Verifactu is the name of Spain's regulation on invoicing systems (Royal Decree 1007/2023). It does not change who issues invoices or to whom. It changes the software: every invoice must produce a billing record, chained to the previous one so it cannot be altered unnoticed, and the printed or PDF invoice carries a QR code that leads to the tax agency (AEAT).
Two ways to comply
A business can send each billing record to the AEAT as it issues the invoice. That is the Verifactu mode, and those invoices say so next to the QR. Or it can keep the records itself, signed and chained, and hand them over when asked. Either way the software has to meet the regulation.
When it applies
The dates in force are January 1, 2027 for companies that pay corporate income tax and July 1, 2027 for everyone else, including the self-employed. On October 5, 2026 the government announced it would move the remaining obligations to October 2028, alongside mandatory business-to-business e-invoicing for small businesses, but that change had not been published in the official gazette (BOE) when this guide was written. Until it is, the 2027 dates apply. The Basque Country and Navarre have their own systems, such as TicketBAI.
Checking an invoice as a buyer
Scan the QR code on the invoice with your phone. It opens the AEAT's verification page with the issuer's tax number (NIF), the invoice number and date, and the total. For an invoice issued in Verifactu mode, the AEAT tells you whether it received the matching record.
What Verifactu does not give you
The AEAT does not hand buyers a list of the invoices issued to them, and simplified invoices (tickets) carry the QR without your details. The invoice you received is still the document to keep.
Keeping the invoices
Smartbills keeps them for you: photograph a ticket or an invoice in the app, or forward the email it came in, and each one is kept with its items, every tax and the total.