Portugal to introduce e-invoice serial numbers from January 2021

1 September 2020

From January 2021, the Portuguese tax office has confirmed that specific serial numbers issued by them will need to be shown on all taxpayers’ sales invoices, including VAT registered non-resident businesses.

To obtain a serial number, taxpayers will need to notify the tax office in advance of issuing sales invoices by providing them with certain information relating to the invoice itself (this includes the invoice number, description of the goods, and date of issue). The tax office will then verify this information and provide the registered business with an eight-digit validation code that will need to be shown on the invoice before it is sent to the customer.

This measure is being introduced to verify that VAT treatment on transactions in the country are correct, and to make sure that VAT is charged and remitted to the tax office correctly.