Background

Austria introduced mandatory e-invoicing for Business-to-Government (B2G) transactions in 2014.

Austria has SAF-T as well, which was introduced in 2009 as per OECD guidelines. It is required on an on-demand basis when the tax authority requests it.

What Types of Businesses Does This Apply to?

In trade in goods and services with federal agencies, all contractual partners of federal agencies or their other authorized persons are obliged to issue and transmit e-invoices.

Federal departments are all federal ministries and their subordinate departments, the parliament, the presidential office, the administrative court, the constitutional court, the ombudsman, and the audit office. The complete list of federal agencies is available.

These regulations apply in principle to all traders from EU Member States in Austria. Foreign contractual partners of federal agencies (i.e., partners who neither operate their company in Austria nor have a permanent establishment in Austria involved in the provision of services) are obliged to issue and transmit e-invoices in accordance with the technical possibilities.

Cash transactions are out of the scope of this obligation.

Governmental Body Responsible for E-invoicing in Austria

Penalties for Not Adhering to Austria’s E-invoice Mandates

There are no special consequences for not adhering to the e-invoicing mandate in Austria; instead, the general rules of Austrian Fiscal Criminal Law may apply. The complexity of these restrictions, however, requires a case-by-case analysis.

What does the e-invoicing process in Austria look like?

1. Registration at the Unternehmensservice Portal (USP).
2. Logging in at the USP and finding the link to e-Rechnung in Meine Services (my services) section.
3. Opening an online form or;
4. Starting to create an e-invoice without using a template.
5. Entering e-invoice data, including the order reference and supplier number.
6. Adding attachments, if needed, validating and submitting the e-invoice.
7. You can save the e-invoice as a template in XML format for future transactions

E-Invoices can also be electronically transmitted via the Peppol eDelivery Network.

Is SAF-T Needed in Austria?

Yes, SAF-T was introduced in Austria in 2009 as per OECD guidelines. It is currently required on an on-demand basis when the tax authority requests it.

The Austrian SAF-T file is structured as follows:

• Header
• Enterprise master files (accounts, suppliers, customers, products, etc.)
• General Ledger Entries
• Inventory Stock Levels
• Source Documents (invoicing, movement of goods, etc.)
• Asset Statement

E-Invoicing & Global Tax Automation with Fonoa

One way to comply with Digital Reporting Requirements in Austria is to use a provider like Fonoa.

With Fonoa you can:

• Have one integration for your global needs, including Austria
• Save time and money by automatically cleaning your data to minimize errors and manual work
• Utilize our validation mechanisms to ensure reporting accuracy, data completeness, full control, and compliance
• Rest assured that transactions are successfully reported or queued for internal investigation with our retry mechanisms
• Get full visibility with our dashboards by filtering criteria, analyzing granular transaction data, and quickly importing /exporting information