Egypt – Extension of mandatory B2B e-invoicing

Implementation of mandatory B2B e-invoicing in Egypt began in November 2020, when the Ministry of Finance issued first resolution mandating 134 companies to comply with e-invoicing requirements. Second phase covered additional group of 347 companies as of February, 15th 2021. Currently Egyptian Authorities extends e-invoicing to cover all large businesses from July 2021. At the same time taxpayers doing business with public sector entities will be required, regardless of their size, to issue e-invoices in such transactions. Recently the Ministry of Finance announced, that from January 2022 businesses will no longer be able to process VAT refunds or deduction based on a paper invoice – mandating electronic invoicing for all Egyptian taxpayers.

E-invoicing system in Egypt is similar to the Italian clearance model, which requires every invoice to be reported and approved by the tax authority before its delivery to the final recipient. Tax registrants must be able to generate e-invoices in XML or JSON format and electronically sign them using HSM or USB token. Furthermore each invoice contains dedicated UUID number, required in case of amending documents e.g. credit or debit notes, which is assigned by the Egyptian Tax Authority (ETA). Once approved a notification will be sent to the issuer and recipient who ,after integration with Egyptian system, are able to download the e-invoices and securely archive the data in case of any tax audit.

ETA brags about implementation of e-invoicing system, as an important step to achieve development strategy called Egypt Vision 2030, which among the others assumes digital transformation of Egyptian tax system.

اخبار مصلحة الضرائب المصرية (incometax.gov.eg)

وزارة المالية - جمهورية مصر العربية (mof.gov.eg)