For autónomos and British freelancers in Spain

There's a NIFon that receipt.It's not yours, so the IVA is gone.

Spanish shops print their own NIF on the ticket. Hacienda won't take that, and your gestor won't ring them about it either. They'll quietly leave the IVA off and you'll never hear a word. Photograph one receipt and we'll tell you what it's costing you, and which shop to go back to. No account, no card.

ReceiptScanning…
MERCADONA S.A.
NIF A-46103834 (the shop's)23/06/2026 · CARTAGENA
PECHUGA POLLO 500G€5.90€11.80/kg
CAFE MOLIDO NATURAL€4.20PERSONAL
PAPEL A4 500 HOJAS€12.80BUSINESSIVA €2.22
TINTA EPSON 604 NEGRO€18.40BUSINESSIVA €3.19
TOTAL€41.30
IVA on the business lines€5.41
CLAIMABLE AS IT STANDS€0.00
Ticket · not a factura

The problem

Modelo 303 is one subtraction. The hard half happens at the till.

The IVA you charged, minus the IVA you paid. Everyone gets the first half right because it's on the invoices you sent. The second half leaks, and it leaks in the two seconds at the counter when nobody asked for a factura.

A ticket is not a factura

What you get handed is a factura simplificada. It names the shop, because the shop has to identify itself, and it says nothing about you. Under art. 7.2 RD 1619/2012 it's the buyer's NIF that settles whether the IVA can be deducted. So the ticket looks fine, files neatly, and is worth nothing.

Nobody is going to chase it for you

Your gestor files what lands on their desk. Handed a shoebox of tickets, nobody is going to ring Decathlon over €2.25 of IVA. They'll leave it out and you'll never hear about it. That's the sensible call on their side, and it's still your money. Nobody's doing anything wrong here. The amount just never gets counted.

You can still ask, for a while

Most shops will issue a proper factura against a ticket if you go back with it. That's why this is worth knowing in week two of the quarter rather than the night before you file. Catalejo puts the shops in order of what they're worth and writes the request for you, so the three calls that matter get made and the other thirty don't.

One · Capture

Photograph the pile, not one receipt at a time

Fifteen at a time, or one photo of the whole kitchen table. Each receipt gives up its shop, its date, every line on it, and whose NIF is printed at the bottom. That last part is the one that decides whether the IVA is yours. A big shop takes a minute or two.

  • Reads the NIF off a standard Spanish ticket, and tells you whose it is
  • Splits one photo of several receipts into separate purchases
  • Matches each receipt to the card payment for it, so nothing counts twice
Queue status
mercadona_2306.jpgRead
1.2 MB
taxi_madrid.pdfRead
0.8 MB
github_invoice.pdfReading…
0.4 MB
starbucks_barcelona.jpgWaiting
2.1 MB
Two · Line by line

Your bank says Mercadona €52. That could be anything.

One trip can be printer paper and a week of dinners on the same slip. Booked as a single line it's either all deductible or none of it, and both answers are wrong. Catalejo keeps the lines apart, so the paper counts as a business cost, the dinners don't, and the IVA figure at the end is one you can actually defend.

  • Every line kept, with the quantity and the price per kilo where the receipt gives one
  • Groceries stay out of the IVA figure, so the number is not flattered
  • The same shop across two months, compared line for line
What was on it
Amazon Spain (Tech Order)€129.50
1x Logitech MX Master 3S Mouse€89.00
BusinessIVA €15.45 — needs a factura in your name
1x Dark Roast Coffee Beans (2kg)€40.50
PersonalNo IVA to claim
Three · Ask it

Ask it about your own records

Ask in English or Spanish, about your own receipts rather than about tax in general. Whether that camera you're eyeing up is deductible. What you've actually spent with one supplier this year. Which receipts still need a factura, and where the quarter has got to.

  • Asks your ledger, not the internet: it only answers from what you scanned
  • Says when it doesn't know, rather than producing a confident number
  • Answers cite the receipts they came from
ASK ABOUT YOUR OWN RECORDSExample

"Can I claim the IVA on the hotels from June?"

Answer: Three of the four hotel receipts from June carry only the hotel's NIF, so their IVA isn't deductible as they stand. The fourth has your NIF on it and is fine. Ask the first three for a factura and it moves.
What your gestor gets

Hand your gestor the quarter, not a bag of paper

One itemised ledger for the quarter, grouped by category, with the receipt image attached to every purchase that has one and the NIF shown where the receipt carries a readable one. It isn't a filing and it isn't signed. It's the thing your gestor would otherwise build by hand out of a carrier bag.

Every receipt image attached NIF shown where the receipt carries one PDF or ZIP

Why pay for it

Why this and not the app your bank already gave you?

01

The bank has never seen what you bought

Every budgeting app is built on the bank feed, so every one of them stops at the shop name. Monzo, Fintonic, the spreadsheet, all of them say “Mercadona, €52” and none of them can say more, because €52 is genuinely all the bank was told. The receipt is the only record of the shopping, and until now nobody kept it in a form you could add up.

A Mercadona shop from July: 37 separate lines, read off one photograph.

02

Your gestor won't ring the shop, and neither will you

A Spanish ticket names the shop, not you, and it's the buyer's NIF that settles whether the IVA can be deducted. Nobody is going to chase that. Your gestor files what they're given, and by the time you think about it you can't remember which shop it was anyway. Catalejo reads whose NIF is on each receipt, prices what that's costing you, and writes the request to the shops still worth asking.

A €89 Amazon receipt: €15.45 of IVA at risk. A €75 food shop: €0.14, because groceries were never claimable anyway.

