eInvoicing in Lithuania

Legislation

According to the Law on Public Procurement of the Republic of Lithuania, (Lietuvos Respublikos Viešųjų pirkimų įstatymas) which was revised on 2 May 2017 and entered into force on 1 July 2017, electronic submitting, receiving and processing of B2G invoices is mandatory in public procurement for central, regional and local contracting authorities and entities. The national law does not fix the use of any specific eInvoicing standard in public procurement but requires using national eInvoicing portal eSaskaita, which is a Peppol Access Point aligned with the European standard on eInvoicing (EN) since 2019.

To implement the EU Directive 2014/55/EU, the Law on Public Procurement was validated by the Government on 10 June 2019. According to the law, economic operators can use any service provider for submitting eInvoices which comply with the EN. Contracting authorities and contracting entities will receive and process electronic invoices through national eInvoicing portal eSaskaita.

The 2015 Resolution No. 654 of the Government of the Republic of Lithuania “On VAT invoices, invoices, credit and debit document using the information system eSaskaita” recommends the usage of eInvoicing in the context of B2B transactions. 

On November 9, 2022, the Ministry of the Economy and Innovation of Lithuania issued a statement calling for the development of a technological solution to enable e-invoices to be sent, received, and processed on a large scale in accordance with the European standard for e-invoices. The developer winning the project should be able to have it implemented by September 1, 2023 and ensure its maintenance for 2 years after the end of the project. The development of this IT invoicing solution will be fully paid for by the Lithuanian government, and the developer should provide it free of charge to businesses during the next 5 years. 

eInvoicing platform and management solutions

According to the Law on Public Procurement, it is mandatory for economic operators and public contracting authorities to carry out the B2G eInvoicing in public procurement electronically.
Lithuania has a centralised approach to the submission and processing of eInvoices whereby all invoices are submitted and processed through the eSaskaita eInvoicing portal, following a UBL v2.1 standard. The Lithuanian Ministry of Finance is responsible for the eInvoicing platform. The Lithuanian Centre of Registers operates the platform as a third-party service provider.

The eSaskaita portal, operational since 2015, enables the preparation and submission of eInvoices to public contracting authorities and to promptly receive information on the payment of a submitted eInvoice. There are two ways to submit eInvoices via the portal:

• Economic operators can submit eInvoices by via eSaskaita following a necessary registration to the website;
• If an economic operator issues or receives a large number of invoices, it is recommended to establish an interface between the eSaskaita portal and the economic operator’s financial management and accounting information system.

Approach for receiving and processing

Since April 2019, Lithuania is part of the Peppol network and supports the standard adopted by the Peppol network: Peppol UBL a variant of XML that has become a common and interoperable standard, the key to the development of cross-border digital Procurement.

Lithuania made B2G eInvoicing mandatory in July 2017. Peppol BIS Billing 3.0 is adopted although the previously used national XML-based format is also still accepted.

The Lithuanian public platform eSaskaita. which works as a central hub for eInvoice sending and reception, is connected to the Peppol network. In addition, electronic signature is required for B2G eInvoices, and the archiving period amounts to 10 years[1].

eInvoicing implementation in sub-central level contracting authorities 

No difference is made between central and sub-central contracting authorities. From 8 April 2019, all suppliers to public contracting authorities are obliged to issue only EN-compliant eInvoices namely Peppol BIS Billing 3.0[2].

The eSaskaita is a central information intermediary that performs the service of receiving and sending eInvoicing and accompanying documents between suppliers and public contracting authorities in Lithuania. The suppliers are able to submit their invoices in three ways:

• Manually, by keying in the invoice information in an online portal,
• By uploading files in XML syntax, which requires that the economic operator’s accounting system is suitable for storing eInvoices in this language, and
• By submitting eInvoices via a Peppol-certified Access Point using AS4 communication protocol.

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

The project eInvoicing cross-border Lithuania (implemented between September 2017 and June 2019), partially financed by Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) and monitored by the Innovation and Networks Executive Agency (INEA), enabled Lithuania to establish a national four-corner model infrastructure and to fully comply with the eInvoicing Directive. 

The eInvoicing implementation and conformity to the European standard in the public sector is mandatory since 2017. This obligation applies to public entities at all levels, below and above the threshold stated in the Directive. The Lithuanian eInvoicing portal was adapted to enable the reception and processing of EN-compliant eInvoices. 

Monitoring eInvoicing implementation 

eInvoicing is mandatory by law, but there is no information about a potential systematic monitoring approach[3].

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

There is no national eInvoicing CIUS implemented or foreseen in Lithuania.

Additional information 

In addition to eInvoicing initiatives, Lithuania has also developed electronic tax compliance.

This project is framed within the smart tax administration system called i.MAS and consists of 3 subsystems:

• VAZ: Monthly report of consignment notes and other goods transport documents issued.
• SAF: Monthly report of information on invoices issued and received
• SAFT: Electronic tax audit file that must be presented during the audit upon demand from the tax authority[4].

Furthermore, the State Treasury Department of the Ministry of Finance of the Republic of Lithuania can electronically receive all relevant information on the eInvoices submitted to the contracting authorities through the eSaskaita platform. Additionally, the Public Procurement Office and the Central Purchasing Organisation receive information electronically about the execution of procurement contracts and the submission and payment of the eInvoice[5].

Digital reporting requirements 

Lithuania introduced the obligation to submit transactional data through i.SAF, the reporting system for issued and received invoices, which entered into force in October 2016. The obligation to submit i.SAF applies to all taxable persons which are registered for VAT in Lithuania, including non-resident businesses, with the exception of non-resident VAT-registered non-taxable persons that are registered only because of intra-Community acquisitions and do not carry out any other economic activity in the country. In addition, there is no limit to the amount of the invoices: all invoices must be communicated. The i.SAF file is declared electronically with a monthly reporting frequency, with the exclusion of natural persons whose tax period is six months, which are obliged to submit i.SAF twice a year (i.e. by the 20 July for the period of January-June and by the 20 January for the period of July-December). It is an electronic file that is sent via a WebService channel to the Lithuanian tax authority. i.SAF is a SAF-T component of a larger system, called i.MAS. The frequency of the obligation is aligned with the VAT return, i.e. monthly and biannual (for natural persons). The scope of the Digital Reporting Requirements includes all transactions (no value threshold; sales and purchases; B2B, B2G and B2C; domestic, intra-EU and extra-EU transactions). Data must be submitted using the XML format, through direct entry into the tax authority’s portal, by uploading the XML file or through a web service.

[1] (Compliance updates – Lithuania, 2023), [2] (Pagero, 2019), [3] See the Lithuanian Law on Public Procurement, [4] (Edicom, 2019), [5] (Ministry of Finance of the Republic of Lithuania, 2017)

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Last updated:  Oct 23, 2023 17:44