CIF

Charles Davis Nov 5, 2016:

@Sheila Not just in the Canaries; on the mainland most people are unaware of the change and still refer to the CIF. The number/code itself is not defunct and did not change in 2008; it just changed its name and became called the NIF for companies as well as individuals. For practical purposes there was no change, and it really doesn't matter.

Sheila Wilson Nov 5, 2016:

Certainly not strictly a VAT number I didn't know they were defunct. CIF is certainly something we still see all the time here in the Canary Islands. I believe every company has/had one (not the self-employed), including Canaries companies, and we are outside the scope of the EU-wide VAT here.

Charles Davis Nov 5, 2016:

Correct... Though not just VAT; it's used for all tax purposes in Spain and indeed has to be quoted in a whole range of non-tax-related contexts too.
It does indeed stand for Código de Identificación Fiscal, which literally means Tax Identification Code. There is also NIF (Número de Identificación Fiscal: Tax Identification Number) and NIE (Número de Identificación de Extranjeros: Foreigners' Identification Number).

The term "CIF" is actually obsolete; it was abolished in 2008. It was only for legal persons (companies, organisations). It used to be that legal persons had a CIF and physical persons (individuals) had a NIF. Now, officially, both have a NIF, though people very commonly continue to refer to the CIF for companies and organisations. The CIF was a letter plus seven digits; the NIF is eight digits plus a control letter. The NIE is the equivalent for foreign individuals resident in Spain (such as myself) and has a letter (X or Y) plus seven digits plus a control letter.

lorenab23 Nov 5, 2016:

Hi Muhammad This is actually a Spanish acronym: Código de identificación fiscal which corresponds to VAT identification number
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VAT_identification_number