The average payment delay for Spanish businesses remains above 14 days

The average payment delay for Spanish businesses reached 14.17 days in Q3 2026, slightly below the previous quarter, according to the Spanish Business Payment Behaviour Study published by INFORMA. It therefore remains above 14 days, a figure it had fallen below in the last quarter of 2025, although it has narrowed slightly, by 0.13 days, compared with a year ago.

Nathalie Gianese, Director of Research at Informa D&B, states: “Although in the third quarter the average payment delay for Spanish businesses narrowed slightly, it remains above 14 days, as was the case for most of last year”. The delays recorded represent a direct cost to Spain’s business fabric of nearly €3.1 billion.

Informa D&B has carried out its study on payment habits based on invoices totalling €18.617 billion. Of the total, 34% corresponds to on-time payments, 62% to payments within 30 days and nearly 1.5% to payments delayed by more than 60 days.

The proportion of on-time payments this quarter, 41.51%, fell both quarter over quarter, by 1.75 percentage points, and year over year, by 4.08 pp. Payments made more than 60 days late accounted for 5.23%, down 0.43 pp compared with the same period a year earlier.

Extractive Industries is the sector with the sharpest reduction in payment delays

Hospitality is the sector with the longest delays in payments against agreed terms in Q3 2026, at 23.89 days late. Public Administration follows with a 22.92-day delay, with Energy and Agriculture behind at 18.80 and 18.53 respectively.

Four sectors have an average delay below the overall figure: Construction and Real Estate Activities, with a 13.36-day delay, Trade, 12.05 days, Extractive Industries, 11.24 days, and Manufacturing, 10.28 days. Comparing payment terms between the Hospitality and Manufacturing sectors, the gap is 13.61 days. Extractive Industries reduced its delay by more than two days over a year, while Energy added 2.68 days.

Navarre, Basque Country and La Rioja are the regions with the lowest delays

Compared with the same period a year earlier, the average payment delay increased in six regions: Asturias, Canary Islands, Cantabria, Castile-La Mancha, Galicia and Madrid. The most significant declines were recorded in Ceuta, Murcia and Balearic Islands, with 5.71, 1.23 and 1.18 fewer days in each case. In Q3, Melilla was the region with the highest average delay, at 23.56 days, followed by Canary Islands, with 23.16, and Balearic Islands, with 18.81 days.

In Navarre and Basque Country the delay is below 10 days, at 9.77 and 9.99 respectively. For La Rioja the average is 10.15 days, in Ceuta 10.43, and in Asturias it reaches 10.75 days.

In Q3, although no region exceeded 50% of payments made on time, Navarre was the region with the highest on-time percentage, at 49% of the total, followed by Basque Country and Castile and León. Conversely, Canary Islands posted the lowest percentage, at 25.5%, and was the only region below 30%. Madrid reached just over 36%, while the rest of the regions stood between 40% and 49%.

The percentage of on-time payments among large corporations stands at 14%

A total of 46% of payments by micro-enterprises and 43.5% by small businesses were on time, compared with 29% for medium-sized businesses and 14% for large corporations in Q3 2026. Although most payments by medium-sized and large businesses were made with a delay of up to 30 days, at 66% and 81% respectively, compared with 43% and 50.5% for micro-enterprises and small businesses.

With delays of more than 60 days, micro-enterprises reached 7.5%, small businesses 4%, medium-sized businesses 3% and large corporations just over 2.5%.

Small businesses recorded the lowest average delay, at 11.87 days, 0.03 days below the same quarter in 2025. For medium-sized businesses it reached 12.62 days, 0.13 days higher. For large corporations the delay came to 14.00 days, down 0.27 days year over year, while micro-enterprises had the highest delay, at 16.79 days, 0.07 days less than a year ago.