Spain extends its 0% and 5% food VAT rates to 30 June 2024 and keeps 10% VAT on some energy (RDL 8/2023)
This page records one dated change. For the rules in Spain as they stand today, see the Spain guide →
- Jurisdiction
- Spain
- Tax
- VAT
- Change type
- Rate change
- Status
- In force
- Impact
- FYI
- Announced
- 28 December 2023
- Effective
- 1 January 2024
- Instrument
- ES-ROYAL-DECREE-LAW-8-2023
- Authority
- Boletín Oficial del Estado (BOE)
- Verified
- Fetched from official source · high confidence
Spanish suppliers and importers of basic foods, olive and seed oils and pasta; electricity suppliers to contracts of up to 10 kW and to severely vulnerable bono-social recipients; suppliers of natural gas, pellets, briquettes and firewood.
No action — monitoring only. The extended 0%/5% food rates expired 30 June 2024 and were then phased out by Real Decreto-ley 4/2024.
Real Decreto-ley 8/2023, de 27 de diciembre (BOE-A-2023-26452, BOE 28 December 2023, in force 29 December 2023), article 20, rewrites article 72 of RDL 20/2022 to extend the temporary food VAT reductions until 30 June 2024: 0% VAT on common bread, bread-making flour, certain milks, cheese, eggs, and natural fruits, vegetables, legumes, tubers and cereals; and 5% VAT on olive and seed oils and pasta. Article 21 applies a temporary 10% VAT rate from 1 January to 31 December 2024 to electricity supplied under contracts of up to 10 kW when the previous month's average wholesale price exceeded €45/MWh, and to severely vulnerable bono-social recipients; to natural gas from 1 January to 31 March 2024; and to biomass pellets, briquettes and firewood from 1 January to 30 June 2024.
What changed in detail
Real Decreto-ley 8/2023, de 27 de diciembre, was published in the BOE (no. 310) on 28 December 2023 and entered into force on 29 December 2023. Congress validated it on 10 January 2024.
Article 20 rewrites article 72 of Real Decreto-ley 20/2022 so that the temporary food rates run until 30 June 2024:
- 0% on common bread (including frozen dough and frozen bread for making it), bread-making flour, the listed milks, cheese, eggs, and fruits, vegetables, legumes, tubers and cereals that are natural products under the Código Alimentario, with a 0% equivalence surcharge;
- 5% on olive and seed oils and on pasta, with a 0.62% equivalence surcharge.
Article 21 applies a temporary 10% rate:
- from 1 January to 31 December 2024, to electricity supplied to contracts of 10 kW or less when the average daily-market price of the previous month exceeded EUR 45/MWh, and to severely vulnerable recipients of the electricity bono social;
- from 1 January to 31 March 2024, to natural gas;
- from 1 January to 30 June 2024, to pellets, briquettes and firewood.
What it means
This measure is spent. The 0% and 5% food rates ran out on 30 June 2024 and were not simply extended again: Real Decreto-ley 4/2024 phased them out over the second half of 2024 and restored the ordinary 4% and 10% rates from 1 January 2025, with olive oil moved permanently to 4%.
The energy reductions in article 21 also ended on their stated dates. Electricity and gas have since returned to 21%, apart from later, separate measures such as the 2026 temporary 10% rate under Real Decreto-ley 7/2026. A rate on an invoice dated in the first half of 2024 should be checked against this decree, not against today’s tables.
Proof
Se aplicará el tipo del 5 por ciento del Impuesto sobre el Valor Añadido a las entregas, importaciones y adquisiciones intracomunitarias de los siguientes productos: a) Los aceites de oliva y de semillas. b) Las pastas alimenticias.The 5 per cent VAT rate shall apply to supplies, imports and intra-Community acquisitions of the following products: a) olive and seed oils. b) pasta.
Source snapshot of the official page. Open full size ↗Archived from the official distribution · BOE-A-2023-26452 (Real Decreto-ley 8/2023, BOE no. 310 of 28 December 2023) · www.boe.es