Slovakia launches new e-invoicing system – “Informačný Systém Elektronickej Fakturácie (IS EFA)

The Slovak Republic’s Ministry of Finance is implementing a central national electronic invoicing system to allow businesses to send e-invoices in a structured data format to the tax authority. This is primarily to meet the new European Union (EU) obligation to introduce electronic invoicing for B2G supplies but will also be scaled for B2B use in the future. The IS EFA and the invoice data sent to the tax authority is seen as an essential part of the measures to fight tax fraud, streamline tax collection and reduce the tax gap. It has just been reported that in 2019, the VAT Gap in Slovakia was EUR 1.31 billion (16.1%).

This will be rolled out in a phased approach, with a pilot / testing phase of a prototype of the IS EFA and OpenAPI service, a go-live date of January 2022 for B2G and full B2B/B2C from January 2023. During the testing phase businesses will be able to test the connection and operation and share any questions, observations or suggestions for improvement with the authority. 

Pilot - public test of the IS EFA prototype and OpenAPI service  

Electronic invoicing go-live for B2G, G2G and G2B 

Planned electronic invoicing go-live for B2B, B2C and G2C.  

Slovakian businesses will be able to connect to the IS EFA either via their own commercial certified ERP and accounting systems or through an OpenAPI webservice that has been developed. However, non-resident businesses will need to instead send and receive invoice to and from the Slovakian public administrations via a dedicated email address. The Slovakian Government will ignore the title and body of emails and only read the attachment which will either be verified and added to the system manually or they will be rejected, with the foreign business receiving a confirmation or rejection email 

Slovakia joins a growing list of countries which have introduced e-invoicing, or will do in the near future, including Italy, Hungary, Poland, Vietnam and Saudi Arabia. As a result, businesses trading across territories are starting to think strategically rather than tactically and seeking to implement an e-invoicing solution that is scalable across countries and regions rather than purchase multiple individual local solutions as and when new mandates appear. 

Find out more about Avalara’s e-invoicing solution.