Cannot pay the quarter on the 20th? Deferring a tax debt in Spain and paying it in instalments, step by step

The third quarter has to be filed and paid by Tuesday 20 October, and for a Fuerteventura business a slow September can leave three bills on the same day with cash for one: the income tax instalment on model 130, the quarter's IGIC on model 420 and the withholdings on the payroll, model 111. Say a self-employed designer in Puerto del Rosario owes 1,800 euros on the first, 3,000 on the second and 600 on the third. Spanish law lets her pay late and in parts without a surcharge, but not all three debts, not at the same office, and only if she asks before the deadline and in the right order. This guide goes through what can and cannot be deferred, what the Tax Agency grants without a guarantee, how the Canary Tax Agency handles IGIC, what the interest comes to and what happens when an instalment is missed. Quotations are in Spanish with the reading in English.

What the law allows, and on what condition

A tax debt can be deferred, which means paid later in one sum, or split into instalments, cuando su situación económico-financiera le impida, de forma transitoria, efectuar el pago en los plazos establecidos, when the taxpayer's economic and financial situation prevents him, temporarily, from paying within the set periods (Ley 58/2003, article 65). Two things follow from that sentence. The difficulty has to be one of cash this quarter, not of a business that cannot pay at all. And the taxpayer has to ask: nothing is deferred by simply not paying.

What cannot be deferred

The same article lists debts for which a request is not even examined. Three of them matter to a small business.

• Withholdings. Las correspondientes a obligaciones tributarias que deban cumplir el retenedor o el obligado a realizar ingresos a cuenta, those that the withholder or the person obliged to make payments on account must meet: models 111 and 115. That money was kept back from someone else's salary, invoice or rent.
• Tax charged to customers. IGIC and VAT cannot be deferred salvo que se justifique debidamente que las cuotas repercutidas no han sido efectivamente pagadas, unless it is duly shown that the tax charged has not actually been paid by the customers.
• A company's instalments of corporate tax. Model 202, which also falls due on 20 October.

Requests for these debts serán objeto de inadmisión, are refused admission, and the regulation says what that means: the request se tenga por no presentada a todos los efectos, is treated as never filed for all purposes (Real Decreto 939/2005, article 47). The 20th has then passed without payment and the surcharges of the executive period apply. The Agency's instruction leaves one way out: if the whole debt is paid before the refusal is notified, este se entenderá realizado en período voluntario, the payment is treated as made in the voluntary period, with interest for the days of delay and no surcharge (Instruction 2/2023 as amended by Instruction 3/2025). A partial payment does not have that effect.

For the designer this settles the 600 euros of model 111: they are paid on the 20th.

Up to 50,000 euros: no guarantee and no officer

As a rule a deferred debt must be guaranteed. The exception that covers almost every small business is in a ministerial order: no guarantee is required cuando su importe en conjunto no exceda de 50.000 euros, when the amount in aggregate does not exceed 50,000 euros (Orden HFP/311/2023, article 2, in force since 15 April 2023). In aggregate means that the Agency adds the debts of the request to those of any other request still undecided and to the instalments still outstanding from earlier deferrals, unless these are guaranteed.

Requests up to that threshold are decided by a computer program, under an instruction of the Agency's Collection Department whose rules are public.

• When the total owed is more than 3,000 euros, the calendar the taxpayer proposes is accepted if it does not exceed 24 monthly instalments for an individual, or 12 for a company or an entity without legal personality.
• When it is 3,000 euros or less, the proposed calendar is accepted whatever its length.
• In every case payments are monthly, no instalment can be under 50 euros before interest, and the first cannot be set more than three months after the decision.
• The program asks for no proof that the difficulty is temporary or that the tax charged to customers is still unpaid: Se presumirán acreditadas ambas circunstancias con la formulación de la solicitud, both are presumed shown by the filing of the request.
• It refuses when the taxpayer has other debts under enforcement of more than 600 euros that are not in the request, or when the request includes a debt from an earlier deferral that ended unpaid.

One more limit is written in the part of the instruction on requests decided by an officer: when a request contains only instalment payments of personal income tax, the deferral cannot run beyond the opening of the period for the annual return in which they are counted. Whether the program applies it to small requests the text does not say. For the third quarter of 2026 a calendar that ends before the spring of 2027 avoids the question.

