European Union
Digital agency services in Spain
A large market with an unusually active data regulator, four co-official languages, and invoicing software rules that catch most foreign suppliers by surprise.
Spain is the fourth-largest economy in the eurozone and considerably more regionally differentiated than outsiders expect. Catalan, Basque and Galician are co-official in their communities, and public-facing work in Barcelona or Bilbao that ignores that reads as careless.
The Spanish data protection authority, the AEPD, is among the most prolific enforcers in Europe by volume of decisions, and it publishes detailed cookie guidance that has repeatedly been revised. It is a market where consent design deserves genuine attention rather than a copied banner.
Spain at a glance
| Legal status | EU member state; eurozone |
| Language | Castilian Spanish; Catalan, Basque, Galician and Valencian co-official regionally |
| Currency | Euro (EUR) |
| Data regulator | Agencia Española de Protección de Datos (AEPD) |
| B2B email | Prior consent required under the LSSI-CE, narrow existing-customer exception |
| Invoicing | Requirements on invoicing software itself; Verifactu regime phasing in |
| Common payment methods | Cards, Bizum, bank transfer |
| Working week | Monday to Friday; August is very slow, and meeting times run later than northern Europe |
The market
The business base is dominated by small and medium enterprises, many with limited internal technology capability, which makes full-service support genuinely valuable rather than a duplication of an internal team. Tourism, agrifood, retail and construction carry disproportionate weight.
Digitalisation funding has been substantial through European recovery instruments, and programmes such as Kit Digital have subsidised SME technology adoption. That has raised baseline expectations and also produced a quantity of hastily built work that now needs replacing properly.
Invoicing is the operational issue that most often surprises foreign suppliers. Spanish rules on certified invoicing software, and the Verifactu regime, impose requirements on the systems that issue invoices — not merely on their format — which affects any custom billing or e-commerce build serving Spanish entities.
What changes here
These are the rules and conventions that alter how we scope, build and price work for Spain. They are the reason a campaign or a system cannot simply be copied across a border.
| Area | What applies in Spain |
|---|---|
| Data protection | The GDPR plus the LOPDGDD, supervised by the Agencia Española de Protección de Datos. The AEPD issues a high volume of decisions and publishes detailed, frequently updated guidance. |
| Cookies and tracking | AEPD cookie guidance requires a genuine reject option with equivalent prominence to accept, and has been revised more than once. Continued browsing has explicitly not counted as consent for several years. |
| Invoicing software | Spanish rules impose requirements on invoicing systems themselves, including record integrity and traceability, with the Verifactu regime phasing in. A custom billing system serving Spanish entities has to be built with these constraints in mind. |
| Email marketing | The LSSI-CE governs commercial electronic communications, requiring prior consent with a narrow existing-customer exception. Enforcement has been active. |
| Language | Castilian Spanish nationally, with Catalan, Basque, Galician and Valencian co-official in their communities. Consumer-facing obligations in some autonomous communities extend to labelling and customer information. |
| Accessibility | The European Accessibility Act is transposed and reaches a broad set of consumer-facing digital services from June 2025, alongside existing public-sector obligations. |
| E-invoicing | B2B electronic invoicing obligations under the Crea y Crece law are phasing in, with timing dependent on implementing regulation and company size. Order-to-invoice integrations should anticipate them. |
| AI | The EU AI Act applies, and Spain established Europe’s first dedicated national AI supervisory agency, AESIA, giving it an unusually developed domestic enforcement structure. |
Not legal advice. This summarises how we scope and build, current to our latest review. Confirm the operative text with qualified counsel in Spain before relying on it.
Language and localisation
Castilian Spanish is the baseline for national reach, and English-only presence is commercially weak outside a narrow international segment. Spanish-language search volume dwarfs English for essentially every commercial query.
Regional languages are a real consideration rather than a courtesy. In Catalonia, the Basque Country, Galicia and the Valencian Community, consumer-facing material in the co-official language signals commitment, and in some contexts carries regulatory expectations.
