Business and Personal Cards in Spain (2026): What Hacienda Sees for Autónomos, SL Owners and Directors of Foreign Companies

If you run a business from the Costa, one card for everything is the easy habit. The client lunch, the school shoes, the software subscription and the weekend in Ronda land on the same statement, and your gestor sorts it out each quarter. From 2026 that habit produces a number. Spain’s card issuers now file a yearly return on every card over a threshold, banks report every account monthly, and both returns name the individual behind a company card or a company account as well as the company. Neither return carries a merchant name. They carry totals, and a total on a mixed card looks like the cost of your lifestyle.

This guide sets out what each Spanish return says about a business card, why separating cards matters more for the tax file than for the bookkeeping, and how the answer changes with your structure, whether you are an autónomo — self-employed worker, you own a Spanish limited company, or you direct a UK or US company from here. It ends with what could reach Spain from abroad next. Whether a foreign company run from Spain becomes Spanish tax-resident is a separate question for an adviser, and this page does not cover it.

Last verified: 28 September 2026.

What the Spanish returns say about a business card

Three returns matter, and all three name people.

• Modelo 174, the card return. Issuers file it each January for the previous year, starting in January 2027 for 2026. For each card it gives the yearly number and total of charges, split between shop payments and cash withdrawals, the number and total of credits, and the IBAN the card is settled from. It names the contract holder, which on a company card is the company, and separately the cardholder and anyone authorised to use the card. A card is left out only if its charges and its credits were each under 25,000 euros in the year. There is no merchant, no date and no location in the return.
• Modelo 196, the account return. Monthly, from January 2026 data. Besides the account holder it names the beneficial owners under the anti-money-laundering law, and the representatives, authorised signatories, beneficiaries and anyone else with power to move the money. The December return adds the year-end balance, the October to December average and the yearly totals in and out.
• Modelo 170, the takings return. Monthly, from January 2026 data. Banks and payment firms report what each business on their collection system took through any kind of card and through mobile-number payments such as Bizum. The Agencia Tributaria’s 2026 control plan says the return now reaches payment institutions, e-money institutions and EU firms serving Spain under libre prestación de servicios — free provision of services, the passport that lets an EU-licensed firm operate here without a branch.

Two details follow from the field list. A company card settled from your personal account, or a personal card settled from the company’s, shows up as exactly that, because the linked IBAN is in the return. And your name sits next to the company’s on every company card you are authorised to use, so the card total is attached to you as much as to the business.

Why one mixed card reads as lifestyle spending

Hacienda does not see the client lunch. It sees a yearly total against a name. On a company card that name is yours as cardholder, beside the company’s as contract holder. On a personal card it is yours alone. Either way the figure has no categories in it, and nobody at the Agencia Tributaria can tell 30,000 euros of software, travel and stock from 30,000 euros of restaurants and flights.

That matters because of how the figure gets used. The 2026 control plan lists, as a line of work, people whose standard of living and visible wealth do not match the income or wealth they declare. A personal card that also carries the business’s spending inflates the personal total. A company card that also carries the school fees inflates the company’s, with your name on it. In both cases the honest explanation exists, and you are the one who produces it, receipt by receipt, after the question arrives.

The same plan’s section on the shadow economy names taxpayers who mainly use payment means based abroad to avoid Spain’s reporting rules. That line sits beside ones about businesses that refuse card payments, so we read it as aimed at undeclared trading through foreign accounts, and at nobody who keeps a UK card for UK trips.

Separating cards changes nothing about what is deductible or what is taxed. It changes which pile a question lands on, and how long the answer takes.

If you are self-employed

The rules on what an autónomo can deduct do not mention cards. What they demand is evidence, and the evidence rules are different for VAT and for income tax.

For VAT, only a factura — invoice supports the deduction. A card statement never does, because it is not an invoice and shows no VAT. A till receipt, which in law is a factura simplificada — simplified invoice, counts only if it shows your NIF and address and states the VAT separately, and the seller has to add those details when you ask. Simplified invoices are allowed up to 400 euros including VAT, or up to 3,000 euros for certain listed trades, restaurants and transport among them, so most of the receipts in a business owner’s wallet are the simplified kind, and most are missing the two lines that make them deductible.

For income tax the invoice comes first among the proofs the law accepts, and it is not the only one. Article 106.4 of the General Tax Law says expenses are justified “de forma prioritaria” by the invoice, and that once Hacienda questions an invoice it falls to you to prove the transaction was real. The tax ministry’s binding rulings accept a normal or simplified invoice, and a ruling of 13 August 2026 (V5474-26), asked about a file of tickets plus card and cash payment records, said the question is one of fact, provable by any means the law admits and weighed freely by the inspector. In our reading a card statement is admissible and weak. It proves you paid a merchant an amount on a date. It does not prove what you bought or that the purchase served the business, and that is the point in dispute once anyone asks.

