Mandatory fields
| Field | When it applies |
|---|---|
| That the document is intended to be a tax invoice | Always |
| The seller's identity | Always |
| The seller's Australian Business Number (ABN) | Always |
| The date the invoice was issued | Always |
| A brief description of the items sold, including quantity and price | Always |
| The GST amount payable, or a statement that the total price includes GST | Always |
| The extent to which each sale includes GST | Always Needed where not every item on the invoice is taxable. |
| The buyer's identity or ABN | Sales of AUD 1,000 or more |
The rules at a glance
| Rule | In Australia | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Tax | GST, standard rate 10% | Australian Taxation Office |
| Sequential number required | No | Australian Taxation Office |
| Keep records for | 5 years | Australian Taxation Office |
| Reverse charge wording | Not verified | n/a |
| Simplified invoice threshold | AUD 1,000 | Australian Taxation Office |
| E-invoicing | No business-to-business mandate | Australian Taxation Office |
"Not verified" means we could not read the value off a primary source, so we do not state one. It is not a claim that no rule exists. See our methodology.
How long to keep invoices
5 years. Records are generally kept for five years.
E-invoicing
No business-to-business mandate, covering business-to-government only, via peppol. Structured e-invoicing applies to supplying government, not to B2B. A PDF sent by email remains a perfectly valid tax invoice.
This is the fastest-moving item on this page and the one most worth re-checking against the authority before you act on it. InvoiceSnap produces a PDF, which is a document rather than a structured e-invoice, so a mandate of this kind is a signal that you will need software that can transmit as well as format.
No invoice number required, and the AUD 1,000 threshold runs backwards
Australia is the outlier in this set on numbering. An invoice number is simply not one of the details a tax invoice must show. If you are used to European rules, where a sequential number is a hard legal requirement, that is worth pausing on. Keep numbering anyway, because your own bookkeeping needs it and a client querying a payment needs something to quote, but it is not what makes the document valid.
The AUD 1,000 threshold also works the opposite way to a European simplified-invoice threshold. In the EU, falling below the threshold lets you leave things out. In Australia, crossing AUD 1,000 adds a requirement: the invoice must then also show the buyer's identity or their ABN. It is an escalation, not a relaxation.
One thing this page deliberately does not give you is a prescribed reverse-charge wording. Australia does have reverse-charge arrangements, but no mandated form of words was found during research, and a plausible invention would be worse than a visible gap.
Making the invoice
Once you know what your invoice needs, the invoice generator builds it in your browser. It has a tax field, a discount field, VAT number fields for both parties and a notes field for wording such as a reverse-charge statement. Nothing you type is uploaded.
This page describes published requirements. It is not advice on your own situation, and whether a rule applies to you depends on facts we do not have. For that, go to Australian Taxation Office directly or talk to an accountant.