In the last few years, XBRL has become a reality in Spain. Since 2004, the year the national mandate was established, more than thirty known taxonomies have been created and are being used, and there are about 2,000,000 instances of XBRL available on the web. From the very beginning, leading authorities have enabled the creation of one of the largest collections of financial information in XBRL in Europe. These authorities include the Spanish Securities Commission, the Bank of Spain, the National Accounting and Auditing Institute (ICAC, of the Ministry of Finance and Public Administrations), the Registrars Association of Spain, and the Ministry of Justice, as well as private entities.

Credit entities periodically send their individual and consolidated public and confidential financial statements to the Bank of Spain, their regulating body. The Bank of Spain is a founding member of XBRL Spain and one of its biggest supporters. Financial statements sent to the Bank of Spain include European reporting frameworks, the Basel II solvency framework (COREP), Financial Reporting (FINREP), and ECB Statistics. Other entities that report XBRL information to the Bank of Spain are currency exchange facilities, mutual guarantee companies, and appraisal companies. Spanish companies also voluntarily send accounting information to the Central Balance Sheet Data Office of the Bank of Spain.

In July 2005, the Spanish securities regulator, the CNMV (Comisión Nacional del Mercado de Valores), made XBRL reporting mandatory for listed companies. More recently, in 2009, the CNMV extended the XBRL mandate to include investment firms, mutual funds, and securitization processes. Currently, the CNMV receives more than 30,000 XBRL reports annually. These reports are submitted by listed companies, investment firms, mutual fund managers, and securitization fund management companies.

In the government area, the Ministry of Finance and Public Administrations, through the National Accounting and Auditing Institute, has developed two XBRL taxonomies. PGC2007 (Spanish GAAP 2007) is the one generally used; it is the basis for all the annual financial statements that Spanish companies are mandated to deposit to the Business Register. NOFCAC2010 is used by those non-listed groups that are required to report their annual financial statements to the Business Register according to the Preparation of Consolidated Financial Statements. The Ministry of Justice has established compulsory XBRL submission of all digital annual financial statements to the Business Register, resulting in more than 700,000 annual accounts per year since 2008, and all these submissions are available to the public on the web.

Since 2007, the General Secretariat for Regional and Local Coordination has received XBRL reports with budget implementation data for municipalities and local authorities (LENLOC), and in 2009 it started receiving budget preparations (PENLOC).

Also in the Ministry of Finance and Public Administrations, the General State Comptroller promotes the use of three XBRL taxonomies:

·                     · CONTALOC to report the annual financial statements of municipalities, local authorities, and their affiliated organizations to external control organizations;

·                     · CONTAEP; and

·                     · CONTAEPA to report the annual accounts and other information to the Spanish Court of Audit.

In addition, the Ministry of Finance and Public Administrations requires annual financial statements in XBRL format through the Directory of Contractors with the government.

Other XBRL initiatives also exist, such as the electronic reporting of general data identification (GDI) from economic agents, both entities and individuals; this initiative is sponsored by the Association of Registrars. Another initiative is the reporting information on Corporate Social Responsibility, sponsored by the Spanish Association of Accounting and Business Administration.

The use of XBRL in regulatory filings is very broad.  The main reason for this is that around 74% of Spanish companies use XBRL to report their annual financial statements to the Business Register. Nevertheless, only a few companies use XBRL for internal reporting, and those that do are usually business information companies. On the other hand, government entities use XBRL widely; the Bank of Spain, the Spanish Securities Commission, the Business Register, and the Ministry of Finance and Public Administrations all integrate XBRL into their regulation and supervision processes.

Considering all the actions already taken and the initiatives currently under development, it is evident that XBRL will play an important role in the technological revolution that will influence the future accounting and financial environments, both in the scope of government and private entities, regardless of their size.