VAT and invoicing of a transfer with a driver: the tax rate, full or simplified invoice and what to ask for as a company

What VAT rate does a transfer with a driver carry?

The VAT Act lists passenger and luggage transport among the operations at the reduced rate, without distinguishing the means: taxi, bus, train, boat, domestic flights and, of course, chauffeured vehicle hire when what is provided is transport. It is the same reduced rate applied to hospitality or a museum ticket, and it is well below the general rate most professional services bear. That is why the invoice of a transfer shows a taxable base and a VAT amount at the reduced rate, and the total matches the fixed price seen when booking.

There is a nuance that matters to companies: what is invoiced is the transport, with everything that forms part of it. A toll the route crosses and the service pays, waiting agreed at the pickup point, a child seat or an intermediate stop are not separate services at another rate but components of the same transport, and go into the same taxable base at the same reduced rate. What the passenger pays for themselves during the trip — a ticket, a car park — is another matter and is not on the transfer invoice.

Full or simplified invoice?

The invoicing regulation allows a simplified invoice — what everyone calls a receipt — in passenger transport, and that is what a private individual receives by default: date, number, identification of the provider, description, VAT rate and total. What the simplified invoice lacks is the customer's identification, which is why it does not allow a company to deduct VAT: deduction requires a full invoice, with the recipient's name or company name, tax number and address, plus the taxable base and VAT amount itemised.

The practical thing is to ask for the full invoice when booking, not after the trip: with the tax details in the booking, the invoice comes out in the right name from the first service and no receipt has to be corrected. A private individual can ask for it too — to justify an expense to their employer or an insurer, for instance — and the platform issues it just the same. The deadline for requesting a full invoice instead of a simplified one is set by the regulation, but in practice a platform that keeps every recorded service can issue it whenever asked.

How does a company deduct a transfer's expense and VAT?

To deduct the expense in corporation tax or a self-employed person's income tax, the transfer must be related to the business — an employee's trip to a meeting, collecting a client at the station, moving staff to a shift — and be justified with an invoice. To deduct VAT, in addition, the invoice must be a full one in the company's name and the expense allocated to the business. Employees' journeys in the course of their work are deductible as a matter of course; those the company pays as hospitality for clients fall under the category of client entertainment, with the limits the law sets for it.

What makes life easy for the finance department is traceability: each service with its date, trip, who travelled and why, and one invoice a month instead of thirty loose receipts from thirty different drivers. That is the point of the business account: services are ordered with a reference — the project, the cost centre, the employee's name — and the monthly invoice groups them with that breakdown, ready to book. The guide to the business account and the monthly invoice, on the area's site, explains how to open one and how to order.

What about invoices for a hotel, an agency or a partner?

When a hotel, a travel agency or a company orders transfers for its clients, there are two ways to invoice and it is worth choosing at the start. First: the service is invoiced to the end customer — the guest, the traveller — and the partner only arranges it; that is usual when the passenger pays themselves. Second: the service is invoiced to the partner, who includes it in their own invoice to the customer or absorbs it as a cost; that is usual for a hotel that offers the transfer within its rate or an agency selling a package. In this second case the partner deducts the VAT on the transfer invoice and charges its own to the end customer.

Travel agencies also have a special VAT scheme for packages combining transport and accommodation, in which the tax is calculated on the margin rather than the total price; that is a matter for their tax adviser, but it is worth knowing it exists so that the transfer invoice arrives with the details that scheme needs. The partners' portal explains both ways of working and how each is set up in the account.

What should whoever receives the invoice check?

That it is issued by whoever provides the service or contracts it on their behalf, with their tax number; that the recipient's details are the company's and not those of the employee who travelled; that the description identifies the service — date, trip, reference —; that the taxable base, the reduced rate and the VAT amount are itemised; and that the total matches the accepted fixed price. An electronic PDF invoice with those details is as valid as a paper one, and with the spread of electronic invoicing between companies in Spain it is the format to expect.

If something does not add up — a wrong name, an old tax number, a service that did not happen — the invoice is corrected with a corrective invoice, not by rewriting the original: that is what the regulation requires and what avoids problems in an inspection. And to avoid getting there, the simplest thing remains the first point: give the tax details when booking, or open a business account so they are always right.

Frequently asked questions

Sources

• Ley 37/1992 del Impuesto sobre el Valor Añadido, artículo 91.Uno.2: transportes de viajeros y sus equipajes (consulted on 27 October 2026)
• Real Decreto 1619/2012, Reglamento por el que se regulan las obligaciones de facturación: factura completa y simplificada (consulted on 27 October 2026)
• Agencia Tributaria · deducción del IVA soportado y requisitos de las facturas (consulted on 27 October 2026)