Invoice Compliance & Storage Rules in Portugal: Deadline Extended

In late June 2019, the Secretary of State for Tax Affairs issued Order no. 254/2019-XXI, extended the deadlines for taxpayers to comply with the new invoicing processing and mandatory storage rules that were set out under Decree-Law No. 28/2019 (the Decree-Law) on 15 February 2019.

Decree-Law No. 28/2019 made changes to the rules surrounding:

• E-invoicing;
• Standard Audit File for Tax (SAF-T);
• The issuance of invoices;
• The requirement to use an invoicing program that is certified by the Portuguese tax authorities;
• The storage of hard-copy and electronic invoices

Deadlines given extension

It was intended that some of the new rules were to apply from 16 February 2019 but at the beginning of March, the Secretary of State for Tax Affairs issued an order to grant an extension to the original implementation deadlines.

The new deadlines are as follows:

• The obligation to use a software program for processing invoices that has been certified by the tax authorities (by entities not already required to do so) is now postponed from 1 July 2019 until 1 January 2020;
• The obligation for taxpayers to communicate with the authorities in relation to all information concerning the branches of a company that issue invoices and other tax-relevant documents is now postponed from 30 June 2019 to 31 October 2019 (where the taxpayer commences activities on or after 1 October 2019, the deadline is 30 days after activities commence)

The tax authorities are to release guidelines no later than 1 October for the application of the Decree-Law.