---
title: "SPV (Special Purpose Vehicle)"
url: "https://www.unknowngravity.com/en/glosario/spv-vehiculo-de-proposito-especial"
site: Unknown Gravity
published: "2026-09-21T11:55:11+00:00"
modified: "2026-09-21T11:55:14+00:00"
language: en-US
description: "An SPV (special purpose vehicle) is a company created for one thing only: to hold a specific asset — a building, a project, a portfolio — isolated from the rest of the business."
section: "Home > SPV (Special Purpose Vehicle)"
---

# SPV (Special Purpose Vehicle)

GLOSSARY · BLOCKCHAIN & WEB3

What an SPV or special purpose vehicle is: the company that isolates an asset and its risks, and why almost every serious tokenization has one behind it.

WHAT IS IT? · FOR DUMMIES

An **SPV** (special purpose vehicle) is a company created for one thing only: to hold a specific asset — a building, a project, a portfolio — isolated from the rest of the business. If the sponsor goes bankrupt, the SPV's asset does not fall with it. Almost every serious tokenization has an SPV behind it: what gets tokenized are the rights over the vehicle, not the raw asset.

WHAT IS IT? · PRO

In tokenization the SPV performs the isolation function that the [fideicomiso](/en/glosario/fideicomiso) (trust) performs in Latin America: separating assets, ring-fencing risks and giving the investor a legally clean right — shares, units, bonds or loans of the vehicle — that can be represented in tokens. The corporate form matters: in Spain, the units of a limited company (SL) cannot be transferable securities, so tokenized equity requires a public limited company (SA) or a debt structure, as we explain in [tokenizing company shares](/en/articulos/tokenizacion-de-participaciones-empresa).

The SPV design — jurisdiction, form, tax, governance — is decided in the structuring phase of any [asset tokenization](/en/servicios/tokenizacion-activos): it is layer 1, not paperwork.

## 01 / Key points

- Company created to isolate an asset and its risks
- The rights over the vehicle are tokenized, not the asset directly
- The corporate form conditions what can be tokenized (SL vs SA in Spain)
- Functional equivalent of the Latin American fideicomiso

## 02 / Advantages

- Risk isolation: the asset survives the sponsor
- Clean, divisible rights for the investor
- Structural flexibility (equity or debt)

## 03 / Disadvantages

- Incorporation and administration costs
- Badly designed, it shifts risks instead of isolating them
- The vehicle's tax treatment can eat the return

This entry is informative. It is not legal, tax or investment advice. The rules cited change: check the current version on [BOE](https://www.boe.es) and [EUR-Lex](https://eur-lex.europa.eu).