There is no rule that says an autónomo must keep a separate bank account or card. We read the income tax regulations, the General Tax Law, the VAT law and the invoicing regulations and found none, and the Agencia Tributaria’s own three tests for a deductible expense are that it is linked to the activity, properly justified and recorded in your books. So one card is legal. Two cards are cheaper. With one card, every quarter starts by separating your life from your work line by line, and a Modelo 174 total that mixes both is a figure you explain in full. With a business card that pays only for things you hold an invoice for, the card total and the expense ledger reconcile, and the personal card total is what you live on, which is not income and not taxed. Our autónomo guide covers the deduction list itself.

If you own an SL

An SL, a sociedad limitada — limited company, is a separate taxpayer, and a company card is the company’s money. When it pays for something that is yours, the tax law has to decide what that payment was, and the answer turns on facts, not on what the card was called. There are three answers, and the same euro cannot be both deductible for the company and tax-free for you.

• You hold shares, do no work in the company and nothing was agreed as pay. The company cannot deduct the spending. For corporation tax it is a return on your shares, and for your income tax it is investment income under the same article of the income tax law as a dividend. In a 2019 binding ruling (V2659-19) the tax ministry treated a retired partner’s travel and restaurant bills paid by his company that way. In a 2025 ruling (V0694-25) a sole shareholder with no employment contract had his company’s car costs treated as non-deductible, even though the car was said to be used entirely for the business.
• You work in the company or are its paid director, and the spending is treated and booked as part of your pay. Then it is employment income in kind. The company makes an ingreso a cuenta — advance tax payment on it, and can deduct the cost if the pay is documented and booked, which the Supreme Court settled in rulings of 2023 and 2024 that the central tax tribunal adopted in May 2024. A 2022 ruling (V1796-22) applied the same logic to a company paying its working partner’s social security contributions.
• It is a loan. The company books a receivable and you repay it. Between a company and a partner holding 25 per cent or more, or a company and its director, the loan has to carry market-rate interest, because the corporation tax law treats them as related parties and values their dealings at market. If the interest is below market, the difference in your favour is treated as a return on your shares for the company and as profit for you. Whether a running balance that is never repaid survives as a loan is a question the rulings we read do not settle, so it is one for your gestor before it is one for an inspector.

Which of the three applies turns on your role, what was agreed, how the payment was booked and whether it was repaid. A card policy that decides this in advance, on paper, is cheaper than one decided during an inspection. Our SL formation guide covers the set-up and the salary-versus-dividend decision behind all three.

If you direct a UK Ltd or US LLC from Spain

This is the case with the most paperwork, because Spain treats the company’s account as partly your business even though the money is the company’s.

If you are resident in Spain and can sign on a foreign company’s bank account, that account belongs on your Modelo 720, the foreign-assets return due by 31 March. The regulation covers accounts on which you appear as representative, authorised signatory or beneficiary, or over which you hold power of disposal, and a binding ruling of 2013 (V1367-13) confirmed that it applies to an individual signing on a foreign company’s account. The company’s full balance counts toward your own 50,000-euro threshold for the accounts block, with no pro-rating and no discount for the money belonging to someone else. In the Agencia Tributaria’s own worked example, someone with 40,000 euros in their own foreign account who is also authorised on another holding 30,000 euros has to file. Once you are over the line, every foreign account goes on the return, each balance in full, with your role and your percentage shown. After the first filing you file again when the combined balance rises by more than 20,000 euros.

The exemption for accounts recorded in a company’s books does not rescue you. It covers accounts held by Spanish-resident companies, so a UK Ltd or US LLC keeping its books abroad is outside it. Missing the return costs 20 euros per data item with a floor of 300 euros and a ceiling of 20,000 euros for the accounts block, halved if you file late before Hacienda asks. Our Modelo 720 guide covers the form.

What the company’s bank sends Spain automatically is a different question, and the answer depends on what kind of company it is in the bank’s eyes. Under the Common Reporting Standard, the yearly exchange between the UK and Spain, an account is reportable when it is held by someone tax-resident in a partner country, or by a “Passive NFE”, a non-financial entity, with controlling persons who are. HMRC’s manual makes an entity Active when less than half its gross income last year was passive income and less than half its assets are held to produce passive income, and Passive by default when it fails that test. The bank decides, from a self-certification or its own anti-money-laundering records. Our read is that a UK trading company that is UK-resident is not reported to Spain, even when its director lives on the Costa, because the company itself is not a Spanish resident and it is Active. A UK company that mostly holds investments is Passive, and the report names its Spain-resident controlling persons. The United States is not in the Common Reporting Standard, and its FATCA reporting to Spain covers accounts held by individuals resident in Spain, so we take a US LLC’s own account to be outside it. None of this changes your Modelo 720 duty, which does not depend on what the bank sends.

Whether a company run day to day from the Costa is itself Spanish tax-resident is a separate question, with its own consequences, and one for an adviser before it is one for a card policy.

What could reach Spain next

On request, a good deal can reach Spain already. Article 26 of the 2013 UK-Spain tax treaty and article 27 of the US-Spain treaty, as rewritten by the protocol in force since 27 November 2019, oblige each country to exchange information “foreseeably relevant” to the other’s taxes, and neither may refuse “solely because the information is held by a bank”. Our read is that a Spanish inspection with a named resident and a reason can obtain that person’s UK or US bank and card records, case by case. It cannot pull them in bulk.

