eInvoicing in Italy

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 April 2019 - Core Invoice Usage Specification;
• Decree law of 30 April 2022, n. 30 including, effective July 1, 2022, electronic invoicing applicable to taxpayers who adopt the flat-rate tax regime and, effective 1 January 2024, taxpayers with annual revenues up to EUR 25,000 will be required to issue electronic invoices through the Sistema di Interscambio eInvoicing platform. Moreover, key healthcare professionals will be exempted until 1 January 2025.

eInvoicing platform and eInvoicing management solutions

The Italian government offers the Exchange System (Sistema di Interscambio) for eInvoicing processing. This system formally checks eInvoices before forwarding them to the public entities. There are multiple ways to submit an eInvoice to 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. 

Approach for receiving and processing eInvoices

The Italian operating model for eInvoicing follows a single exchange system named Sistema di Interscambio. VAT taxable persons can send and receive eInvoices to and from the exchange system either direcly or via a service provider. The Revenue Agency manages the Sistema di Interscambio with technology and operational support provided by Sogei, the in-house IT provider of 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 choose 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 10 years by the public administrations receiving the eInvoices. The Sistema di Interscambio does not archive eInvoices.

eInvoicing implementation in sub-central level contracting authorities 

At sub-central level, the eInvoicing system is based on the above-mentioned 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 burdens and 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 mechanism

In order to tackle frauds and tax evasion the Italian tax administrations retains the fiscal part of the eInvoices, namely the data required as mandatory by the VAT Directive, with the exclusion of the quantity and nature of the goods or services supplied (only the taxable amount per rate or exemption is retained).

Sistema di Interscambio is the system used also used to implement the monitoring strategy at the central and sub-central level.

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. 

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. 

Digital reporting requirements

The obligation that Italy introduced on 1 January 2019 applies to all transactions carried out by VAT taxable persons resident in Italy or with a fixed establishment therein, thus excluding non-resident businesses. Therefore, transactions carried out by non-resident and non-established taxable persons are excluded, even when the place of supply is Italy.

The eInvoicing obligation let Italy remove the reporting obligation introduced in 2017 and in place until 2018. The reporting obligation applied to all transactions on an invoice-by-invoice basis, and the reporting data had to be transmitted monthly.

As of 2019, the reporting obligation was removed for domestic transactions, but remained in place for transaction carried out with a non-Italian customer/supplier.

As of 2022, the reporting obligation for non-domestic transactions is to be performed by transmitting each invoice to the Sistema di Interscambio (in place of the monthly report).

Additional information

As of January 2019, eInvoicing is mandatory for B2B and B2C among Italian operators. The invoices must be in the FatturaPA format and are transmitted via the Sistema di interscambio. Taxpayers who adopt the flat-rate tax regime (the SME exemption scheme), with an annual turnover no greater than EUR 65 000 are excluded from the obligation.

As of July 2022, the above-mentioned threshold is reduced to EUR 25 000.

As of January 2024, the turnover-related exclusion from the obligation is removed. It is worth noting that Article 3, paragraph 3 of the “Milleproroghe” decree-law n. 215/2023 extends, also for 2024, the ban on issuing eInvoices for healthcare professionals.

The Sistema di interscambio processes 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 made available 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.

Last updated:  Oct 07, 2024 10:14