confirm whether your intra-EU purchases have crossed the arrivals reporting threshold and, if so, that the declaration is being filed.
Documents reconciled — commercial invoice, CMR and packing list agree on pallet count, weight and value before the truck leaves Spain, and the signed CMR returns to the supplier as transport proof.
Cover for high-value cargo confirmed — if the goods are worth more than the CMR limit covers, arrange additional all-risks cargo insurance rather than relying on the statutory CMR liability.
Quote in hand — for the carriage itself, the loading meters, pricing and a written quote on the Spain → Italy lane are available in around 15–20 minutes and hold for 24 hours. The VAT, as above, sits with you and your adviser, not with the carrier.
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