Electronic invoicing to Public Administration
Latest update: 13/12/2022
The Revenue Agency is the authority responsible for the electronic invoicing procedure.
All invoices that economic operators resident or established in Italy issue to Italian government departments must be in electronic form and digitally signed.
Non-Italian economic operators can issue invoices in paper or electronic form.
All electronic invoices must be sent to the Exchange System (SdI in Italian), which provides the address to the receiving government department. The exchange system is managed by the Revenue Agency and all information is available on the website https://www.fatturapa.gov.it: open a new window
Communicate with the Exchange System
If you want to send an electronic invoice to an Italian government department: open a new window you must establish a channel of communication with the exchange system.
The exchange system offers different channels of communication from which each economic operator can choose the most appropriate for its own needs:
- Web services
- Secure File Transfer Protocol
- Certified email
- Fatture&Corrispettivi (invoices and charges) portal
You can engage directly with the exchange system or delegate this task to an intermediary. In the latter case, you will have to enter into a service agreement with the selected intermediary.
Upon receipt of an invoice, the exchange system carries out certain checks: open a new window and forwards it to the receiving government department. Once the invoice has been delivered, the exchange system sends or provides a delivery receipt: open a new window, which is evidence that the invoice has reached the recipient.
In order to correctly address an electronic invoice, you must enter the code of the receiving government department on the invoice. You can find the codes of all government departments in the government digital address index at https://indicepa.gov.it: open a new window.
The Revenue Agency offers all the relevant services for issuing, transmitting, consulting and storing electronic invoices in accordance with the law. To use these services, you must access the restricted area of the Fatture e corrispettivi (invoices and charges): open a new window portal.
For access, you can use
- the credentials issued by the Agency (Fisconline/Entratel)
- the National Service Card (CNS)
- the Public Digital Identity System (SPID)
- the Italian Electronic Identity Card (CIE).
Authentication for the use of transmission services other than the portal requires authentication certificates. The signature formats accepted for the invoice files are CAdES-BES and XAdES-BES.
Electronic invoices are in XML format and may be prepared in the Italian format FatturaPA: open a new window or in one of the formats allowed by the European standard on electronic invoicing (EN 16931) in accordance with the requirements for the Italian national context (Core Invoice Usage Specifications).
The services offered by the Revenue Agency are available free of charge to all economic operators.
The time taken to process invoices depends on the transmission channel used and the traffic of incoming invoices to the exchange system. The estimated maximum time taken to process an invoice and issue the outcome is 48 hours.
The exchange system website is available in Italian and in English.
Contact details
Agenzia delle Entrate (Revenue Agency)
PEC: agenziaentratepec@pce.agenziaentrate.it
Tel: 800 299 940