Last Friday, December 17, 2021, Order ICT/1408/2021, dated December 14, 2021, was published in the Official State Gazette, amending Article 47 of the Order of May 28, 2001 of the Ministry of Economy.

Let us recall that the Order of May 28, 2001 of the Ministry of Economy, with obvious statistical purposes, in its article 47 established the procedures for the declarations to be made by the holders of the investment (tax residents in Spain) in negotiable securities in which the deposit or securities account is opened in a non-resident entity or when these are in the custody of their holder. This article required an annual declaration of the situation as of December 31 of each year with respect to such securities (better known as “stock declaration”). It also included another obligation to declare those operations related to such securities whenever the investor’s participation in a company is equal or higher than ten percent before or after the operation or, when not reaching such percentage, allows the investor to be part of its administrative body or if the investment exceeds 1,501,530.27 euros (better known as “declaration of flows”).

Well, in this sense, the referred Order ICT/1408/2021 has recognized that the number of Forms D-6 filed since 2002 remained at low levels, assumable with the available resources and involving a minor administrative burden on the citizen; but that in recent years there has been an exponential increase, reaching 54,000 documents filed during the fiscal year 2021, most with little statistical value because the profile of the filers were small investors (mainly individuals).

Therefore, as of December 18, 2021, only those investments in both flow and stock transactions will only have to be declared when the investor’s participation in a company is equal to or greater than 10% of the capital.

With a bit of nostalgia and, legally speaking, we say goodbye to this Form D-6 of the 2022 calendar for most Spanish tax residents; although, from Ventura Garcés we will continue to accompany those who are required to file it.

The truth is that this is good news for small Spanish investors because the government has thus reduced the burden of filing foreign investment declarations.