Latin American Spanish is not a substitute. Vocabulary, register and the use of vosotros differ enough that Spanish readers identify Latin American copy immediately, and it undermines the impression of a local operation.
Where the demand is
Spain is genuinely multi-centred, and the two largest cities have distinct economies rather than one being a smaller copy of the other.
- Madrid
- Capital, corporate headquarters, financial services, insurance and the largest share of the technology sector. Procurement is formal and buyers are larger.
- Barcelona
- Technology, design, tourism and logistics, with a strong startup ecosystem and a substantial international workforce. Catalan-language presence matters commercially.
- Valencia
- Port logistics, agrifood export, ceramics and a fast-growing technology and remote-work community.
- Seville and Málaga
- Andalusian centres with tourism, agrifood and, increasingly around Málaga, a genuine technology cluster attracting international operations.
- Bilbao and San Sebastián
- Basque industry, engineering, energy and machine tools, with a strong cooperative business tradition and Basque-language expectations.
- Zaragoza
- Logistics and automotive manufacturing, central to national distribution because of its position between Madrid and Barcelona.
- Palma and Las Palmas
- Island economies dominated by tourism and hospitality, with distinct seasonality and booking-system requirements.
- A Coruña and Vigo
- Galician manufacturing, fishing, automotive and textiles, including significant international retail businesses.
Sectors that buy this work
- Tourism and hospitality
- Booking systems, seasonality-aware marketing and multilingual customer communication, at genuine scale.
- Agrifood and export
- Producers and cooperatives needing traceability, e-commerce and international market presence.
- Retail and fashion
- A globally significant sector with sophisticated supply chain and e-commerce requirements.
- Industrial manufacturing
- Basque and Catalan engineering and automotive supply, needing automation and system integration.
- Real estate and construction
- Substantial and process-heavy, with clear returns from CRM and document automation.
- Professional services SME
- A large underserved segment where full-service support materially changes commercial capability.
What we are most often asked for in Spain
Website Design & Development
Sites built to convert and to survive — fast, accessible, integrated with your CRM, and maintainable by someone other than us.
Read more →Digital Marketing
The layer above the channels: what the funnel is, which campaigns run, what each is meant to produce, and whether it did.
Read more →CRM & Sales Systems
The system of record for revenue: where leads land, how they are routed, what happens next, and whether anyone can see the truth of the pipeline.
Read more →Search Engine Optimisation
Getting found for the things people actually search — technical foundations first, then structure, then content that deserves the position.
Read more →Business Process Automation
Removing the manual steps between systems — the copying, re-typing, chasing and exporting that consumes hours nobody counts.
Read more →Content Creation & Creative Production
The production line behind everything else — the graphics, video, photography and copy that campaigns, channels and sales teams all consume.
Read more →Typical projects in Spain
Shapes of work we are asked for repeatedly here. They are described as project types, not as case studies — where we publish a client outcome it will be named, dated and with the client's permission.
- Verifactu-compliant billing build
- Custom or integrated invoicing that satisfies Spanish invoicing-software requirements rather than merely producing a compliant-looking PDF.
- Multilingual site with regional languages
- Castilian plus Catalan, Basque or Galician as properly separated locales with correct hreflang, not machine translation on one tree.
- AEPD-aligned consent rebuild
- Reworking cookie consent to current AEPD guidance, then restoring measurement through server-side tracking.
- Tourism booking and channel integration
- Availability, booking and channel manager integration with seasonality reflected in the marketing calendar.
- Replacing a subsidised rush build
- Rebuilding a site or system delivered quickly under a digitalisation grant, properly and maintainably.
- Export e-commerce for a producer
- Cross-border storefront with tax, shipping and multilingual support for agrifood or manufacturing exporters.
Every service, available in Spain
The full offering is delivered into Spain, scoped around the rules above.
