Saudi Arabia e-invoicing 4 Dec 2021

The Saudi Arabian General Authority of Zakat & Tax (GAZT) has issued regulations to mandate electronic invoicing from 2021. This covers the issuance, storage and adjustments of e-invoices. The draft Saudi Arabia e-invoice bylaw had been published on 17 September 2020, and launched a public consultation.

Features will include:

• Mandated for all resident VAT registered businesses
• Excludes non-resident businesses with a Saudi VAT numbers
• Credits and debit notes must be provided electronically too
• Includes cross-border transactions (export sales) and other zero-rated supplies
• Tax payers must adopt technical solutions which are secure for the production, saving and issuance of e-invoices
• Paper, PDF or scanned invoices sent be email or similar electronic means will not constitute and e-invoice
• These are linked via the internet to the state and external services via an Application Programming Interface (API)
• The connection should be fool proof and includes a mechanism that allows detection of any tampering that may occur by the user or any other party 
• Clarification is still pending on the legal status of an invoice, and whether the GAZT must first issue clearance to the vendor before the invoice becomes valid. Or if it will be GAZT that forwards the approved invoice to the customer
• No details are yet available on the timing or frequency of issuing and submitting e-invoices to GAZT
• Further details on the specifications of the system and details of e-invoice issuance will be published in by 2 June 2021.

Saudi Arabia is looking at copying the success of the Italian SdI, with a preclearance model. This is also applied in different models in South America.