From 2026 data, UK e-money balances join the yearly report. The UK’s amended regulations, in force since 16 July 2025, bring e-money institutions into the Common Reporting Standard from calendar year 2026, with the first reports due to HMRC by 31 May 2027 and passed on to Spain, which has been on HMRC’s list of partner countries every year to date. A balance is left out only if its rolling 90-day average never exceeded the equivalent of 10,000 US dollars on any day in the year. What gets reported is the year-end balance and any interest, never the card transactions.

We also looked for a plan to send Spain bulk transaction data from UK- or US-issued cards, the way Modelo 174 will for Spanish and EU-passported cards. We read the UK’s CRS update, the OECD’s 2023 amendments as HMRC describes them, the EU’s DAC8 directive and the Agencia Tributaria’s 2026 control plan, and none of them describes one. That is a finding about the documents we read on 28 September 2026, and nothing more.

A card policy that survives a question

• If you are an autónomo with one card for everything, a second card that pays only for invoiced business costs turns the quarterly sort into a reconciliation. The Modelo 174 total on that card and your expense ledger should agree.
• If you run an SL and the company card sometimes pays for your life, decide now which of the three treatments applies and put it on paper, as pay in kind booked as such or as a loan agreement at market interest. The category to avoid is the undocumented one.
• If you sign on a foreign company’s account, count its balance toward your 720 test every 31 December, and keep the company’s bank statements for the year in case Hacienda asks what the money was.
• If you keep a UK or US card for business travel, nothing in the Spanish returns sees it, and nothing stops a named request. The question that matters is whether the income feeding that account is declared here.

A gestor — licensed administrative and tax agent who handles company clients does this set-up routinely. That means deciding which card pays what, how the owner’s pay is booked, whether a shareholder loan exists on paper and who goes on the 720 diary each March.

The five-minute version

• Modelo 174 gives Hacienda a yearly total per card and names the cardholder and authorised users even on a company card, starting January 2027 for 2026. Modelo 196 names the signatories and beneficial owners of every account, monthly. Modelo 170 reports card and Bizum takings monthly. None carries a merchant.
• A mixed card produces one total that Hacienda cannot split between business and life, read against a 2026 control plan that compares lifestyle with declared income.
• Self-employed: VAT needs an invoice, and a card statement never counts. For income tax the statement is admissible but weak. No rule requires a separate account, and a separate card keeps each total legible.
• SL: personal spending on the company card is investment income to you and non-deductible to the company, unless it is booked as pay in kind or is a real loan at market interest. The facts decide, and the same euro cannot be both deductible and tax-free.
• Director of a UK Ltd or US LLC: the full balance of any account you can sign on counts toward your own 50,000-euro Modelo 720 test, with no pro-rating. CRS reports a passive holding company’s account and its controlling persons; our read is that a trading company’s account is not reported.
• Spain can already ask the UK or the US about a named person under the treaties. UK e-money balances join CRS from 2026 data above a rolling 10,000 US dollars. We found no plan for bulk reporting of UK or US card transactions.

Related guides

• Living in Spain on a Foreign Credit Card (2026): What Hacienda Sees, Spanish Cards, Everyday Use and Car Hire
• What Hacienda Sees About Your Cards and Bank Accounts (2026): Modelo 174, 196 and Foreign Cards
• Keeping and Using a Foreign Card After You Move to Spain
• Becoming Autónomo in Spain: The Freelancer and Self-Employment Guide (2026)
• Forming an SL in Spain: Step-by-Step for Expats (2026)
• Autónomo vs SL in Spain (2026): Which Business Structure Is Better?
• Modelo 720 in Spain: The Overseas Asset Declaration Guide (2026)
• Good Gestor Costa del Sol: How to Find and Keep One

General information, not legal advice, current as of 28 September 2026. Primary sources: Real Decreto 253/2025 (BOE 2 April 2025), Orden HAC/747/2025 (BOE 15 July 2025), the Agencia Tributaria’s 2026 tax control plan (BOE-A-2026-5843), Ley 37/1992 art. 97, Real Decreto 1619/2012 arts. 4 and 7, Ley 58/2003 arts. 106, 198 and 199, Ley 35/2006 arts. 25 and 42, Ley 27/2014 arts. 15 and 18, Real Decreto 1065/2007 art. 42 bis, Dirección General de Tributos rulings V1367-13, V1041-17, V2659-19, V1554-21, V1796-22, V1636-23, V0694-25 and V5474-26, TEAC resolution 00/03319/2021, the Agencia Tributaria’s Modelo 720 FAQ, HMRC’s International Exchange of Information manual (IEIM401520, IEIM403480, IEIM404040 and IEIM401875), the International Tax Compliance (Amendment) Regulations 2025, the UK-Spain double taxation convention of 14 March 2013 and the 2013 protocol to the US-Spain convention (BOE-A-2019-15166).