Deferring AEAT tax debts or paying by instalments: 2026 guide

If you cannot pay a tax on time, do not simply let the deadline pass: apply to the AEAT for a deferral or instalment plan before the voluntary payment period ends. Up to €50,000 of aggregate debt requires no guarantee, the application is processed automatically, and you can pay in up to 24 monthly instalments if you are an individual (12 if you are a company). The cost is late-payment interest — 4.0625% per year in 2026 — and, if you apply in time, you avoid the enforcement-period surcharges that add between 5% and 20% to the debt.

Deferrals and instalment plans: what they are and when they make sense

Both figures are regulated in Article 65 of Law 58/2003, General Taxation Law (LGT, in force 2026), and share a procedure:

• Deferring is postponing the payment in full to a future date.
• Paying by instalments means dividing the debt into several monthly payments.

In practice, the vast majority of applications are for instalment plans: equal monthly payments, with a minimum amount of €50 per instalment (excluding interest), under Instruction 2/2023 of 3 April from the AEAT Collection Department, as amended by Instructions 3/2024 and 3/2025.

The underlying requirement is always the same: a temporary cash-flow difficulty. It is not a mechanism for unviable companies — the AEAT rejects applications when it identifies structural difficulties or insufficient capacity to generate funds — but a lifeline when customer payment dates do not align with the tax calendar: a high-VAT quarter when customers pay after 60 days, a weak seasonal period or a large unpaid invoice.

The Key Threshold: 50,000 € Without Guarantees

Since 15 April 2023, Order HFP/311/2023 of 28 March (BOE-A-2023-8119, in force in 2026) has set the guarantee-free threshold for AEAT deferral and instalment-plan applications at €50,000.

Two nuances that should not be overlooked:

• The limit is calculated based on the accumulated debt: it adds up the debts of the application itself, the debts of other pending applications, and the pending maturities of other deferrals already granted and not guaranteed.
• Being below €50,000 does not guarantee approval: it means that no guarantee is required, but the application is rejected automatically if, for example, you have other debts in enforcement — with no deferral requested — covered by notified enforcement orders totalling more than €600, or if you include a debt from a previous agreement that you failed to comply with (Instruction 2/2023, Instruction FIVE 4).

Below this threshold, processing is automated: a software tool decides the application without requesting further evidence, presuming both that the difficulty is temporary and — importantly for VAT — that the output tax has not been collected.

What Debts Can Be Deferred and Which Cannot

Not everything can be deferred. Article 65.2 of the LGT and Article 47 of the General Collection Regulation (RD 939/2005), in force 2026, list the cases in which the deferral application is inadmissible — it is considered as not submitted for all purposes, with the period continuing to run as if nothing had been done:

The following are generally deferrable: annual IRPF (form 100), fractional payments of IRPF (form 130, although with a limited term: up to the start of the annual declaration period in which they are included), annual Corporation Tax (form 200), and unpaid VAT.

VAT: the presumption that works in your favour

VAT is a tax charged on to customers: in principle, it can only be deferred if you show that you have not collected those output VAT amounts. Instruction 2/2023 (in force in 2026) distinguishes two situations:

• Up to 50,000 €: the automated tool presumes that you have not collected the levied quotas. No justification is required.
• More than 50,000 €: you must provide the list of issued and unpaid invoices (customer, amount, due date), the documentary justification of the non-payments, the list of received invoices, and a copy of the collection requests made to your debtors.

Note the small print of the approval: if you collect deferred output VAT while the agreement is in force, you must use that amount to make an early repayment of the debt within 10 days at most of collection; otherwise, the agreement is cancelled for non-compliance.

Maximum repayment terms: how long the AEAT gives you

The maximum terms are set by Instruction 2/2023 of the AEAT Collection Department (in the wording resulting from Instructions 3/2024 and 3/2025). They depend on the applicant and the guarantee provided:

In no case can the granted term exceed the one you propose in the application — ask with a margin — and the absolute limit, even with the exceptional authorization of the Revenue Agency, is 60 months. For debts of up to 3,000 €, the AEAT directly grants the calendar you propose, as long as each instalment (excluding interest) is not less than 50 €.

