Back in March we got a call from an online spare-parts retailer in Alicante. The owner read us, word for word, the email his accountant had sent him: «from 2027 your invoices have to come out of an approved system». Then he asked the question everybody asks: «does this mean I have to change my shop?».
No. It doesn’t mean that. But it doesn’t mean you can sit still either. Verifactu for PrestaShop and WooCommerce changes one very specific thing in your business: how the sales invoice is generated. Not the catalogue, not the theme, not the cart. The invoice.
The trouble is that this specific thing is poorly covered in most stores today. The invoice module that ships with your PrestaShop produces a perfectly good-looking PDF, commercially correct — but it does not produce a chained invoicing record, it does not send anything to the Spanish tax agency, and there is no manufacturer’s declaration of conformity behind it. That is precisely what the law requires.
Quick answer: If your store issues its own sales invoices, you need a Verifactu module. Mandatory from 1 January 2027 for companies and 1 July 2027 for the self-employed. Your checkout does not change.
What the law actually says (and from when)
The framework is Royal Decree 1007/2023, technically developed by Order HAC/1177/2024. It sets out the requirements any «invoicing software system» must meet: integrity, traceability, retention and immutability of the invoicing records.
The dates were pushed back in December 2025 and these are the current ones, with no alternative versions floating around: taxpayers subject to Corporate Income Tax are bound from 1 January 2027, and everyone else — self-employed under personal income tax, permanent establishments of non-residents and income-attribution entities — from 1 July 2027 (Royal Decree-law 15/2025, published in the Spanish Official Gazette on 3 December 2025).
Two warnings that prevent most of the nasty surprises. First: if the software you use is not compliant, the penalty can reach €50,000 per financial year for the user of the system, not just for whoever built it (article 201 bis of the Spanish General Tax Act). Second: the Basque Country runs TicketBAI and Navarre has its own regional regime, so if you invoice from there the timetable and the system are different ones.
Why your store counts as an «invoicing system» (even if it doesn’t feel like one)
This is the most expensive misunderstanding out there. Plenty of retailers assume the obligation sits with their accountant because «they do the books». It doesn’t work that way: the law looks at the system that issues the invoice. If the PDF comes out of your PrestaShop or your WooCommerce, your store is the invoicing system — and your accountant cannot fix that a month later.
In practice, every sales invoice has to generate, at the moment it is issued:
- A chained invoicing record, linked to the previous one by a hash, so that any later alteration is detectable.
- A QR code printed on the PDF alongside the VERI*FACTU wording, letting the customer verify the invoice on the tax agency’s website.
- Real-time submission of the record to the tax agency, if you operate in VERI*FACTU mode.
- A declaration of conformity from the software manufacturer certifying that the system meets the regulation.
What changes in your online store, and what doesn’t
The reassuring part first. Nothing changes in your checkout, your theme, your payment gateways, your prices or any single step of the customer experience. Someone buying from you on 2 January 2027 will notice absolutely no difference from 30 December.
What does change is what happens underneath when an order is confirmed: the invoice is signed, recorded and submitted. And the PDF changes, because it now carries its QR code.
There is one technical detail worth demanding from any module you evaluate, because it separates solid engineering from improvisation: signing must never block the sale. If the signing service stops responding for thirty seconds, the sale has to go through anyway and the invoice must be retried afterwards. A module that takes your checkout down when an external API fails will cost you far more than it saves.
Refunds are in scope too. A refund is not documented by deleting the original invoice — that is exactly what the regulation exists to prevent — but by issuing a corrective invoice under its own series, which is itself a record subject to Verifactu. If the module doesn’t automate this, somebody on your team will be doing it by hand every single time.
Checklist: 5 questions before choosing a Verifactu module
- Does it block the checkout if signing fails? The right answer is no: sale first, retry afterwards.
- Does it handle its own invoice series? You need the store’s series kept separate from the rest of the business.
- Does it generate corrective invoices automatically on refunds? If not, the time saved evaporates into manual work.
- Whose declaration of conformity is it? There must be an identifiable manufacturer standing behind the software. Ask to see it.
- What happens if I invoice from the Basque Country or Navarre? Verifactu doesn’t apply there, and a serious vendor will tell you so before selling you anything.
We built FactuSign against exactly that list: it is the Verifactu module for PrestaShop and WooCommerce from the Softnet group (Alicante), built on a signing provider registered as an authorised collaborator with the Spanish tax agency. If you would rather study the rules before the product, the full detail is in our Verifactu guide, the dates by taxpayer type in who must comply and when, and the step-by-step workings in the manual.
When does it make sense to move?
If you are a company, your real deadline isn’t January 2027 — it’s the last quarter of 2026, because you need room to test in a sandbox, review your invoice series and confirm that corrective invoices come out right. Installing the module the week before is asking for trouble at the worst time of year.
If you are self-employed, you get six extra months, but the logic is identical: move when you close a quiet quarter, not when the deadline expires.
And if you are in the middle of a platform migration or a redesign, take advantage of it: wiring in compliant invoicing while you are already inside the system costs a fraction of doing it as a separate project. It is the same reasoning we apply to automating invoice processing or to integrating AI with your ERP and accounting software: you build on the infrastructure you already have instead of replacing everything. It is also worth checking whether any government support schemes are available at the time you take it on.
Frequently asked questions
Does my PrestaShop store have to comply with Verifactu?
If you issue sales invoices from it, yes. The obligation attaches to the system that issues the invoice, not to the platform you happen to use. If your invoices are issued by your ERP or your accountant from a different program, and the store only produces order confirmations, then that other program is the system in scope.
Will the invoice module I already use do the job?
Almost certainly not. Standard invoicing modules generate a PDF, but they do not chain records with a hash, print the verification QR, submit anything to the tax agency, or come with a manufacturer’s declaration of conformity. Ask your developer directly whether their module declares compliance with Royal Decree 1007/2023.
What about refunds and partial refunds?
They are documented with a corrective invoice, under its own series and with its corresponding record. A partial refund generates a corrective invoice for the amount returned. What you cannot do is void or edit the original invoice without leaving a trace.
From exactly when does this apply to me?
From 1 January 2027 if you are subject to Corporate Income Tax, and from 1 July 2027 in every other case, including the self-employed. These dates were set by Royal Decree-law 15/2025 and supersede any earlier timetable you may have read.
Is Verifactu the same as mandatory B2B e-invoicing?
No — they are two separate rules with independent timetables. Verifactu governs how invoices are generated and recorded; B2B e-invoicing under the Crea y Crece Act governs the structured format in which businesses exchange them. Complying with one does not exempt you from the other.
| Requirement | Standard invoice module | Verifactu module |
|---|---|---|
| Chained record with hash | No | Yes |
| VERI*FACTU QR code on the PDF | No | Yes |
| Record submitted to the tax agency | No | Yes |
| Automatic corrective invoice on refunds | No | Yes |
| Manufacturer’s declaration of conformity | No | Yes |
Contact us and we’ll analyse your case for free →
About the author
Jose A. Parra
CEO & Founder of AIPROCESSIA — 30 years as IT consultant for Spanish SMBs.
For three decades I’ve been deploying ERP systems, integrations and — since 2023 — AI agents, RPA and OCR in real-world flows for invoicing, maintenance and customer service. My focus: automate 5 key processes for under €100/month and give back 20-40 hours per week to the team — no one gets replaced.
Certified Generative AI Expert · UDIA · 2026.