AIEM tax
The Arbitrio sobre Importaciones y Entregas de Mercancías en las Islas Canarias (AIEM) is a tax on imports and deliveries of goods in the Canary Islands.
In principle, the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union does not permit differences in taxation between local products and products imported from Spain or the other EU countries.
However, the specific nature of the outermost regions, one of which is the Canary Islands, is laid down in Article 349 of the Treaty, which permits specific measures to be taken, particularly in the tax field, to take account of the particularities and constraints of these regions.
Local manufacturers in the Canary Islands contend with constraints caused primarily by their remoteness. This has the effect of pushing up cost prices of their products, thereby making them uncompetitive with products from elsewhere (especially mainland Spain and other EU countries).
This justifies the implementation of a specific measure, which, by means of tax exemptions or reductions for local products, serves to:
- encourage productive industrial activity,
- safeguard their competitiveness with outside products, and
- thus increase the proportion of the Canaries' GDP accounted for by industrial activity.
Spanish authorities are authorised to apply total exemptions or reductions of the local AIEM tax in respect of a limited list of locally manufactured products specified in the annex to Decision (EU) 2020/1792 until 31 December 2027.
This decision permits the application, subject to the authorised limits, of tax differentials between local products and products from outside the Canaries.
Legal texts
Decision (EU) 2020/1792 of 16 November 2020 on the AIEM tax applicable in the Canary Islands