Hungary (2020 eInvoicing Country Sheet)

Legislation

According to section 174 of the Act CXXVII of 2007 on Value Added Tax, an invoice may be printed on paper or issued electronically.

Section 175 of the aforementioned Act lays down the rules related to electronic invoicing (eInvoicing). According to this section, contracting authorities should accept eInvoices if the authenticity of the origin of the eInvoice and the integrity of its content are guaranteed.

Economic operators can ensure these requirements by using an electronic signature (1) and time stamps (2) or by making eInvoices available through Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) systems.

On 1 July 2018, the Hungarian real-time invoice reporting obligation came into force (Act LXXXIII of 2018 amending Act CXLIII of 2015 on public procurement) for domestic eInvoices.  The new obligation requires any taxpayer to register for VAT purposes in Hungary (issuing an invoice with a VAT amount greater than or equal to HUF 100,000) to report the eInvoice data immediately and without human intervention to the Hungarian tax authority. The new live reporting scheme replaces the existing domestic sales ledger listing, which is filed monthly with the VAT return. This obligation requires companies to adapt their invoicing and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems in order to produce the XML file that must be transmitted to the Hungarian tax authorities’ website without human intervention. (3)

eInvoicing platform and management solutions

The Hungarian Tax Authority has released an updated version of its centralised real-time invoice reporting (RTIR) model. Initially introduced in July 2018, the anti-VAT fraud measure requires that all invoices, including paper, be reported to authorities live and electronically. 

Those affected by the new law in Hungary are:

• Hungarian companies;
• Foreign companies having a branch in Hungary;
• Companies that create invoices with a sales tax amount of at least 100,000 Hungarian forints (around 300 EUR).

As of April 2020, National Tax and Customs Administration of Hungary (NAV - the Nemzeti Adó- és Vámhivatal (HU TA), in Hungarian) will make it mandatory for all taxpayers to use the version 2.0 for the XML of the electronic invoices in their online reports. In addition to this update, the Request Tracker for Incident Response (RTIR - “Online Számla”) fiscal calendar will also be adjusted.

• NAV provides a test environment for version 2.0  since the 15 October 2019;
• Companies can voluntarily report their invoices with version 2.0 from February 2020;
• Go-Live date for version 2.0 will be obligatory for all companies on the 4 April 2020 onwards.

Using a technology provider, the exported data from the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system will be treated and transformed to the required format by the NAV, in accordance with the requirements specified by the NAV. 

Approach for receiving and processing

Hungary has a single centralised platform at the national level via NAV. Regarding the approach for receiving and processing eInvoicies, sub-central contracting authorities and economic operators should decide on the solution to use in a prior written agreement with a detailed technical description of EDI data, system and format to use. In addition, economic operators should ensure that a summary document is sent to the contracting authority reporting on the eInvoices issued during the given month. 

eInvoicing implementation in sub-central level contracting authorities 

Each contracting authority and economic operator should agree on the solution to use to ensure the eInvoicing exchanges via NAV. 

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

The format required for sending eInvoice data is XML and fully compliant with the European Standard. 

However, businesses should have their systems ready to send standard audit files (SAF) when required by the tax authority as described above. This information will include:

• General accounting, customers, suppliers and VAT;
• Accounts receivable;
• Accounts payable.

Monitoring eInvoicing implementation 

Hungary’s eInvoicing regulations are part of the country’s efforts to reduce its large VAT Gap and ensure collection of indirect taxes. To date, these efforts have reduced the country’s VAT gap by 10.7% since 2013, with a bigger reduction anticipated now that eInvoicing is in place. (4)

(1) Advanced electronic signatures should be certified by qualified service providers registered according to specific legislation.

(2) Time stamps show the time when an eInvoice was created. 

(3) Hungary implement RTIR for Real-Time VAT Returns, edicom, 2 October 2019, https://www.edicomgroup.com/en_ES/news/10538-hungary-implements-rtir-for-real-time-vat-returns.html 

(4) Hungary VAT reporting: the Final Countdown,  Sovos,, Andrew Decker, 20 April 2018, https://sovos.com/blog/2018/04/20/hungary-einvoicing-final-countdown/

Last updated:  Feb 03, 2021 15:40