Above 50,000 euros: a guarantee and an officer

Over the threshold the request is studied by an officer and must offer a guarantee, in the first place an aval solidario de entidad de crédito o sociedad de garantía recíproca o certificado de seguro de caución, a joint and several guarantee from a bank or a mutual guarantee society, or a surety insurance certificate (Ley 58/2003, article 82). It has to cover the debt, the interest of the deferral and 25 % of the two together (Real Decreto 939/2005, article 48). Only when that is shown to be impossible does the Agency consider a mortgage, another guarantee or a waiver. The longest terms in the instruction depend on what is offered.

For tax charged to customers the presumption ends at the threshold. Above it the request must attach the list of unpaid invoices, proof that they are unpaid, the invoices received and the reminders sent to the customers who owe them.

IGIC goes to a different agency

The quarter's IGIC is not a debt with the State's Tax Agency. Model 420 is filed with the Agencia Tributaria Canaria (ATC), and the request to pay it in parts goes there. The rules are the same Act and the same regulation, with the Canary Islands' own order on guarantees, which since June 2023 also sets the exemption at 50,000 euros (Order of 12 June 2023, BOC no. 119).

The simplest route is at the moment of filing. In the program that prepares the return, the payment box offers the option «Pago fraccionado», and the agency's guide warns what happens otherwise: a return filed as paid in cash or by direct debit and followed by a request será considerada como una presentación sin ingreso, will be treated as a filing without payment. For a return already filed, or a debt the agency has assessed, there is a form of its own, sent through the electronic registry. That form opens with a notice: to split an IGIC debt, tendrá que justificarse debidamente que las cuotas repercutidas no han sido efectivamente pagadas, it will have to be duly shown that the tax charged has not actually been paid. It lists the invoice documents as compulsory for debts above 50,000 euros. The pages of the ATC we read in October 2026 give no table of maximum terms like the State's: the request proposes a calendar and the agency decides.

For the designer, the 3,000 euros of IGIC can be split only for the part her customers have not yet paid her. The IGIC she has already collected is paid on the 20th.

What it costs: interest, not a surcharge

A request filed within the payment period impedirá el inicio del período ejecutivo, pero no el devengo del interés de demora, prevents the executive period from starting, but not the accrual of late-payment interest (Ley 58/2003, article 65). That is the trade: no surcharge of 5, 10 or 20 %, and interest instead. Our note on filing and paying late sets out those surcharges.

The rate was fixed by the 2023 Budget Act: late-payment interest será el 4,0625 por ciento, is 4.0625 per cent (Ley 31/2022, additional provision forty-two). With that budget extended, the Tax Agency keeps applying it in 2026, and on 4 October 2026 no Budget Act for 2026 appears in the Official Gazette. When the whole debt is backed by a bank guarantee or surety insurance, el interés de demora exigible será el interés legal, the interest charged is the legal rate (article 26), which is 3.25 %.

Interest is counted for each instalment separately, from the day after the original deadline to the date that instalment falls due, and it is paid with it (Real Decreto 939/2005, article 53). The due dates are not free: each deberá coincidir con los días 5 ó 20 del mes, must fall on the 5th or the 20th of the month (article 52).

Take the designer's 1,800 euros of model 130, split into five instalments of 360 euros on the 20th of each month from November to March. The first carries 31 days of interest, 1.24 euros; the last, 151 days, 6.05 euros; the five together, 18.35 euros. The executive surcharge on the same debt would start at 90 euros.

