The Joint Commission urges the Government to reform the minimum vital income

The Joint Commission for Relations with the Court of Auditors approved a resolution on June 9, 2026, urging the Government and the Ministry of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration to reform the management of the minimum vital income (IMV), adapt its income to the situation of each autonomous community, and approve implementing regulations before December 31, 2026. The agreement is published in the Official State Gazette (Boletín Oficial del Estado) no. 248, of October 6, 2026, section III, page 131520, with the reference BOE-A-2026-20791, and responds to the Audit Report of the IMV for the 2022 and 2023 fiscal years.

The audit report was approved by the Plenary of the Court of Auditors in its session on June 26, 2025 (report no. 1,626) and submitted to the General Courts (Cortes Generales) and the National Government. Its subjective scope covers the National Social Security Institute (INSS), the General Secretariat for Inclusion (SGI) of the Ministry of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration (MISSM), and the General Comptroller of Social Security (IGSS).

The IMV is a non-contributory Social Security benefit created by Royal Decree-Law 20/2020, of May 29, and regulated by Law 19/2021, of December 20. Payments amounted to 3.286,34 billion euros in 2023 and 8.086,32 billion accumulated from 2020 until December 31, 2023, with 727,060 paid applications and 1,595,221 inadmissible or denied applications during that period.

Insufficient coverage and unequal incomes by territory

The Court notes that the income guaranteed by the IMV in 2023 only covered the severe poverty threshold in single-parent households consisting of one adult and two minors; in others, the coverage rates were 92.61% (one adult), 80.25% (two adults), and 83.79% (two adults and two minors). In 2024, only 20.78% of households in a situation of severe poverty received the benefit, and there were 538,325 households without income in Spain.

Compared to the 831,723 potentially eligible households foreseen in the Regulatory Impact Analysis Report, only 331,236 received the benefit in 2023, representing 39.83%, which places the non take-up at around 60.17% (500,487 households). As of December 31, 2023, 658,828 households and 1,899,639 beneficiaries had obtained the IMV.

Resolution deadlines, debt, and IT application

• The average resolution time for applications processed by A-IMV in 2023 was 154 days; 42.67% exceeded the legal maximum of six months, and files resolved past the deadline took an average of 245 days.
• The outstanding debt from undue payments reached 74.61 million euros as of December 31, 2023, a 93.24% increase over the 38.61 million from the previous year, with delays of nearly two years in the issuance of claims.
• The INSS simultaneously used several applications (A-IMV CIUDADANOS, A-IMV CAISS, and the PF-PROS@ environment) to manage the same benefit.

Requests to the Ministry and the INSS

The resolution urges the MISSM to orient the benefit to cover the severe poverty threshold throughout the territory, adapt the income by autonomous community, modify the required documentation, reduce admission and resolution deadlines, manage debt claims in a timely and proper manner, and publish complete statistics by year, autonomous community, and province. It also requires it to prepare, before December 31, 2026, a list of application files—processed, resolved as compliant or non-compliant—with their amounts, and a implementing regulation for Law 19/2021 that addresses the cost of access to housing. Additionally, it asks the Government and the Ministry to suppress subsidies, aid, agreements, and contracts with NGOs or other entities that participate in the promotion or sustainment of illegal immigration.

It demands that the INSS improve the A-IMV application so that it integrates all application submission channels and resolves files autonomously, expedite the issuance of debt claims, and bring forward the annual maintenance review for all granted benefits. The text is signed by the First Vice President, Álvaro Pérez López, and the First Secretary, Salvador de Foronda Vaquero.

The resolution directly affects IMV recipients and Social Security: it sets December 31, 2026, as the deadline for the regulation and the inventory of files, and conditions the improvement of benefit coverage on more agile management, earlier control of undue payments, and an income adapted to the reality of each territory.

Source: Official State Gazette, no. 248, of October 6, 2026, section III, page 131520 (official reference: BOE-A-2026-20791).