1. Introduction: Single Electronic Document (Documento Único Electrónico – DUE)
In 2003, the company type known as the New Enterprise Limited Liability Company was created in Spain. In conjunction with said new legal form, the Single Electronic Document (DUE) emerged in the field of business law (Royal Decree 682/2003, of 7th June).
Said DUE was originally destined to allow new entrepreneurs to create a New Enterprise Limited Liability Company by telematics means, saving on expenses, paper and time.
Over time, the use of the DUE has extended to other legal forms: in 2006, DUE was adapted for Limited Liabilities; in 2010, for individual entrepreneurs; and since 2013, its use is also allowed for the creation of cooperative societies, civil societies, communities of jointly-held property, Limited Liability Companies for Workers, etc.
2. Procedures with the DUE
With the DUE, citizens may carry out, among others, the following proceedings,:
1) Application for the official company name.
2) Application for the provisional and definitive NIF (Taxpayer Identification Number) of the company.
3) Self-assessment of Tax on capital transfers and documented legal acts.
4) Submit the census declaration for the start of activity.
5) Formalize the work accident and occupational illness cover and benefits for temporary disability, arising from the common contingencies of the company workers.
6) Register the entrepreneur and the employer’s contribution account number in the Social Security.
7) Register vessels and other floating crafts.
8) Submit the affiliation and the registration of employees in the Social Security.
9) Submit the registration for Business Activity Tax, for census purposes.
3. Recent Developments
Until now, the DUE was set up as a document for electronically processing company start-ups. Now, after the new Royal Decree 867/2015 of 2nd of October, the DUE has taken on the function of also enabling the carrying out of procedures for the cessation of the activities of individual entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs with limited liability, as well as the cessation of activities and extinction of limited liability companies.
The enabled new procedures include the following:
a) Registration of the dissolution, liquidation and extinction of companies, the appointment of liquidators, the closing of branches and, in general, the cancellation of any other entries on the Companies Registry.
b) Communication of the extinction of the company or the definitive cessation of its activity and/or the termination of the employees at their service to the Provincial Directorate of the National Social Security Treasury.
c) Declaration of the cessation of the activity and the removal from the Register of Entrepreneurs and Professionals and the declaration of deregistration from the Business Activities Tax.
d) Communication of the removal from the sectorial registers of the state, autonomous and municipal authorities, upon which the company or its facilities might have been registered.
e) Communication of the cessation of activities to the state, autonomous and municipals authorities, where necessary.
f) In the case of limited liability entrepreneurs, the request for cancelling the registrations that may be necessary on the Companies Registry, the Property Registry and any other registry upon which properties, exempt from seizure for corporate or professional debts, might have been registered.
g) Removal of vessels or any other floating crafts.
The Royal Decree 867/2015 implements the provisions of the Third Additional Regulation of the Spanish Capital Companies Act, as it was drafted on the occasion of the approval of Act 14/2013, of 27th September, to support entrepreneurs and their internationalisation.
Vilá Abogados
For more information, please contact
30th October 2015