03

It admits what it doesn't know

Import your statement and you have every euro that left the account, with nothing missing. Add receipts for the shops you care about and those lines get broken open. Catalejo matches the two so a shop you scanned and a card payment for the same shop are one purchase, not two, and it shows you plainly how much of your spending it can actually account for.

A switch at the top of the page: everything, only what has a receipt behind it, or only what hasn't.

You could paste one receipt into a chatbot right now and it would read it, probably well. Ask it in October what you paid for the same chicken in June and it has no idea, because it never kept the June receipt. That's the whole difference. One is a clever answer. The other is a record that builds up.

We are software, not your accountant, and we say so. Catalejo shows its workings, flags anything that needs a human, and never invents a number to look clever. Check the final figures with your gestor before you file.

Free · No sign-up

What will you actually pay?

If you live in Spain and work for yourself, both countries take an interest in your income. Put your figures in and see where you stand in each. Nothing hidden, and you don't need an account.

£

Your profit after business costs, not your turnover.

This matters more than people expect. Each region sets its own half of the income tax.

Spain gives you a real allowance per child. Leaving them out overstates your tax.

🇬🇧

If the UK taxed it

Income Tax
National Insurance
Total
🇪🇸

What Spain asks for

Income tax (IRPF)
Social security (autónomo)
Total

These are estimates for a self-employed autónomo, using 2026 rates, converted at £1 = €1.1736 (reference rate). They assume you have no other income, that you file individually rather than jointly with a spouse, and that you claim no regional deductions. We are software, not your accountant, and we are not registered tax advisers. Always confirm the final figures with a gestor before you file.

Pricing

The prep your gestor would rather not do either

Your gestor is there for the filing and the judgement calls. Sorting a quarter of tickets into line items isn't what you are paying them for, and it isn't what they want to be doing. Catalejo does that part, so what lands on their desk is already itemised, dated and evidenced. The subscription is itself a deductible business expense.

Free Plan

€0/ forever

See where you stand, for nothing. No card, no catch.

  • The IVA verdict on any receipt, with no account
  • 5 receipts a month, with the price per kilo on every weighed line
  • Import a bank statement and see the whole month
  • Unlimited scans, and questions about your own records
  • The gestor pack
Start free
Most people want this one

Autónomo

€39/ month

Know what Modelo 303 will say before the quarter closes, and which shops still owe you a factura while you can still ask.

  • Your IVA position for the quarter, updated as you scan
  • The shops to ask for a factura, in euros, worst first
  • Unlimited scans, item-level, up to 15 at once
  • Gestor pack: the quarter itemised, with every receipt attached
  • Deadline reminders, and the UK side kept separate if you invoice UK clients
Start the free trial

14 days free, cancel anytime. No charge until the trial ends.

€39 a month is €468 a year. It pays for itself once you are recovering more IVA than that, which takes roughly €2,700 a year of business purchases bought on tickets. Below that, be honest with yourself and stay on the free plan. Drop a statement in and see your own number first.

Questions

The things people ask before they sign up

My ticket has a NIF on it. Why is that not enough?

Because it's the shop's. A factura simplificada identifies the seller, which is all the shop has to do. To deduct the IVA you need a document naming the buyer, and that's a factura completa. It's the most common reason IVA quietly goes unclaimed, and you'll never spot it if you only look at the total.

Can I still get a factura for something I bought weeks ago?

Usually, yes. Most shops will issue one against the original ticket if you bring it back, and the big chains will do it off the transaction number. It gets harder the longer you leave it, and awkward once the quarter has closed, which is rather the point of knowing in September instead of January. Catalejo lists the shops worth going back to, what each is worth, and writes the message for you.

Does it work out my Modelo 303 for me?

It does the purchases half, which is the half that eats the time: every receipt you've scanned, the IVA on it, and which of them actually support a claim. The sales half you type in yourself. We won't guess which money landing in your account was invoiced work, because a tax return is the one place a plausible guess is worse than a blank.

What is in the gestor pack?

Your quarter as one itemised ledger, grouped by category, with the receipt image attached to every purchase that has one and the NIF shown wherever the receipt carries a readable one. PDF to read, or a ZIP with the images in it. It isn't a filing and it isn't signed. It's the thing your gestor would otherwise build by hand out of a bag of paper.

I invoice UK clients from Spain. Does that still work?

Yes. Catalejo keeps the two sides apart instead of merging them, so UK costs stay in sterling with their own treatment and the Spanish side stays in euros. It won't decide your residency and it doesn't file anything in either country. If you straddle both, this is the prep; your accountants still do the coordinating.

Declarando and Xolo cost about the same and they file for me. Why this?

They're not doing the same job. Those are gestoría services: you send them the numbers, they file. Catalejo doesn't file anything, and if what you want is somebody to press submit, then one of them or your existing gestor is the right answer and we'd rather you went with it. What none of them does is open your receipts. They work off the totals you hand over, so a ticket that can't support an IVA claim goes in looking exactly like one that can. Catalejo is the step before that: it reads the paperwork, tells you which of it is worth anything, and hands your gestor a quarter they can file from.

How much IVA will this actually find for me?

We don't know, and anyone quoting you a figure before they've seen your spending is guessing. It depends entirely on how much of your business buying goes through tickets rather than proper facturas. Drop a bank statement into the free scan and it'll show you how much IVA is sitting in your own purchases before you pay us anything. If that number comes back small, don't subscribe.

How many receipts can I do at once?

Fifteen files at a time, and a single photo can hold several receipts side by side. Those get split into separate purchases. Images or PDFs. A big supermarket shop with forty lines takes a minute or two.

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