Chapter I
GENERAL INSTRUCTIONS
Article 1. Scope
This Circular provide instructions on printing, publishing, and using invoices for goods sale and service provision (hereinafter referred to as invoices); tasks and entitlements of tax authorities and agencies involved in printing, publishing, managing, and using invoices; rights, obligations, and responsibilities of organizations and individuals (hereinafter referred to as entities) for printing, publishing, and using invoices; inspection of invoices.
Article 2. Regulated subjects
1. Sellers of goods and providers of services, including:
a) Vietnamese organizations, households, and individuals that sell goods and/or provide services in Vietnam or to abroad;
b) Foreign organizations, households, and individuals that sell goods and/or provide services in Vietnam or sell goods manufactured in Vietnam to abroad;
c) Foreign, Vietnamese organizations, households, and individuals that do not do business but sell goods and/or provide services in Vietnam.
2. Organizations that print invoices (hereinafter referred to as printing facilities), provide invoice-printing software, organizations that broker electronic invoice solutions.
3. Buyers of goods and/or services.
4. Tax authorities and other entities involved in printing, publishing, and using invoice.
Article 3. Types and formats of invoices
1. An invoice is a document issued by a seller on which information about the goods sale or service provision is displayed as prescribed by law.
2. Types of invoices:
a) VAT invoices (template 3.1 in Appendix 3 and template 5.1 in Appendix 5 enclosed herewith) are invoices used by organizations that declare and calculate VAT using credit-invoice methods for:
- Domestic goods sale and service provision;
- International transport;
- Export of goods to free trade zones and other cases considered export;
- Export of goods or services to abroad.
b) Goods sale invoices are used by:
- Entities that declare and calculate VAT using direct method when selling goods and services in Vietnam or exporting them to free trade zones, and other cases considered export of goods and services to abroad (template 3.2 in Appendix 3 and template 5.2 in Appendix 5 enclosed herewith).
- Goods and service sale to the domestic market by entities in free trade zone, goods sale and service provision among entities in a free trade zone, export of goods and services to abroad. In this case, the invoices must say “Dành cho tổ chức, cá nhân trong khu phi thuế quan” (For entities in free trade zones) (template 5.3 in Appendix 5 enclosed herewith)
Example:
- Company A is a company that declares VAT using credit-invoice method, sells goods in Vietnam and export goods. Company A shall use VAT invoices for its sales of goods in and goods export.
- Company A is a company that declares VAT using credit-invoice method, sells goods in Vietnam and to entities in free trade zone. Company A shall use VAT invoices for its sales of goods in Vietnam and to entities in free trade zone.
- Company C is a export processing company that sells goods in Vietnam and exports goods to other countries, thus company C shall use sale invoices saying “Dành cho tổ chức, cá nhân trong khu phi thuế quan” (For entities in free trade zones).
- Company D is a company that declares VAT using direct method. Company D shall use sale invoices when selling goods in Vietnam, selling goods to free trade zones, and exporting goods.
c) Other invoices are stamps, tickets, cards, insurance receipts, etc.
d) Air freight receipts, receipt for international transport charges, receipts for banking service charges shall be issued in conformity with international practice and relevant laws.
3. Format of invoices:
Invoices may be in the form of:
a) Invoices printed by sellers using computers, cash registers, or other machines when selling goods and services;
b) Electronic invoices are collections of electronic data about sales of goods and services that are created, issued, sent, received, stored, and managed in accordance with the Law on Electronic transactions and its guiding documents;
c) Ordered invoices are invoices printed as ordered and used for sale of goods and services, or invoices ordered by tax authorities and sold to other entities.
4. The documents printed, published, used, and managed as if invoices are notes of goods delivery and internal circulations, notes of delivery of goods to agents (templates 5.4 and 5.5 in Appendix 5 enclosed herewith).
Article 4. Contents of issued invoices
1. All contents of an issued invoice must be displayed on the same page.
a) Type of the invoice.
The type of the invoice must be displayed on each invoice. Example: VAT INVOICE, SALE INVOICE, etc.
If an invoice is also used as a document for bookkeeping or sale management, it may have an additional name written after the invoice type using a smaller font size or between round brackets. Example: VAT INVOICE - WARRANTY NOTE, VAT INVOICE (WARRANTY NOTE), VAT INVOICE - RECEIPT, VAT INVOICE (RECEIPT), etc.
b) Invoice template numbers and invoice symbol.
Invoice template number reflects the type of the invoice, copy numbers, and template number of a type of invoices (a type of invoice may have multiple templates).
Invoice symbol is meant to distinguish invoices with Vietnam’s alphabet and last two digits of the year.
For ordered invoices, the last two digits of the year indicate the year in which the invoices are printed. For self-printed invoices, the last two digits are the year in which invoices started to be used according to the notification of invoice publication, or the year in which invoices were printed.
