Spain’s 2026 Financial Shake-up : Banks Must Report Cards, Accounts, Loans And Mobile Payments To Hacienda

Huge changes are coming to Spain’s financial oversight strategy successful 2026, and they will impact anyone pinch a slope account, a in installments paper aliases moreover a mobile costs app. The Spanish Tax Agency (AEAT) has officially confirmed that banks, paper issuers and financial operators will beryllium required to study acold much information, pursuing nan support of Royal Decree 253/2025.

If you thought Hacienda already knew a lot, 2026 will return things to a caller level.

A caller era of financial transparency originates successful 2026

The Ministry of Finance, led by María Jesús Montero, announced nan reforms successful its charismatic note, “Modificaciones en materia de obligaciones de información”, published connected April 2 2025. The extremity is clear: tackle taxation fraud and forestall money laundering by tightening really transactions are monitored.

Until now, reporting obligations focused mostly connected modular slope accounts. But nan updated rules grow surveillance to cards, digital wallets, loans, rate movements and mobile-linked payments, each nether clear ineligible thresholds.

The biggest alteration is recovered successful nan recently updated Article 38 ter, which requires banks and financial providers to record an yearly study connected each paper transactions – credit, debit, deferred debit, prepaid aliases integer money – ‘in immoderate currency’, arsenic nan legal text states.

But location is simply a cutoff: Only cards exceeding €25,000 successful full yearly movements (charges aliases deposits) must beryllium reported.

Below that threshold, thing changes. Above it, each specifications spell consecutive to Hacienda.

What gets reported?

The regularisation lays it retired bluntly:
– Contract number
– Full personality of nan cardholder
– Type of card
– PAN (card number)
– Total yearly charges
– Total yearly deposits
– Linked relationship (IBAN)

In different words, authorities won’t spot individual purchases, but they will cognize really overmuch moved done that paper – and who owns it.

Not conscionable cards: Account balances, loans and mobile payments besides participate nan radar

This is wherever galore residents person misunderstood nan reform. The caller decree doesn’t only target cards. It besides updates Articles 37, 38 and 38 bis, widening nan scope dramatically.

Full reporting connected slope accounts

Under nan updated Article 37, banks will person to provide:
– Identity of each relationship holder
– Account status
– Balance arsenic of 31 December
– Average equilibrium for nan past quarter
– Total charges and full deposits passim nan year

This is, by far, nan astir important description of regular financial reporting successful years.

Loans, credits and rate movements

Updated Article 38 includes mandatory reporting of:
– All loans and credits
– Any important rate movements

For residents who move money regularly betwixt accounts aliases trust connected individual loans, this intends nan information will now beryllium centralised and visible to taxation authorities.

Mobile payments now treated for illustration paper transactions

Finally, Article 38 bis brings mobile-number-based payments—Bizum being nan astir communal – into nan reporting framework.

For anyone utilizing mobile payments daily, this intends your wide yearly activity (not each individual payment) whitethorn beryllium reported if it crosses nan mixed thresholds.

Why Hacienda says this is necessary

The ministry argues that Spain’s emergence successful physics transactions, contactless services and integer wallets has made existing rules outdated. Without updated thresholds and a broader scope, ample flows could move undetected.

Officials insist nan purpose is not to show mini consumers, but to track:
– unusually precocious volumes,
– suspicious transaction cycles,
– and imaginable money laundering pathways.

For mundane residents, thing changes unless your wide yearly movements surpass nan €25,000 threshold  –  and moreover then, it’s conscionable bulk totals, not itemised spending.

What it intends for residents and expats successful Spain

For astir people, nan changes won’t beryllium noticeable. But for those who regularly:
– usage respective cards,
– trust connected Bizum for high-value business payments,
– displacement savings betwixt accounts,
– aliases support precocious balances crossed aggregate banks…

…2026 will bring overmuch stricter oversight.

Financial advisers are already recommending that clients way their yearly totals cautiously to debar surprises erstwhile banks statesman forwarding this caller group of data.

The changes won’t bring caller taxes, but they adjacent accusation gaps that antecedently made it easier for irregularities to gaffe through.

A much transparent – and much monitored – Financial landscape

Spain is aligning itself pinch EU-wide financial transparency trends. From 2026 onwards, your slope will enactment arsenic a afloat reporting agent. Transactions, relationship balances and movements will beryllium summarised and sent automatically to Hacienda each year.

For anyone living successful Spain, this intends less grey areas, less loopholes – and a batch much clarity connected what nan Tax Agency tin see.