From 1 January 2027, VAT payers must issue domestic invoices as structured data and send them through a delivery service, which also passes the same data on to the tax office. Let's look at who this affects, who it doesn't, and what can be prepared this year.
A few weeks ago a company with two employees asked us about this. It issues its invoices in Word, saves them as PDF and sends them by email, about fifteen a month. It wanted to know what it had to buy so that it wouldn't be facing fines from January 2027. In the end it was not new accounting software, but Word really is finished. Most companies today invoice exactly like this. The law does recognise this as an electronic invoice, you just need the customer's consent for it. From 2027, the word e-invoice will start being used for something completely different.
An e-invoice is a data file that a computer can process on its own, without anyone having to look at it. It is the content of the invoice written in a precisely defined structure, in the same European standard, EN 16931, that electronic invoicing across the whole European Union is built on. Slovakia is not building its own state system. Invoices will travel through the European Peppol network, which has been running for more than ten years and does not belong to the state. And there is one more difference: nobody will ask the customer's permission for an e-invoice anymore.
The obligation to issue e-invoices is narrower than people say. The obligation to receive them, on the other hand, is broader, and that is exactly what surprises companies who think it doesn't apply to them.
| Situation | What happens |
|---|---|
| A Slovak VAT payer invoices a Slovak company, a sole trader, or for example a municipality or an association | Must issue an e‑invoice |
| A non-VAT payer issues an invoice to a company | It does not have to issue an e‑invoice |
| A non-VAT payer, municipality or association buys from a VAT payer | It must be able to receive an e‑invoice |
| Sale to a private individual | Doesn't apply |
| An e-kasa receipt up to EUR 400, a document up to EUR 100 | Doesn't apply |
| Supply exempt from tax | Doesn't apply |
| A foreign company with a Slovak VAT number, i.e. registration under Section 5 | It does not apply to her until the end of June 2030 |
| Invoice to another EU country | Only the listed cases, and only from July 2030 |
| Invoice outside the EU | A mandatory e‑invoice doesn't follow from that |
It is sometimes written that from July 2030 non-VAT payers will also have to issue e-invoices. This is inaccurate: no new general obligation to invoice arises for them. The only change is that invoices they already must issue today, mainly for certain supplies abroad, will have to be in electronic form.
Whether your company is already registered on the Peppol network and which obligations apply to it, you will find out in a few seconds with our free e-invoicing readiness check. All you need is the IČO.
An e-invoice is generally not sent directly to the customer. It goes through a delivery service, that is a company that must be entered in the Financial Administration's list. You may send it another way only if the customer agrees to it. In practice, you choose it similarly to accounting software: it can be paid, it can be part of the software you already have, and for a small number of invoices free solutions are also expected.
The same service also sends the invoice data to the tax office. The supplier sends them right when the invoice is issued, the customer within five days of receiving it, but only if the customer is a VAT payer. So between two VAT payers, the tax office sees the same invoice from both sides. And it sees it in detail: individual items and quantities, whereas in the VAT control statement it sees only the total amount. A non-VAT payer must be able to receive the invoice but does not have to report anything. The delivery service handles the sending for you, but failing to report the data carries a fine of up to 10,000 euro, and up to 100,000 euro for a repeat breach; for an obvious mistake or a fault at the provider, however, it is not imposed. Failing to issue a mandatory e-invoice is a different offence and is handled separately: a fine of 100 to 10,000 euro under the Tax Procedure Code.
Anyone who today has a small invoicing program that is no longer updated does not have to throw it out. Providers also offer a plain mailbox in the browser: you log in and see received and sent invoices as in e-mail. You open the invoice as an ordinary PDF, even though the official document is the data file behind it. The provider generates the display for you, you post it manually from that, and you keep the data file in your archive. This does not get you automation, but you fulfil the obligation and do not have to change your accounting software.
Larger companies will take the opposite route: they connect the provider directly to their accounting software, received invoices land in it automatically, and the software can even pre-assign some items to accounts on its own. This is where the whole change brings its only real benefit: less retyping.
You choose a provider and start the activation on its website. It redirects you to the Financial Administration's portal, where you log in, for example, with a chip-enabled ID card. That confirms that the company really exists, and the provider activates you. The company itself must do this. As your accountants we cannot log in to the portal on your behalf, so please count on that.
Each provider has its own price list, working like a mobile operator's plan. For a small number of invoices, free receiving and a few cents per issued invoice are the norm, and for dozens a month a flat plan pays off.
You can send through several providers at once, but you can only receive through one at a time, otherwise the network would not know where to deliver your invoice. When you terminate the contract, the provider must release you within three days so you can move elsewhere.
The network has no single central point that all invoices must pass through, so an outage at one provider does not bring down the rest. When yours fails, the invoice does not go out, and you find out about it, similarly to an undelivered e-mail. No fine is imposed for a fault that the provider fixes without delay.
The year 2026 is deliberately transitional: the system is already running, but the new obligation from the VAT Act amendment doesn't apply yet, so whoever wants to can join voluntarily. Whoever tries it out now won't have to deal with it in January together with the year-end closing.
The only question that matters: can your invoicing software issue an invoice in the standardised format and hand it over to a delivery service? If it can't, switching software in December is a bad idea.
The list of registered providers is kept by the Financial Administration and is public. You don't have to decide right away, but having at least two candidates shortlisted and knowing what it will cost you is a sensible thing to do already now. With a small number of invoices, a free solution may be enough. We ourselves recommend choosing the one your invoicing software already uses, or at least the one used by the larger of your customers. The law doesn't require it, but when something fails to arrive, you sort it out with one person instead of two who keep passing the problem back and forth.
Until now, a typo in the customer's address could be survived. In the new system, something else decides: the network finds the customer by their tax ID, not by their postal address. When the tax ID or VAT ID is wrong or a required detail is missing, the invoice fails the check or ends up with the wrong recipient. Going through your address book now is boring work, but cheap. With our clients we see that address books almost always contain errors, most often where the customer has since ceased to exist or had its VAT registration cancelled. If you like, we can go through yours together at the next closing.
Whether your customers are on the network, you can check in our bulk check by IČO, up to 50 companies at once.
An e-invoice must be kept for ten years from the end of the year it relates to. The law doesn't prescribe a cloud or a specific location, a disk in the office is enough, but you must keep backups, and the files must remain in their original format and readable for the full ten years. Think this through now, not in five years.
Mainly the form changes, not the content. The invoice must contain exactly what it contains today, and the deadline for issuing it stays at fifteen days. A summary invoice for the month also stays, it will just be electronic. One thing does change substantially, though: an instalment schedule will no longer count as an invoice. Anyone who handles rent or leasing today with a payment schedule agreement will be issuing e-invoices on an ongoing basis from January 2027. And one more thing for the calendar: the fifteen-day deadline applies only until the end of June 2030; from July 2030 it is shortened to ten days.
The biggest change is that a mistake shows up immediately. Until now, a discrepancy was found in the VAT control statement or during an audit two years later. From 2027 the Financial Administration has the supplier's data as soon as the invoice is issued, and the customer's data within five days if they are a VAT payer, so it can spot a discrepancy within a few days.
Write to us about what you invoice and to whom. We will tell you whether the obligation will affect you from January 2027 and what needs to be done before the end of the year. We will reply even if it turns out that it does not concern you.
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