- Brand Strategy & Development
- Brand Management
- Social Media Strategy
- Social Media Management
- Content Creation & Creative Production
- Digital Marketing
- Paid Advertising
- Website Design & Development
- Search Engine Optimisation
- Email, SMS & WhatsApp Marketing
- CRM & Sales Systems
- Business Process Automation
- AI Automation Systems
- AI Knowledge Bases & RAG
- AI Voice & Customer Communication
- Lead Generation & Prospecting
- Custom Software & Platforms
- Data Engineering & BI
- Cloud, DevOps & Infrastructure
- Systems Integration
- Digital Transformation Consulting
- Maintenance & Ongoing Support
What foreign suppliers get wrong here
The most expensive surprise is invoicing. Spanish rules impose requirements on the invoicing system itself, not just the document it produces, and a custom billing or e-commerce build discovered to be non-conforming after launch is an expensive retrofit. This belongs in scoping, not in acceptance testing.
The second is using Latin American Spanish. It is a different register with different vocabulary and verb usage, and Spanish readers identify it immediately. It signals that the supplier is serving Spain from somewhere else, which undermines exactly the local credibility the content was meant to build.
The third is ignoring the autonomous communities. Catalan, Basque and Galician are co-official in their regions, and consumer-facing work that treats Spain as linguistically uniform reads as careless in precisely the wealthiest regional markets.
A fourth problem is scheduling. The Spanish working day runs later than northern Europe, meetings at eight in the morning are unusual, and August is close to unusable for decisions. A project plan built on a Nordic calendar will slip.
Finally, suppliers frequently misread the funding landscape. Digitalisation subsidy programmes have supported a great deal of SME technology adoption, which means some prospective clients already have a hastily built site or system in place. The work is frequently replacement rather than first-time build, and pitching it as the latter misses what the client actually needs.
How we work with clients here
We work remotely in the same time zone and commission native Castilian and, where needed, Catalan, Basque or Galician writing. We do not substitute Latin American Spanish for European Spanish.
Contracting is in euros, fixed-price per phase against a written scope. Where a build issues invoices to Spanish entities we will raise the invoicing-software constraints during scoping rather than after delivery.
We do not advise on Verifactu, LSSI-CE or AEPD compliance as a legal matter. We build to the requirements and recommend Spanish advice where the question is legal.
Questions
Do we need Catalan as well as Spanish?
For consumer-facing business in Catalonia it materially helps, and in some contexts consumer information obligations apply in the co-official language. For B2B technology sales the pressure is lower. It is a commercial and compliance question worth answering deliberately rather than by default.
What is Verifactu and does it affect us?
It is part of a Spanish regime imposing integrity and traceability requirements on invoicing systems themselves, phasing in by stages. If your system issues invoices to Spanish entities it is likely relevant, and it needs to be designed in rather than bolted on. Confirm applicability with a Spanish adviser.
Can we use Latin American Spanish content?
We would advise against it for the Spanish market. Vocabulary and register differ enough that Spanish readers notice immediately, and it undercuts the impression of a local presence.
How strict is cookie enforcement in Spain?
The AEPD is among the most active authorities in Europe by volume of decisions and has revised its cookie guidance more than once. A reject option with equivalent prominence to accept is the practical baseline.
Is there funding available for this work?
Programmes such as Kit Digital have subsidised SME digitalisation, with eligibility and availability changing over time. We are not grant advisers and will not claim your project qualifies; check current schemes directly.
What does it cost?
Fixed-price phases in euros against a defined scope, quoted after a discovery call. We do not publish a rate card.
How competitive is Spanish-language search?
Substantially less competitive than English for equivalent commercial intent, and Spain-targeted content also faces less competition than pan-Hispanic content aimed at Latin America. For businesses serving Spain specifically, local-language SEO is among the better returns available.
What is the working rhythm in Spain?
The day runs later than northern Europe, with meetings commonly scheduled from mid-morning into the evening. August is close to unusable for decisions. Neither is an obstacle once it is planned for, and both cause slippage when it is not.
Do we need a Spanish entity?
Usually not for cross-border EU service delivery. It becomes relevant for local hiring, some public procurement and certain invoicing arrangements. We would point you to a Spanish adviser rather than answering it ourselves.
Nearby markets
Working in Spain?
Tell us what you are trying to build or grow. We will tell you what the local constraints mean for scope, and whether we are the right people for it.
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