What is the Crea y Crece Law, when does it come into effect, and what obligations does it entail?

If you have a business or are thinking of starting one, the Crea y Crece Law introduces measures that may influence your activity: it facilitates business creation, expands financing options, and aims to reduce payment delays. It also introduces changes in billing between companies and freelancers.

In this article, we explain what these measures mean for your business and how to prepare for the new obligations.

What is the Crea y Crece Law?

The Crea y Crece Law, officially known as Law 18/2022, of September 28, on the creation and growth of companies, is a state regulation framed within the Recovery, Transformation, and Resilience Plan that functions as an umbrella law: it does not regulate a single subject but touches on various aspects of a business's life, from how a company is formed to how invoices are issued and collected.

It affects companies and self-employed workers conducting B2B operations (business to business, meaning they invoice other professionals) included in the scope of mandatory electronic invoicing.

What are the objectives of the Crea y Crece Law?

Article 1 of the Law summarizes the purpose in one sentence: to improve the business climate by promoting the creation and growth of companies. To achieve this, it acts on four levers.

• Facilitate and reduce the cost of creating companies. It lowers the minimum capital for a limited liability company and promotes online incorporation through CIRCE.
• Improve regulation and remove obstacles. It expands the economic activities that do not require a license and reinforces the principles of necessity and proportionality in regulations.
• Reduce commercial delinquency. This is the most noticeable aspect in the daily life of an SME: mandatory electronic invoicing originates here, as a way to know when each invoice is accepted and actually paid.
• Improve access to financing. It regulates crowdfunding platforms according to the European framework and makes venture capital more flexible as an alternative to banking.

Transversally, the four objectives share the same instrument: digitalization. The law assumes that without structured information about invoices, there is no way to measure who pays late or to truly simplify procedures.

The numbers explain why delinquency occupies an entire chapter. The average payment period for SMEs closed 2025 at 80.5 days, 34% above the legal maximum of 60 (according to the CEPYME Delinquency Observatory), and this delay cost SMEs 1.957 billion euros in the last quarter of the year alone.

Who is affected by the law?

The obligation of electronic invoicing applies to companies and self-employed workers conducting B2B operations (business to business, meaning they invoice other professionals or companies) with activity in Spain. Invoices to the Public Administration are excluded from this regime: they are governed by specific public sector regulations.

The rest of the law's measures (share capital, licenses, alternative financing) do not depend on whether you invoice in B2B: they affect anyone who forms or manages a company.

If you want more detailed information on the segments and specific cases, we cover it in the article on the electronic invoicing law and who it affects.

When do the obligations of the Crea y Crece Law come into effect?

The RD 238/2026 establishes two major application deadlines, depending on the obligated party's turnover:

• Turnover exceeding 8 million euros: 12 months from the entry into force of the ministerial development order.
• Other entrepreneurs and professionals: 24 months from the entry into force of this ministerial order.
• Individuals or entities under the income attribution regime, with a turnover equal to or less than 8 million euros: an additional period of up to 12 months from when the RD takes effect for them. Until then, providing this information will be voluntary.

The draft order published in April 2026 points to October 1, 2026, as the effective date. If confirmed, it would apply to you on October 1, 2027, if you exceed 8 million, and on October 1, 2028, in other cases.

Take it as a forecast, not a date on the calendar. Until the order is published in the BOE, any date is an estimate, including this one.

What obligations does the Crea y Crece Law entail?

The main obligations of the Crea y Crece Law focus on mandatory electronic invoicing between companies and freelancers, combating delinquency, and simplifying procedures.

Issuing and receiving electronic invoices

For issuing electronic invoices, companies and freelancers can use a private billing program that meets legal requirements or the public and free AEAT solution. Both options will be connected so they can exchange invoices even if they use different platforms.

The public solution has been available since October 2025, it is free for all obligated parties and functions as a safety net for freelancers and micro-SMEs, although it only covers the minimum functions and does not integrate accounting or project management.

The two options are interconnected. A company using Holded can invoice a freelancer using the AEAT portal, and vice versa. Interconnection between private platforms is free by law, and all electronic invoice recipients are required to publish their entry point.

Invoice statuses and reporting deadlines

Until now, what happened with an invoice after issuing it was between you and your client. With the new system, each invoice leaves a trail: the recipient must report what they do with it. There are two mandatory notifications:

• Acceptance or rejection of the invoice, with its date. It's the usual commercial agreement (that the work was satisfactory, that the amount matches), only now it's recorded.
• Full payment, with the actual date.

And three optional ones, which you can report if you wish: partial acceptances or rejections, advance payments, and the assignment of the invoice to a third party for collection, something common if you work with factoring.

