A new EU directive known as the VAT in the Digital Age (ViDA) package has been published, bringing a major change to the common system of VAT in the European Union, with particular impact on the digital and tourism industries.
Council Directive (EU) 2025/516 of 11 March 2025 amending Directive 2006/112/EC as regards VAT rules for the digital age, which is known as the VAT in the Digital Age or ViDA package, was published on March 25, 2025 in the OJ.
It brings the most ambitious reform of the common European system of VAT in recent times, built around three main components: (i) putting in place an information return or digital reporting procedure on the content of invoices in intra-community transactions which replaces recapitulative statements and is based on an electronic invoicing system as a means of reducing fraud in these transactions; (ii) regulating the role that platforms play as intermediaries in short-term accommodation and passenger transport services by road; and (iii) setting up a single registration for VAT purposes across the EU.
We look below at the amendments likely to have the greatest impact on the tourism industry as a whole and specifically on digital platforms acting as intermediaries in the sale of tourism services.
1.- Digital platforms:
Starting on July 1, 2028, digital platforms facilitating purchases of short-term accommodation services (to the same person for up to thirty nights) or of passenger transport services by road between two points in the European Union will be classed as providers of those services in their own right and come to be regarded as a “deemed supplier” for VAT purposes, becoming responsible for reporting and paying the VAT chargeable on those transactions, except where the supplier of the services provides to the platform a VAT ID number issued by the member state where the service is supplied and declares that it will charge the VAT to the customer. This rule will not be applicable, however, to supplies of tourism services which fall under the special scheme for travel agencies.
The place of supply for the facilitation services supplied by platforms will be the place where the underlying accommodation or road transport service transaction takes place.
Platforms will be required to keep detailed records of transactions in which they become “deemed suppliers” for VAT purposes.
Spain has expressed its intention to include these rules in its domestic legislation before the date they come into force at EU level.
2.- Electronic invoicing:
On July 1, 2030 it will become mandatory to issue e-invoices in a structured format to document intra-community transactions for goods and services. Additionally, the time limit for issuing invoices will be shortened to ten days from the invoice date.
A new EU-wide definition of e-invoice has been created relating to invoices issued, sent and received in structured electronic format and meeting the minimum data requirements for making digital supplies of information. These also become mandatory on July 1, 2030 for intra-community transactions and replace the recapitulative statement for intra-community transactions (form 349).
The described amendments, together with those already introduced by the Spanish legislature on electronic invoicing (the Immediate Information Sharing System) applicable since 2017 and the new Veri*Factu systems), will notably raise the tax authorities’ monitoring capability; and they force companies to implement software and technology solutions enabling them to comply with the new obligations.
