What is e-invoice? Regulations on reference number of an e-invoice in Vietnam

What is e-invoice? Regulations on reference number of an e-invoice in Vietnam (Internet image)

Regarding this issue, LawNet would like to answer as follows:

1. What is e-invoice?

E-invoice means an invoice, with or without the tax authority’s authentication code, in the form of electronic data, issued by the goods seller or service provider by using electronic instruments to record information on the sale of goods or service provision in accordance with regulations of the Law on accounting and the Law on taxation, including the invoices generated by POS cash registers that are digitally connected to tax authorities. To be specific:

- Authenticated e-invoice means an e-invoice that is granted an authentication code by the tax authority before it is sent to the buyer by the goods seller or service provider.

The authentication code on an e-invoice is a unique serial number generated by the tax authority’s system and a series of characters encoded by the tax authority based on the information specified by the seller on the invoice.

- Unauthenticated e-invoice means an e-invoice that is sent to the buyer by the goods seller or service provider without the tax authority’s authentication code.

(Clause 2, Article 3 of Decree 123/2020/ND-CP)

2. Regulations on reference number of an e-invoice in Vietnam

Reference number of an e-invoice contains 6 characters, including letters and numbers, indicating whether the invoice bears the tax authority’s identification code or not, year of issuance, and type of e-invoice. 6 characters are as follows:

- The first character: C if the invoice bears a tax authority’s authentication code; K if the invoice does not bear a tax authority’s authentication code;

- The next two characters are the last two digits of the year in which the e-invoice is issued, written in Arabic numerals. Example: 22 if the e-invoice is issued in 2022; 23 if the e-invoice is issued in 2023;

- The next character is either T, D, L, M, N, B, G or H depending on the type of e-invoice. To be specific:

+ T: E-invoices registered with tax authorities by enterprises, organizations or household businesses;

+ D: E-invoices used for sale of public property or national reserve goods or special e-invoices that do not have some mandatory contents of the “T” invoices;

+ L: E-invoices issued separately by tax authorities;

+ M: E-invoices generated by cash registers;

+ N: Electronic delivery and internal consignment notes;

+ B: Electronic delivery notes for goods sent to sales agents;

+ G: VAT invoices in the form of electronic stamps, tickets or cards;

+ H: Sales invoices in the form of electronic stamps, tickets or cards.

- The last two characters shall be decided by the seller to serve their management requirements. If the seller uses different forms of the same type of e-invoice, the last two characters shall be used to differentiate such e-invoice forms. If the seller does not decide the last two characters, YY shall be specified;

- The reference number and form number of an e-invoice shall be written on the upper right corner of the invoice (or a noticeable position);

- Examples:

+ “1C22TAA” - an authenticated VAT invoice issued in 2022 and registered with the tax authority;

+ “2C22TBB” - an authenticated sales invoice issued in 2022 and registered with the tax authority;

+ “1C23LBB” - an authenticated VAT invoice issued in 2023 and issued separately by the tax authority;

+ “1K23TYY” - an unauthenticated VAT invoice issued in 2023 and registered with the tax authority;

+ “1K22DAA” - an unauthenticated VAT invoice issued in 2022 and does not have some mandatory content of those registered with the tax authority;

+ “6K22NAB” - an unauthenticated delivery and internal consignment note issued in 2022 and registered with the tax authority;

+ “6K22BAB” - an unauthenticated delivery note for goods sent to sales agents issued in 2022 and registered with the tax authority.

(Point b, Clause 1, Article 4 of Circular 78/2021/TT-BTC)

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