On the 12th of September 2018, the Government issued the Decree On Electronic Invoices (e-invoice) Applied When Selling Goods and Services No. 119/2018/ND-CP (Decree 119). It shall be effective from the 1^st of November 2018 and shall replace Decree 51/2010/ND-CP On Providing For Goods And Services Provision Invoices.

Electronic invoicing has been stipulated since 2010. According to Decree 51/2010/ND-CP, an e-invoice is not a compulsory requirement but a business choice. In reality, many enterprises in Vietnam, especially those which do the business in the field of electronic transactions, have been successfully using e-invoicing or several years. E-invoicing helps to reduce expenses related to printing, paperwork, and time,  can improve account reconciliation, and can provide an increase in transparency.

For these reasons the Government is encouraging the use of electronic invoicing. However, with the current regulations, there remain many difficulties for e-invoicing to replace paper invoicing and some regulations are no longer appropriate for the modern economy. Therefore, to implement the next step in the roadmap to completely move to e- invoicing, the Government is adopting a more powerful legal framework in this area.

This Decree prescribes:

(i) the use of electronic invoices when selling goods or providing services;

(ii) tasks and powers of tax administration agencies at all levels and other agencies and organizations involved in the management and use of electronic invoices;

(iii) the rights, obligations and responsibilities of agencies, organizations and individuals in the management and use of electronic invoices.

This Decree has also expanded the subjects of the application which include:

1. Organizations, enterprises and individuals selling goods or providing services and shall include:
   1. Public non-business units which sell goods or provide services;
   2. Organizations established and operating under the Law on Cooperatives;
   3. Other organizations; and
   4. Households and individuals doing business.
2. Organizations and individuals purchasing goods and services
3. Electronic-invoice service providers
4. Tax administration agencies at all levels and organizations and individuals involved in the management and use of invoices.

Decree 119 includes 5 chapters with 37 articles attached with 7 forms for administrative procedures.

This new Decree:

1. Provides the definition of two kinds of e-invoices including e-invoices with the tax authority’s verification code and e-invoices without the verification code (Article 3);
2. Declares that every enterprises must use e-invoices from the 1^st day of November 2020 onwards (Article 12.1);
3. Households and individuals doing business in the area of agriculture, forestry, fisheries, industry and construction which had revenue in the previous year of 3 billion VND or more, or Households and individuals doing business in the area of commerce and service provision including industry sectors such as electricity, petroleum, telecommunication, credit financing, transportation, e-commerce, insurance, supermarkets, and trading sectors which have revenue of the previous year from 10 billion VND must use e-invoices from the 1^st day of November 2020 (Article 12.4);
4. Specifies cases in which the tax authorities shall provide an e-invoice service free (Article 13);
5. Declares that e-invoice can be searched via the electronic portal of the General Department of Taxation (Ministry of Finance) (Section 2 Chapter III).
6. Guidelines that all the paper invoices which have been printed or ordered before the 1^st of November 2018 shall be used before the 1^st day of November 2020 (Article 36).

Therefore, there is approximately a two year period  for all legal entities to follow a step-by-step transfer from paper to e-invoices.

In addition, from the 1^st day of November 2020, Decree 51/2010/ND-CP (which have been amended by Decree 04/2014/ND-CP) shall be no longer valid.

Public bodies including medical establishments and schools that use fee receipts are allowed to continue using the receipts and shall move to electronic receipts or e-invoices according to the timing set out by the Ministry of Finance.