How to create an invoice in Austria

Georg Kitz

You have to follow certain guidelines in order to provide valid invoices to your customers. If you don't follow them the tax authorities are not obliged to accept them as proper invoices and this could harm you and your business.

Generally we can distinguish between 2 types of invoices:

 

Invoices with VAT

Some of your customers might want to claim pre-tax (Vorsteuer) from the tax authorities, thus you need to follow a set of defined rules attached. Those are the minimum requirements of a correct invoice including VAT in Austria:

  • Name and address of your company
  • Name and address of your customer
  • An ongoing and unique invoice number
  • Creation date of the invoice
  • The amount and description of the goods delivered or type of work
  • Day of delivery or period of work
  • Amount as net-value
  • VAT based on the net-value
  • Tax rate
  • UID (Tax identification number) of your company
Austrian example invoice highlighting important parts

Name and address if your company

From the address of the performing company must emerge its entrepreneurial activity. If the company has several locations, either the headquarter's address or a branch's address involved in the exchange of services can be specified.

Important If you use an address of a branch that wasn't performing any services mentioned on the invoice, this invoice does not entitle to the deduction of VAT.

Invoice number

Every invoice needs to include an ongoing and unique invoice number. You can use a lot of different formats like "Rechnung Nr. 1", "Rechnung 1/2019", "Rechnung 2019/001" and so on.

Date of delivery or period of service

If you're delivering goods you need to state the day of delivery on the invoice. If the delivery or service date is the same date as the invoicing date, you can simply state that on the invoice e.g. "Leistungsdatum ist gleich dem Rechnungsdatum". If you offered services over a longer period of time you have to state the whole period on the invoice e.g. "Leistungszeitraum 1.1.2019 - 12.1.2019". In that case just stating the invoice date isn't sufficient.

Amount and commercial description

The delivered goods or services must be clearly visible on the invoice. Insufficient would be terms such as z. "Clothing", "Repairs", "Food", "Drinks", "Books", "Tools" or even "work by agreement" without going into details about the service or "rent" without specifying the specific rental property. For amount typically used units are used.

Invoices without VAT (for small business owners)

Tax exempt entrepreneurs (eg small business owners) do not have to pay sales tax to the tax authorities. Thus, no sales tax is shown on the invoice. However, it is imperative that a note on the VAT exemption is visible on the invoice. "VAT exempt due to small business regulation".
  • Note about the VAT exemption
Phrase you need to add in order to have a tax exempt invoice
In case you don't want to worry too much about all the details, don't hesitate to download InvoiceBot from the AppStore. We take care about all the technicalities and you can focus on your work instead.

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