Invoice requirements by country

How to read this page

Each table lists what the tax authority’s own guidance or the law says an invoice must show. The In Billpad column says whether the generator has a field for it: In the editor means a dedicated field or setting, Partly means you type it into a free-text field such as your details or the notes, and Not a field means the generator can’t show it the way the rule asks. Every row links to the official source and says when we last checked it. Where we could not find an official source, we left the item out rather than guess.

Jump to: United States · United Kingdom · European Union · Canada · Australia · India

General information, not legal or tax advice. These are the general rules for a standard sale. Special schemes, simplified invoices, e-invoicing mandates and sector rules add to them, and rules change. Use the links to check the current text, or ask an accountant.

United States

There is no national invoice format. The IRS asks you to keep records that clearly show income and expenses, and lists invoices among the documents that support them. Sales tax is set by states and localities, not by a federal invoice rule, so what an invoice must show about tax depends on the state. The three states below are examples we could confirm; check your own state’s revenue department.

Open a US invoice with sales tax per line

United Kingdom (VAT invoice)

Only VAT-registered businesses issue VAT invoices. You must give one when you make a standard- or reduced-rated supply to another VAT-registered business, normally within 30 days of the supply. A full VAT invoice shows the items below (HMRC VAT Notice 700/21, sections 3.1 and 4.1).

A simplified invoice is allowed when the charge is £250 or less including VAT: your name, address and VAT number, the time of supply, a description, and for each rate the VAT-inclusive total and the rate (section 4.5). Retailers need not give a VAT invoice to customers who are not VAT-registered unless asked (section 4.4).

Open a UK VAT invoice

European Union (VAT invoice)

The VAT Directive sets one EU-wide list of what a VAT invoice must contain (Article 226). Member states add their own rules in some areas, such as time limits and e-invoicing, so also check the country where you are registered; the European Commission’s invoicing page links to each country’s rules.

Member states must accept a simplified invoice for amounts up to €100 and for some other cases (Article 220a): the date, the supplier, the type of goods or services and the VAT or the information to work it out (Article 226b). Amounts may be in any currency, but the VAT payable must also be expressed in the member state’s national currency (Article 230), and member states may not require invoices to be signed (Article 229).

Open an EU VAT invoice

Canada (GST/HST)

Canada sets what a business customer needs on your invoice to claim back the GST/HST it paid (an input tax credit). The more the sale is worth, the more must be shown. The thresholds below are the CRA’s current ones.

Your GST/HST number is 15 characters: the 9-digit business number, “RT” and a 4-digit account number, for example 123456789 RT 0001 (CRA: RC4022 General Information for GST/HST Registrants).

Open a Canadian GST/HST invoice

Australia (tax invoice)

If you are registered for GST and a customer asks for a tax invoice, you must give one within 28 days, unless the sale was $82.50 or less including GST. A tax invoice must make the seven items below clear; sales of $1,000 or more need one more (ATO).

business.gov.au lists the words “tax invoice” among the details to include, and says businesses not registered for GST must not call their invoices tax invoices (business.gov.au: How to invoice).

Open an Australian tax invoice

India (GST tax invoice)

Rule 46 of the CGST Rules lists what a GST tax invoice must contain. For services, the invoice must be issued within 30 days of the supply (45 days for banks and similar institutions; CBIC: CGST Rules 2017, rule 47 (time limit)). Businesses above the e-invoicing threshold must also report invoices to the e-invoice system and print the QR code it returns; Billpad does not connect to that system.

Billpad charges one tax per line. A single tax such as IGST on an inter-state supply prints correctly. An intra-state supply with CGST and SGST (for example 9% + 9%) cannot be printed as two tax lines on the same items, so state the split in the notes, or use your accounting software for those invoices. Amounts in rupees print with the code INR, and a ₹ sign typed in text makes the PDF an image PDF.

Open an Indian GST invoice (IGST)

What this page does not cover

We did not include rules we could not confirm in an official source on the check date. In particular:

• US states other than Texas, New York and California. Each state publishes its own sales tax rules; we have not checked them all, so look up your state’s department of revenue.
• A federal US rule against sales tax. We cite official sources that sales tax is imposed by states and localities, but did not find an official page that states the federal position in one sentence, so we don’t quote one.
• EU changes under the 2025 VAT in the Digital Age package and each member state’s e-invoicing timetable. Check your national tax authority.
• UK “modified” VAT invoices. HMRC says they show VAT-inclusive values but gives no separate list of contents, so we don’t list one.
• Canadian provincial rules (such as Quebec’s QST) and GST/HST Memorandum 8.4, whose thresholds we could not confirm are current.
• India’s e-invoicing threshold and any HSN-digit changes after Notification 78/2020.

Related guides

• Invoice number formats: how to keep the sequence these rules ask for.
• Payment terms: the due date and terms on the invoice.
• Late payment rules and wording for the UK, the EU and India.
• Deposit invoices, including when VAT is due on a deposit.

Every country table can open the invoice generator with its fields laid out. For goods shipped abroad, the export documents (pro forma and commercial invoice) are on our sister site Quotepad.