The public treasury of the Canary Islands is experiencing a cooling in the net collection of the Special Tax on Oil Derived Fuels during the start of the economic year. The accumulated revenues until March 2026 stood at 80.7 million euros, a figure that reflects a decline of 4.41% compared to the same quarter of the previous year and a more moderate decrease of 0.60% compared to the balance of 2024. The data breaks the expansionary trend that the tax had consolidated in the previous cycle, although the total volume of funds maintains a positive balance of 4.98% when compared to the first quarter of 2023, a period during which regional economic activity operated under a notably more aggressive regulatory framework for extraordinary refunds.
Seasonal Pressure on March Settlements
The tensions in the treasury balances of the autonomous community were particularly concentrated in the monthly settlements of March. Against a typical income range that recurrently oscillates between 25 and 30 million euros under normal market conditions, the collection for March 2026 fell to 23.4 million euros. This contraction places the monthly performance 11.45% below that recorded in March 2025, deepening the gap to 17.13% when compared with March 2024 and yielding 2.92% compared to the same period in 2023. The behavior responds to a dual technical factor: the decline in gross monthly collection and the outflow of pending refunds to the productive sectors.
The accounting books detail that the gross income for March declined by 3.40% in relation to 2025 and by 2.85% when compared to 2024. The true catalyst for the net decline lies in the volume of refunds executed by the regional tax administration during the settlement period. The outflow of cash destined for refunds rose by 42.24% in the year-on-year comparison with 2025 and recorded an increase of 122.77% against the levels of March 2024, a liquidity drain that intensified the negative differential and which was already preceded by a 6.41% decline in the collection of March 2025 compared to the same month in 2024.
The Impact of Historical Series Homogenization
The evaluation of the real performance of the tax requires purging the historical record of regulatory distortions inherited from the energy crisis of 2022. The government order that raised the partial refund of the levy to 99.9% of the quota for farmers and transporters, in effect between March 2022 and December 2023, altered the traditional comparative bases. By applying the accounting homogenization adjustment to isolate the impact of this subsidy, the net collection accumulated until March 2026 shows a real decrease of 0.96% compared to the first quarter of 2023. Monthly analysis under this homogeneous criterion expands the decline in March to 7.49% compared to the income level three years ago.
Sectoral Fragmentation of Industrial Diesel
The structural modifications to the tax architecture introduced by the General Budget Law of the Canary Islands continue to reconfigure the sectoral revenue map. The segregation of the wholesale market through section 2.2, specifically designed for fuels used in industry, solidified a lower taxation of 90 euros per unit, a significant reduction compared to the 222 euros levied on fuels for general use. This tax gap of 132 euros encourages consumption in the Canary Islands’ manufacturing and industrial fabric, but simultaneously limits the capacity for recovery of overall revenue in an environment of lower dynamism in wholesale distribution.
The entry into force of the new aid compatibility regime starting in February 2025 adds an element of certainty for the demand of the primary and logistics sectors. Economic operators on the islands can simultaneously absorb the extraordinary discount on the retail sale price of refining and the partial refund of the special tax, from which transporters benefit. As it operates as a special tax that levies the liters of fuel delivered in the wholesale phase and not the final monetary value of the product, the collection of the fuel tax remains shielded from the effects of inflation, linking the fiscal success of the tax exclusively to the physical volume of refining mobilized by the logistics operators of the archipelago.
