Spain: No RTVE tax for streamers until 2023
December 2, 2021
From David Del Valle in Madrid
Streaming platforms in Spain will be exempted from paying the 0.9 per cent RTVE tax until 2023 as the Administration has put the amendment on hold for one year. Instead, traditional pay-TV players – such as Movistar, Vodafone and Orange – will have to pay up to €128 million in 2022 to finance the public broadcaster. The obligation was introduced in 2009 to finance the public broadcaster which is banned from hosting commercials. The news is a setback to the traditional operators who had high expectations of the elimination of the tax, as announced by the government in May. Telco operators have rallied against the decision at a time when they are facing huge investments in 5G and optic fiber networks and are seeing their revenues fall and approving redundancy plans – the latest being Telefonica’s, affecting almost 2,000 workers.