eInvoicing in Latvia

Legislation

Public procurement law, Law on the Procurement of Public Service Providers, Defense and Security Procurement Law, Law on Public-Private Partnership and Cabinet regulation No.154 “Applicable Electronic Invoicing Standard and Specification and Procedure for the Use of its Basic Elements". The latter, adopted on 9 April 2019, imposes an obligation that the public contracting authority, public service provider or public partner or its representative shall accept an eInvoice which is prepared and issued in electronic form and complies with the Directive 2014/55/EU mentioned standard of electronic invoicing.

The Law on Official Electronic Address prescribes mandatory use of electronic address account for governmental institutions, registered legal entities and reserve soldiers gradually throughout late 2018 and 2019, transition period ending January 2020.

The institutions of direct administration shall accept an eInvoice starting from 18 April 2019, but the other contracting authorities and public service providers shall do so starting from 18 April 2020.

eInvoicing platform and management solutions

The eInvoices Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) Project Latvia, which has been implemented from February 2019 to March 2020, has achieved its objective to develop an eInvoicing solution for Latvia being compliant with the provision of Directive 2014/55/EU, in particular, the European standard on eInvoicing (EN16931), including its both syntaxes OASIS UBL 2.1 and UN/CEFACT CII.

The eInvoicing solution is based on the existing Latvian national Secure Electronic Delivery Platform (eAddress). eAddress is an environment for electronic communication and handling of documents for secure and reliable use between public entities and private individuals and its use by the public administration in Latvia is mandated by law.

The end-users for this project are private solution providers and public entities using eAddress for submission of eInvoices. More than 10,000 companies in Latvia use the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solution “Jumis"[1], as well as end-users of other business management and ERP solutions. They will integrate a Public eInvoicing API library to enable eInvoice transmission via eAddress.

The achievement of the CEF Project has enabled the development and deployment of the following components of the eInvoicing solution:

• eInvoicing integration in eAddress allowing for the secure transmission of eInvoices;
• eInvoicing section in www.latvija.gov.lv for preparation (manual completion of online form), display, submission (file upload in XML syntax) and receipt of eInvoices in eAddress;
• Public eInvoicing API library to ensure eInvoice transmission between different accounting systems. This will be demonstrated through Implementation of Public eInvoicing API library within ERP solution – Tildes Jumis;
• Connection with Peppol network with the view of setting-up interoperability and connectivity between Latvia and other EU Member States. The Action used an existing Peppol Access Point AS4 profile by a Peppol service provider for the setup of the Peppol gateway.

Approach for receiving and processing

The public contracting authorities can receive eInvoice through e-mail, using service provider solutions sold on the market or through developed central platform eAddress.

Through authentication on www.latvija.gov.lv portal, citizens and entrepreneurs can access their eAddress mailbox. In case of an eAddress, the users will need an eID card, eParaksts or eParaksts Mobile (a mobile app to be identified without an eID card but just as securely) to prove identities.

No electronic signature is required for eInvoices and the archiving period amounts to 5 years for goods and services, and 10 years for real-estate related invoices[2]. 

eInvoicing implementation in sub-central level contracting authorities 

B2G eInvoicing is mandatory for central and sub-central/local authorities for all contracting authorities starting from April 2020.

Through authentication on www.latvija.gov.lv portal, citizens and entrepreneurs can access their eAddress mailbox. In case of an eAddress, the users will need an eID card, eParaksts or eParaksts Mobile (a mobile app to be identified without an eID card but just as securely) to prove identities. Authentication is also available through Eidas, which gives non-residents the opportunity to authenticate on the www.latvija.gov.lv portal as well as access the e-address. /https://vpm.viss.gov.lv/LVP.STS/Account/Login?ReturnUrl=%2FLVP.STS%2Fwsfed%2Fcallback%3FauthzId%3DA170258C8C3320F820F1D1D694AE3BDE96C23444C4224FB8BB217005A0180A05&ui-culture=lv/

eInvoicing implementation in sub-central level contracting authorities 

B2G eInvoicing is mandatory for central and sub-central/local authorities for all contracting authorities starting from April 2020.

In Latvia, a centralised government integration platform (ePakalpojumi.lv) is operated by State Regional Development Agency under the supervision of the Ministry of Regional Development and Environment Protection as the main government body for information technology matters.

When providing goods and services to municipalities, economic operators can submit eInvoices through individual municipality websites via the municipality portal[3].

The authorisation and submission process are the same whether one uses the central eGovernment platform or the websites of municipalities.

The use of the e-address will be mandatory for legal entities from 2023, but its use will still be a free choice for citizens (eAddress)[4].

Status on the implementation of the European Standard on eInvoicing (EN)

The European standard on eInvoicing is implemented through public procurement and accounting legislation and has been transposed in a national standard status.

Monitoring eInvoicing implementation 

In the Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI) 2022, 15% of enterprises use big data and eInvoices. However, Latvia is ranked 11^th in the EU for Digital public services; with 84% of e-government users, the country by far exceeds the EU average of 65%. Latvia performs well in the availability of digital public services.

Use of Core Invoicing Usage Specifications (CIUS) at national level

In Latvia, there is no national or ad-hoc CIUS in use. All B2G eInvoices respect the Pan-European Public Procurement On-Line (Peppol) BIS Billing 3.0.

Additional information

In the National Development Plan of Latvia for 2021-2027, it is highlighted that Latvia has a high level of public digital services, although there are some shortcomings in terms of quality and open data availability.

Latvia aims at introducing the "digital by default” principle to provide citizens with convenient and timely access to public services because electronic services and solutions are cost-effective and more flexible than face-to-face services. The indicator for this measure will be Latvia’s ranking in the DESI.

Digital reporting requirements

Latvia has introduced the obligation to electronically submit an appendix to the VAT return with detailed transactional data (referred to as National Recapitulative Statement) as of January 2011.

Before its introduction, there was no other reporting requirement in place.

Reporting entities

• The obligation to submit the National Recapitulative Statement applies to all taxable person registered in Latvia for VAT, including non-resident businesses.

Scope of requirements

• All transactions regardless of their value (i.e. there is no threshold). However, transactions below EUR 150 must be reported in an aggregated way.
• B2B and B2G.
• Sales and purchases.
• Domestic transactions and Intra-EU acquisitions.

Reporting frequency

• The reporting frequency is monthly or quarterly (i.e. the frequency of the VAT return).

Reporting information (Semantic)

• Information must be reported on a transaction-by-transaction basis, with the exception of transactions below EUR 150, which must be reported in an aggregated way (the threshold, previously set at EUR 1 430, was lowered since 2018).
• Invoice information to be submitted include the following: o Invoice date o Invoice number o Type of transaction o Taxable amount o VAT amount payable o Trading partner name o Trading partner VAT number Reporting format (Syntax) and embedded system
• Data must be submitted using the PDF format, through the Electronic Declaration System[5]

On October 12, 2021, Latvia announced that it plans to start requiring e-invoicing in accordance with the PEPPOL standard effective 2025 for B2B and B2G transactions. The requirement is intended to ensure convenient and uniform preparation and storage of documents, enabling a faster and more secure flow of information between taxpayers, as well as simultaneous transfer of data to the tax authority[6].

[1] Former “Tildes Jumis”, until the acquisition of Jumis Pro Visma Latvia in October 2020, [2] (Compliance updates – Latvia, 2023), [3] (LIKTA, Latvian Information and Communications Technology Association, 2018), [4] (Krieviņa, 2020), [5] VAT in the Digital Age Report (2022), [6] Latvian Ministry of Finance (2021)

Last updated:  Jul 13, 2023 12:49