How much deferral costs: interest and surcharges

Deferring payment is not free, but it is the cheapest financing available. The cost has two possible components: interest (always) and surcharges (only if you are late).

Interest (art. 26 LGT)

Both types remain in effect in 2026 due to the extension of the General State Budget. As a quick reference: deferring €10,000 of VAT in 12 instalments at 4.0625% costs around €220 in total interest. Compare this to any line of credit.

Surcharges if the debt becomes enforceable (art. 28 LGT)

If the voluntary period expires without payment and without a request for deferral, the debt becomes enforceable and a surcharge is added:

And if the problem is not paying but rather that you missed submitting the self-assessment, the surcharge for late submission without prior request is 1% plus an additional 1% for each complete month of delay; from 12 months onwards, 15% plus delay interest (art. 27.2 LGT, wording of Law 11/2021, in effect in 2026).

How to apply step by step

The application is submitted through the AEAT online office (procedure “Aplazamiento y fraccionamiento de deudas”) using a digital certificate, DNIe or Cl@ve. If you belong to a group required to deal with the authorities electronically, you must use that route; it cannot be assumed that every self-employed person is obliged simply by being registered in the RETA.

A warning that surprises many: writing on your own self-assessment that you “intend” to request a deferral is not an application — not even a defective one (Instruction 2/2023, instruction TERCERA 1.6). You must submit the specific procedure.

What happens next: approval, payments and non-compliance

If the application goes through the automated route, it is resolved through automated administrative action, and the sources cited give no exact timeframe. If it requires individual analysis (guarantees, high amounts), the AEAT will evaluate your economic and financial situation; when it expects to take more than two months to resolve and the debt exceeds €150,000, it sets a provisional payment calendar in the meantime.

Once the deferral is granted:

• The instalments are constant and monthly, charged to the account you indicated.
• The initial grace period, if requested, cannot exceed 3 months from the resolution.
• If you provided a guarantee, you have 2 months from the notification to formalise it; if you do not, the agreement is rendered ineffective and the enforcement continues without new notice.
• Tax refunds due to you while the agreement is in force may be applied to the deferred debt.

Avoid the same problem next quarter: cash planning before financing

Deferral is a good parachute and a bad routine. The AEAT expressly monitors the repetition of applications as an indication of structural difficulties, and will deny systematic deferral of periodic taxes. If you need to defer VAT every quarter, the problem is not the tax calendar: it’s that you’re not provisioning.

The boring and effective solution is to know how much you will owe before the model expires. That’s where a management system with live data makes a difference compared to traditional software that only looks back: Frihet offers a preview of your models as you invoice, so the figure on the 303 is not a surprise on the 20th, but a number you see growing — and provisioning — from the 1st. The free plan includes up to 999 invoices per month, so trying it won’t even cost you a coffee.

With the forecast in front of you, the decision to defer stops being an emergency and becomes what it should be: a cold financial decision. Is the 4.0625% delay interest cheaper than your credit policy? Defer. Do you have the cash? Pay and save yourself the management.

Common mistakes to avoid

• Letting the voluntary period expire “while you think about it”: the application in the voluntary period avoids the enforcement period; one day late and you will accrue at least a 5% surcharge.
• Trying to defer Form 111 or 202: the request is rejected as inadmissible and the deadline continues to run. Withholdings and Corporate Income Tax instalment payments (form 202) cannot be deferred under Article 65.2 LGT.
• Proposing unfulfillable instalments: non-compliance cancels the agreement and contaminates future applications. Better 18 comfortable instalments than 6 heroic ones.
• Forgetting that instalments of less than €50 are not accepted: for small debts, adjust the number of instalments.
• Collecting the deferred VAT and not entering it: you have 10 days from collection to allocate it to the deferral; if not, cancellation.
• Confusing windows: AEAT, TGSS and Canary Islands Tax Agency (IGIC) have different and independent deferral procedures.

A tax debt in 2026 can be deferred through the AEAT online office, but approval and response time depend on the type of debt, the amount, the guarantees and your history. Applying on time, choosing carefully what to defer and treating the agreement as seriously as a bank repayment keeps a temporary cash problem from turning into enforcement.