The deadline is 4 calendar days, excluding Saturdays, Sundays, and national holidays, and full payment must always be reported to the AEAT public solution.

Preservation and access to invoices

For four years from issuance, the recipient of an electronic invoice can request a copy at no additional cost: this is established by Law 18/2022. It's not enough to issue correctly; you must also be able to locate and re-deliver any invoice from the last four years.

Measures against delinquency and list of delinquent companies

The law doesn't stop at digitalization. To hit those who pay late in the wallet, it articulates four specific mechanisms:

Mandatory reporting of invoice statuses. Each recipient must report whether they accept or reject the invoice and when they actually pay it, within four calendar days. This mechanism turns delinquency into measurable and consultable data.

Ban on access to certain public subsidies for companies that fail to meet the payment deadlines established by delinquency regulations. Law 18/2022 amended the General Subsidies Law to introduce specific requirements in this area.

State Observatory of Private Delinquency, which publishes an annual report and a public list of delinquent companies. To be included in the list, at least three conditions must be met:

• As of December 31 of the previous year, the total amount of unpaid invoices exceeds 600,000 euros.
• The percentage of invoices paid within the legal deadline over the total payments to suppliers is less than 90%.
• They are legal entities that cannot present an abbreviated profit and loss account.

The underlying idea is simple: if all invoices are reported and statuses are consultable, it becomes much more costly (in reputation, access to aid, and public contracts) to continue paying your suppliers late.

Other measures of the Crea y Crece Law

Electronic invoicing is the most talked-about part, but the Crea y Crece Law touches on two other moments in a business's life: when you set it up and when you seek funding to grow.

Can I create a company with 1 euro?

Yes, since October 2022. Forming a limited liability company no longer requires the 3,000 euros of capital that the previous law demanded: 1 euro is enough. Public limited companies remain the same, with their minimum of 60,000 euros. You must meet two additional conditions:

• Reinforced legal reserve. You must allocate at least 20% of each year's profits to the legal reserve until reaching 3,000 euros.
• Shareholder liability. If the company is liquidated and the assets are insufficient to pay creditors, the shareholders are jointly liable for the shortfall up to those 3,000 euros.

The law also promotes online incorporation through CIRCE (Information and Business Creation Network Center) and Entrepreneur Service Points (PAE), with shorter specific deadlines.

Alternative financing: crowdfunding and venture capital

The Crea y Crece Law not only digitalizes invoicing: it also strengthens alternative financing routes to traditional banking for SMEs and entrepreneurial projects.

On one hand, it updates the regime of participatory financing platforms (crowdfunding) and aligns it with Regulation (EU) 2020/1503. With this change, authorized platforms obtain a "European passport" that allows them to operate throughout the European Union, and a general fundraising limit per project of 5 million euros is set.

On the other hand, the law makes the venture capital regime more flexible (modifying Law 22/2014) to expand the types of companies and projects in which these entities can invest, reinforcing it as a source of financing for SME growth.

What are the penalties for non-compliance with the Crea y Crece Law?

The specific penalty is a warning or a fine of up to 10,000 euros. It is covered by Article 2 bis of Law 56/2007, which Law 18/2022 amended, and punishes two behaviors: not offering electronic invoices to those entitled to receive them and not providing access to invoices to those who are no longer clients.

Aside from the fine, there are consequences that usually hurt more: being excluded from certain public subsidies for failing to meet payment deadlines and appearing on the public list of delinquent companies. Search engines index these lists, so any client or supplier can consult them, and getting off them takes much longer than paying a fine.

How to comply with the Crea y Crece Law step by step?

Adapting is not complicated if you follow a logical order. These are the basic steps to reach your obligation date calmly:

1. Adopt a compatible software that issues in at least one of the valid formats of RD 238/2026 (Facturae, UBL, CII, or EDIFACT) and is connected to SEFE.
2. Ensure that the tool can report invoice statuses (acceptance, rejection, payment) to the AEAT within 4 calendar days.
3. Verify that your provider guarantees free interoperability with other private platforms and that it publishes your electronic invoice entry point.
4. Check the general requirements for invoice preservation and access that apply to you. Law 18/2022 specifically establishes that, for four years from the issuance of electronic invoices, recipients can request copies at no additional cost.
5. Train your team in the new workflows: issuance, reception, validation, and reconciliation of each invoice's statuses.

Holded meets all the requirements: it issues in Facturae and UBL, is ready to connect to SEFE, reports statuses to the AEAT, and complies with Verifactu. It also integrates invoicing with the rest of the business (accounting, projects, inventory, CRM), saving you from having to copy data from one tool to another.