The request, step by step

• File the return on time, without the payment. A request for a debt that has to be self-assessed is refused admission if the return has not been filed before it or with it (Real Decreto 939/2005, article 47). Saying so on the return is not enough: a note of the intention to ask no podrá ser considerada una solicitud de aplazamiento o fraccionamiento, ni tan siquiera defectuosa, cannot be regarded as a request for deferral or instalments, not even a defective one (Instruction 2/2023).
• File the request by the 20th. With the State's Tax Agency it can be filed online, under «Aplazar y fraccionar deudas». The Agency's help page lists what the form asks for: the settlement key and the amount of each debt, the kind of guarantee, which up to 50,000 euros is «Exención», the bank account for the direct debit, the number of monthly instalments and the date of the first.
• Pay what you proposed while you wait. Durante la tramitación de la solicitud el deudor deberá efectuar el pago del plazo, fracción o fracciones propuestos en aquella, while the request is being processed the debtor must pay the instalment or instalments proposed in it (article 51).
• Read the decision. It can set terms different from those asked for. La resolución deberá notificarse en el plazo de seis meses, the decision must be notified within six months, and silence after that can be taken as a refusal (article 52). Any refund the Treasury owes the taxpayer while the deferral lasts is applied to it.
• If it is refused. A new period to pay opens with the notification, to the 20th of the following month or the 5th of the one after, according to the day it arrives, and interest is charged up to the payment (article 52 and Ley 58/2003, article 62).

Missing an instalment

When a request was filed on time and granted without a guarantee, a missed instalment is sent to enforcement on its own, with its interest and the executive surcharge. If that is not paid either, se considerarán vencidas el resto de las fracciones pendientes, the remaining instalments are treated as due, and the whole debt is enforced (Real Decreto 939/2005, article 54). There is no easy second attempt: the automated system refuses a new request that includes a debt from an agreement ended for non-payment, and a request to change the terms of a deferral already granted is refused unless a guarantee is offered or the taxpayer is in an area officially declared hit by an emergency. What enforcement looks like from November is in our note on the overnight account freeze.

Social Security has its own door

Contributions are not tax debts and the Tax Agency does not defer them. The request goes to the Social Security Treasury, and its Act is narrower on one point: the deferral no podrá comprender las cuotas correspondientes a la aportación de los trabajadores y a las contingencias de accidente de trabajo y enfermedad profesional, cannot cover the workers' share of the contributions or those for accidents at work and occupational disease, which have to be paid within a month of the decision (Real Decreto Legislativo 8/2015, article 23). Interest runs at the late-payment rate, and the deferral is lost if the business falls behind with later contributions.

Asking before the 20th turns a surcharge into interest. Not asking, or asking for what cannot be deferred, leaves the deadline where it was.

What our advisers do

Our tax advisers in Caleta de Fuste and Costa Calma prepare the quarter and, when the cash is short, the request that goes with it: which debts can be split and which have to be paid on the day, a calendar the business can keep, and the filing with each agency, the State's for income tax and the Canary one for IGIC. We represent clients before both when a requirement arrives. The dates of the coming months are in our autumn tax calendar, the service is described on the tax advisory page, and a first meeting can be booked online.

Common questions

Can I defer the withholdings of model 111?

No. Withholdings and payments on account are excluded by the Act, and a request for them is treated as never filed. Pay them on the 20th and ask to split the debts that allow it.

Do I need a bank guarantee?

Not if everything you owe that agency in deferrals, counting pending requests and instalments still to come, stays at or under 50,000 euros. Above that, a guarantee is the rule and the request is studied case by case.

How many instalments will the Tax Agency give me?

Up to 50,000 euros, the number you propose, to a limit of 24 monthly instalments if you are an individual and 12 if you are a company. For 3,000 euros or less the automated rules set no limit other than that no instalment falls under 50 euros.

Does asking for a deferral avoid the surcharge?

Yes, if the request is filed within the payment period and for a debt that can be deferred. You pay late-payment interest instead, 4.0625 % a year in 2026.

What happens if I miss one instalment?

That instalment goes to enforcement with a surcharge, and if it stays unpaid the rest fall due at once. A second automated deferral that includes the same debt is refused.

Facts verified in October 2026 (Ley 58/2003, articles 26, 28, 62, 65, 82 and 161; Real Decreto 939/2005, articles 44 to 54; Orden HFP/311/2023; Instructions 2/2023, 3/2024 and 3/2025 of the Tax Agency's Collection Department; Ley 31/2022, additional provision forty-two; the Canary Islands' Order of 12 June 2023 and the Canary Tax Agency's pages, guide and form; Real Decreto Legislativo 8/2015, article 23, all as they read on 4 October 2026). The figures of the example are invented to show the method; this note is general information, not advice on a particular debt.