Italy (2021 eInvoicing Country Sheet)

Legislation

The use of eInvoices in public procurement in Italy is mandatory for ministries, tax agencies and national security agencies since June 2014. Since 31 March 2015, it became mandatory for all public entities. The use of eInvoices is based on the following legal instruments:

• Italian law number 244 of 24 December 2007, provisions for drafting the annual and longer-term financial statements of the State (Finance Act 2008);
• Decree of 7 March 2008, identification of the Provider of the Exchange System for electronic invoicing and the relative attributions and duties;
• Decree of 3 April 2013, regulation on the issue, transmission and receipt of electronic invoices to be applied to public authorities;
• Decree law of 24 April 2014, n. 66. Urgent measures for the competitiveness and social justice (article 25);
• Circular of the State General Accounting Office number 37 of 4 November 2013, First Operating Instructions for the implementation of the Regulation on the issue, transmission and receipt of electronic invoices to be applied to public administrations;
• Legislative decree n. 148/2018, Transposition of Directive 2014/55/EU;
• Provvedimento 18 aprile 2019 - Core Invoice Usage Specification.

eInvoicing platform and eInvoicing management solutions

The Italian state offers the exchange system (Sistema di Interscambio) for eInvoicing processing. This system performs formally checks eInvoices before forwarding them to the public entities. There are multiple ways to submit an eInvoice to the government administrations through the Exchange system. These include:

• Certified Electronic Mail (CEM);
• the web – through the Revenue Agency Website (authentication required);
• SDICoop - Web Service;
• SDIFTP  - File Transfer Protocol (Technical specifications).

Each method for submitting eInvoices has its own specific requirements, which relate to the means of connecting to the eInvoicing platform and the eInvoice’s file size. Most economic operators use the solutions offered by major companies such as ‘Poste italiane’. 

Approach for receiving and processing eInvoices

The Italian operating model for eInvoicing follows a single exchange system named Sistema di Interscambio with which senders and receivers of electronic invoices can be supported by their service provider. The Revenue Agency manages the Sistema di Interscambio with technology and operational support provided by Sogei, an IT provider owned by the Italian Ministry of Economy and Finance.

Economic operators submit eInvoices following the FatturaPA format through the Sistema di Interscambio. The Sistema di Interscambio works as an eDelivery service, transmitting each eInvoice to the addressed administration based on an addressee identifier (Unique Office Code). The system is compatible with the European standard.  Only formal controls are performed by the Sistema di Interscambio. Economic operators and public entities may make use of a solution provider for submitting/receiving invoices and control messages to/from the Sistema di Interscambio.

All the invoices are sent by the Sistema di Interscambio to the State General Accounting Department, responsible for performing audit functions on the financial administration of public institutions through inspection activities, for monitoring of public expenditure.

Each public administration can chose the way they want to receive the invoices from the Sistema di Interscambio through one of the following means:

• Certified Electronic Mail (CEM);
• SDICoop – Reception Service;
• SDIFTP Service;
• SPCoop - Reception Service.

Once received, the processing of eInvoices by contracting authorities is undertaken through an automation and integration process, which is normally proportional and varies according to the dimension of the contracting authority. The invoices are then archived digitally for ten years by the public administrations receiving the eInvoices. The Sistema di Interscambio does not archive invoices.

eInvoicing implementation in sub-central level contracting authorities 

At sub-central level, the eInvoicing system is based on the above-mentioned exchange system Sistema di Interscambio, used by 22 000 contracting authorities. 

The benefits of eInvoicing implementation at sub-central level are cost and operational savings, the reduction of administrative burden, the reduce time to payments and the contribution to process automation. 

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

From a legislative point of view, the Directive 2014/55/EU was transposed by the Legislative decree n. 148/2018. The Legislative decree n. 148/2018 mandates the eInvoices to be compliant with the Italian CIUS.

EN compliant eInvoices are accepted for contracts below the EU threshold, too.

The Italian government developed the B2G eInvoicing exchange system (Sistema di Interscambio) to make it compliant with Directive 2014/55/EU with the support of the eIGOR and EeISI projects and co-financed by the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) programme. Under the eIGOR project, translators have been developed for EN compliant eInvoices syntaxes to/from the FatturaPA syntax.

When a EN compliant invoice is received, Sistema di Interscambio translates it to the FatturaPA syntax and forwards it, together with the translated eInvoice and a translation report, to the public administration. The public administration can choose to process either the translated invoice in the FatturaPA syntax, for which they are equipped since 2015 or the original EN compliant eInvoices.

Monitoring eInvoicing implementation (B2G)

There is a monitoring strategy in place at the central and sub-central levels, with the usage of Sistema di Interscambio for the eInvoice processing. 

The control information is based on the number of suppliers using eInvoicing, number of invoices that are submitted electronically and the number of eInvoices submitted in a specific syntax. More than 800,000 suppliers have sent eInvoices, and the eInvoices represent almost 100% of the invoices exchanged. 

The number of eInvoices sent to the Exchange System is 30 mln/year. 

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

The use of the Italian CIUS is mandatory, through the exchange system (Sistema di Interscambio) for eInvoicing processing. CIUS is used to ensure the translation to the national XML standard. The communication of the CIUS is done through the regulation of the Revenue Agency. 

Additional information

As of 1 January 2019, eInvoicing is mandatory for B2B and B2C among Italian operators with an annual turnover greater then EUR 65 000. The invoices must be in the FatturaPA format and are transmitted via the Sistema di interscambio. EN compliant eInvoices may be accepted for domestic B2B  invoicing as further development.

The Sistema di interscambio process some 2 billion B2B eInvoices/year. The mandatory  eInvoicing is helping achieve important goals in tackling VAT evasion and simplification of administrative and fiscal processes and boosted the growth of the market of services.

The Revenue Agency has put in place free services to support the onboarding process of SMEs and to facilitate the process of transmission and archiving of eInvoices. The Revenue Agency developed a dedicated smartphone application, which allows SMEs to create and transmit eInvoices. Videos are also available to show how to deal with eInvoicing and how easy it is. 

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Last updated:  Jun 29, 2021 10:48