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Letters from Spain: what each one means
The letters an official body from Spain actually sends — what each one means, the deadline that runs, and what happens if you ignore it.
Tax
- Propuesta de liquidación provisionalThe propuesta de liquidación is the AEAT's draft recalculation of one of your tax returns — popularly called 'la paralela'. It is a proposal, not yet a bill: there is a short window to argue back before it is converted into a liquidación provisional.
- Liquidación provisionalThe liquidación provisional is the actual tax assessment that closes an AEAT checking procedure. Unlike the propuesta before it, this is an enforceable debt: from here the routes are paying, deferring, or appealing.
- Comunicación de inicio de actuaciones de comprobación limitadaThis letter formally opens a limited audit of one tax and one period — a step up from a simple data check, but short of a full inspection. It must state the scope of the check and your rights, and it often doubles as a requerimiento asking for documents in the same envelope.
- Acuerdo de imposición de sanción tributaria (y propuesta de sanción)This is a fine for a tax infraction — most often for having paid less tax than due, discovered in a previous checking procedure. Spanish law rewards not fighting it: accepting the underlying liquidación cuts 30%, and paying promptly without appealing cuts a further 40% of the remainder.
- Requerimiento de la Agencia TributariaA requerimiento is a formal demand from the Spanish tax agency (AEAT) to clarify something, provide documents, or justify data in a tax return. It is not a fine and not yet a tax bill — but the clock for answering starts the day after it is delivered.
- Liquidación de recargo por presentación fuera de plazo de declaraciones y autoliquidacionesThis is the bill for filing a tax return late on your own initiative, before the AEAT demanded it. It is deliberately mild — a surcharge instead of a fine: 1% of the tax due plus 1% per full month of delay, or a flat 15% plus interest after 12 months.
- Comunicación de la Agencia Tributaria sobre la declaración de la Renta (carta informativa / aviso)This is an informative letter the AEAT sends around or after the annual income-tax campaign: it says the agency holds data that may not match your IRPF return, or that you appear obliged to file and have not. It is not a requerimiento, not a fine, and it imposes no obligation by itself.
Debt collection
- Providencia de apremioThis order opens forced collection of a tax or other public debt that was not paid in the voluntary period. It is the last letter before a bank account or salary is seized — and it comes with one short final payment window.
- Diligencia de embargoThis document records that a specific seizure has already been executed against your assets — money taken from a bank account, a portion of salary ordered withheld, or a property annotated in the registry. By the time it arrives, the freeze or withholding is normally already in place.
Traffic
Social insurance
- Providencia de apremio de la Tesorería General de la Seguridad SocialThis is the enforcement order for a social-security debt that survived the reclamación de deuda, or for a direct unpaid autónomo quota. It gives one final 15-day warning: pay, or interest is added and the URE starts seizing accounts and property.
- Reclamación de deuda de la Tesorería General de la Seguridad SocialThis is a formal demand for unpaid social-security contributions — typically an autónomo's monthly quota that a direct debit failed to collect, or an employer's unpaid cotizaciones. It states the principal plus the legal surcharge and opens a fixed payment window.
Municipal
- Recibo / liquidación del Impuesto sobre Bienes Inmuebles (IBI)The IBI is the annual municipal property tax, charged to whoever owned the property on 1 January. After the first year's individual notification it becomes a 'padrón' tax: it is announced collectively by public edict, not by personal letter — so the debt and its deadlines run even if no envelope ever arrives.
- Liquidación del Impuesto sobre el Incremento de Valor de los Terrenos de Naturaleza Urbana (IIVTNU, 'plusvalía municipal')This is the town hall's bill for the 'plusvalía' tax after a Spanish urban property was sold, inherited or given away. Since the 2021 reform, no tax is due if the absence of an actual gain can be proven — but that exemption must be actively claimed and documented.
Other
- Notificación electrónica (puesta a disposición en la sede electrónica / DEHú)This is not a paper letter but an official notification deposited in a government electronic mailbox — the DEHú portal or an agency's sede electrónica. The single most important fact: there are 10 calendar days to open it, counted from the deposit, not from any email alert.
- Acuerdo de iniciación de procedimiento sancionador (expediente sancionador)This is the opening letter of a general administrative sanction procedure — the template used for everything that is not tax or traffic: an unlicensed tourist rental, a noise complaint, an extranjería infraction, dumping rubbish outside hours. It is an accusation with a stated fine range, not yet a final fine.
- Anuncio de citación para notificación por comparecencia (publicación en el BOE)This is what happens to official mail when Spain cannot find you: after failed delivery attempts, the agency publishes a summons in the Boletín Oficial del Estado inviting you to appear and collect the notification. Fifteen calendar days later, you are legally deemed notified — of whatever it was.
- Trámite de audiencia / puesta de manifiesto del expedienteThis letter says an administrative procedure affecting you is about to be decided, and grants a last window to inspect the file (expediente) and submit arguments and documents before the resolution is drafted. After it closes, the administration decides.
- Recurso de reposición (y resolución del recurso de reposición)The recurso de reposición is Spain's standard first-step appeal: a request that the office which issued a decision reconsider it. Nearly every official letter names it in its final paragraphs — the 'pie de recurso' — together with the one-month deadline.