Example: Company X notifies the publication of 500 self-printed invoices on June 07, 2014, from No. 201 to No. 700. These 500 invoices are not used up by 2014. In 2015, company X may used up these invoices.
If company X does not want to keep using the published but unused invoices, the unused invoices shall be destroyed and a notice of new invoice publication shall be made.
c) Names of copies of an invoice:
Copies of an invoice are the sheets of the same invoice number. Each invoice number must have at least 02 copies and not more than 9 copies, including:
+ Copy 1 which is kept by the issuer.
+ Copy 2 which is given to the buyer.
From the third copy onwards, the copies shall be named according to their functions decided by the invoice issuer. Every separate invoice provided by a tax authority must have 3 copies. The third copy shall be kept by the tax authority.
Sellers of products of which the right to ownership or the right to enjoyment must be registered with competent authorities shall create and publish invoices that have 3 copies or more. 2 of them shall be given to the buyer, and the third one shall be used for registration of the right to ownership or the right to enjoyment.
If sellers of such products only use 2-copy invoices, the buyers of such products must register the right to ownership or right to enjoyment (of cars, motorbikes, etc.) at a competent authority, where the second copy of the invoice is kept (e.g. a police authority). The following documents may be used to do bookkeeping, declaring tax, deducting tax, making statement of state capital: second copy of the invoices (a photocopy certified by the seller), payment receipts, registration fee receipts (photocopy of the second copy) related to the products that need to be registered.
d) Ordinal numbers of invoices.
Ordinal numbers of invoices are a series of natural number in the invoice symbol, which consists of 07 digits.
dd) Name, address, taxpayer identification number (TIN) of the seller;
e) Name, address, TIN of the buyer;
g) Names of goods and services, units, quantities, unit prices of goods and services; Amount payable in numbers and in words.
In a VAT invoice, apart from the line “unit price” which indicates price exclusive of VAT, there must be other lines indicating VAT rate and VAT amount. The total amount payable must be written both in numbers and in words.
h) The buyer and the seller must write their names, append the seller’s seal, and write the date on the invoice.
i) Names of the printing facility. (hereinafter referred to as printing organization)
The name, TIN of the invoice-printing facility must be displayed on ordered invoices, including the ordered invoices used by the printing organization itself.
k) Invoices must be written in Vietnamese. If a text must be written in a foreign language, it must be put between a pair of brackets () below the Vietnamese text, and must be smaller than the Vietnamese text. The number written on invoices are natural numbers: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. There is a dot (.) after every three zeros (0) from the right, and there is a comma (,) before the decimal number, if any. Where an company uses an accounting software program in which is a comma (,) is used after every three zeros (0) from the right, and a dot (.) is placed before the decimal number; the text on invoices is Vietnamese without diacritics, the invoices of such company may be expressed the same way. The total payment on the invoice must be written in words. The Vietnamese text without diacritics must ensure that the invoice is not misinterpreted. Any company that wishes to use Vietnamese without diacritics, a comma (,) is used after every three zeros (0) from the right, and a dot (.) is placed before the decimal number must send a written application for registration to the tax authority and take responsibility for the accuracy of the invoices issued this way.
Invoices of the same template used by an entity must have the same dimensions (in case invoices are printed by cash registers using paper rolls, the lengths of invoice may vary according to the quantity of goods sold).
2. Optional contents on issued invoices.
a) Apart from the compulsory contents prescribed in Clause 1 of this Article, the trader may provide additional information serving their business, including logo, decoration, or advertisements.
b) Additional information must be conformable with applicable law, must not block or obscure the compulsory contents.
3. Some cases in which some compulsory information may be omitted on the invoice:
a) The trader may create, publish, and use invoices without buyers' signatures or the seller’s seal in the following cases: electricity bills, water bills, telephone bills, banking service bills that are self-printed as prescribed in this Circular.
b) In the cases below, some compulsory contents may be omitted unless the buyer is an accounting unit and requests the seller to issue an invoice that contains all compulsory information mentioned in Clause 1 of this Article:
- Invoices printed by supermarkets and shopping malls established under the law may omit names, TINs, signatures of buyers and seals of sellers.
- Stamps and tickets that have prices printed thereon may omit signatures, seal of sellers, names, address, TINs, and signatures of buyers.
- Provincial Departments of Taxation shall consider allowing companies that use large amounts of invoices and adhere to tax laws to omit their seals on the invoices at their request according to their business operation, selling method, and invoicing method. Departments of Taxation shall provide instructions on invoices on which the seller’s seal is not required.
- Other cases shall comply with instructions of the Ministry of Finance.
Tìm kiếm
Thông tư 39/2014/TT-BTC (Bản Pdf)
Thông tư 39/2014/TT-BTC (Bản Word)