Guides

What a UK VAT invoice has to show

The required fields for a VAT-registered business in the UK, when a simplified invoice is allowed, and how sales to the EU are treated now.

If you are VAT registered in the UK, “invoice” has a specific meaning: a document containing a defined list of items, which your customer relies on to reclaim input tax. Leaving a field out is not a formatting problem — it can cost your customer the deduction, and they will notice.

Required on a full VAT invoice

• A sequential number unique to that invoice.
• Your business name, address and VAT registration number.
• The date of issue, and the time of supply (the tax point) if different.
• The customer’s name and address.
• A description sufficient to identify the goods or services.
• For each line: quantity, unit price excluding VAT, the VAT rate applied, and the amount excluding VAT.
• The total excluding VAT, the total VAT, and the amount payable.
• Any cash discount rate offered.

Simplified invoices

For small retail sales HMRC allows a shorter form. For the professional services this tool is usually used for, issue the full version — it is what your client’s bookkeeper expects and the extra fields cost you nothing.

Selling to the EU from the UK

Since the UK left the EU VAT area, an EU business customer is a customer outside your VAT system. In the common case of B2B services you do not charge UK VAT and your customer accounts for VAT in their own country. The reverse-charge guide covers the wording; the practical difference is that you are no longer citing an EU directive as your own legal basis.

Goods are a different world — customs declarations, commercial invoices, country-of-origin statements. See the proforma and commercial invoice guide.

Worth knowing

• The standard UK VAT rate has been 20% since 2011, with reduced and zero rates for specific categories. HMRC’s own guidance is the authority; this page describes the shape of the requirement, not your particular liability.