Monday 10th November, 2014

As of 6th June this year, e-invoicing was made mandatory for some sectors of the Italian Public Administration and its suppliers. Amongst the ministries signed-up for e-invoicing are the Tax Agency and the State security.

The regulation came into force with an additional three-month transition deadline, allowing organisations still accepting some invoices on paper to catch up. Nevertheless, from now on the administrations will only pay their suppliers if they use the electronic billing format.

More than 31,000 public offices had already signed up to the new system as of the end of August 2014. There have also been 12,170 applications related with Local Authorities, even though these administrations are not required to migrate to electronic billing until 31 March next year. That is the deadline for Italy to finalise the rollout of this technology in the public sector, initially scheduled for June 2015.

According to a study by the Polytechnic University of Milan, the initial balance of e-invoicing rollout in Italy is positive, due to the rapid spread among administrations and their suppliers and service providers.