KSA e-Invoicing: Mandatory Fields in a Standard e-Invoice

A standard electronic invoice (standard e-invoice) is an invoice issued for Business-to-Business (B2B) and Business-to-Government (B2G) transactions. Standard e-invoices shall be shared by the sellers to the buyers in a notified format. This standard e-Invoice is mandatory for claiming input VAT deduction by the buyers. Standard e-invoice is now mandatory from 4th December 2021.

Types of fields in a standard e-invoice

A standard e-invoice has three types of fields-mandatory, conditional and optional. 

1. Mandatory: The taxpayer or business must include this in the standard e-invoice compulsorily and related Credit or Debit Notes (CDN).
2. Conditional: This field must be included in the standard e-invoice and related CDN if certain conditions are satisfied. The field can be excluded if the conditions are not satisfied.
3. Optional: This field is not obligatory to be included within the standard e-invoice and related CDN.

List of mandatory fields in a standard e-invoice 

The standard e-invoice and related CDN must contain all the mandatory fields of the tax invoice as specified in article 53(5) of VAT Implementing Regulation. Mandatory fields in addition to other technical fields shall be generated by the e-invoicing solution. The following are the mandatory fields that are required to be present in a standard e-Invoice with the implementation of Phase I of e-Invoicing beginning from 4th December 2021:-

• Invoice Type Description – ‘Tax Invoice’ 
• Invoice Reference Number (IRN) which is a unique sequential note number issued by a taxpayer
• Invoice issue date 
• Invoice issue time
• Seller’s name 
• Seller’s address (which must be in Saudi Arabia)
• Buyer’s Name
• Buyer’s Address 
• Goods or Service Description 
• Unit Price 
• Quantity 
• VAT amount 
• Invoice Gross Total (inclusive of VAT) 

List of conditional fields in a standard e-Invoice

Conditional fields to be present in a standard e-Invoice are as follows:-

• Special billing fields in case of 
  • Self-billed Invoice (only allowed where both parties are VAT registered), or
  • Third-party billed invoice (issued on behalf of the supplier)
• Special transaction fields, in case of 
  • Nominal Supply, or
  • Export, or
  • Summary
• Supply date (if it is different from the invoice issue date)
• VAT registration number of the seller (if group VAT registration number is mentioned, then it is optional)
• Group VAT registration number of the seller, if group VAT exists
• VAT registration number of the buyer. This field is not required for exports or if a sale is made to end consumers.
• Group VAT registration number of the buyer. If group VAT exists, then this field should be filled out. This field is not required for exports or if a sale is made to end consumers.
• Discount or rebate amount, if the discount is provided at a line-item level
• VAT Rate, if the goods/services are not out of Scope or exempt from VAT
• Discount or rebate amount, if the discount is provided at the invoice level
• Where Tax is not charged at the standard rate, this field should include the words – “Tax treatment applied to the supply”

List of optional fields in a standard e-Invoice

Taxpayers need not fill any optional fields during the first phase of KSA e-invoicing.