Who Must Use E-Invoicing in Jordan? The Obligated and Exempt Categories

The rule most business owners in Jordan never actually read is startlingly small: selling a good or a service worth one dinar or more obliges you to issue a proper invoice. That is Article 5 of the Regulation for Organizing and Controlling Invoicing Affairs No. 34 of 2019, not an interpretation of it.

Since 1 April 2025, a paper invoice no longer closes the matter. The accepted invoice is the one that passes through the National E-Invoicing System (JoFotara), or through software integrated with it. So the practical question is not whether e-invoicing is mandatory in Jordan. It is who exactly is obligated, and who the law names as exempt.

This guide answers that from the Income and Sales Tax Department’s own texts: Regulation No. 34 of 2019 and its amendments, and Invoicing and Control Instructions No. 1 of 2019 as amended.

The base rule: every seller of a good or a service

The regulation draws the circle of obligated persons deliberately wide. Article 5(a) states that “every seller of any good or service of a value not less than one dinar shall organize and issue an invoice of at least two copies.” Article 2 of the Instructions repeats the same duty and names the only possible escape: what Article 11 of the regulation, or the Instructions themselves, exempt.

Notice what the article does not say. It does not tie the obligation to company size, to legal form, or to registration for General Sales Tax. A seller is “the natural or legal person” who sells a good or a service, and nothing further.

That precise point is the source of the most common misreading in the market: the belief that a business not registered for General Sales Tax sits outside the system. It does not. An unregistered business is obligated too, but it issues an income invoice carrying no tax, while a registered business issues a general sales tax invoice with the tax calculated on it.

What the invoice itself must contain

Article 5(a) of the regulation and Article 3 of the Instructions fix five fields that never drop away:

1. The sequential invoice number.
2. The seller’s full name and address.
3. The seller’s tax registration number if registered for sales tax, or the national number if not. A non-Jordanian person who is unregistered uses the number approved by the competent authority.
4. The date the invoice was organized and issued.
5. A statement of the good or service sold, its quantity, its value, and the invoice total.

Article 5(b) adds a condition that gets forgotten constantly: on credit sales, instalment sales, or sales paid in tranches, the buyer’s name must appear clearly. That follows logically, because these invoices create a balance, and managing them belongs to receivables control as much as to tax documentation.

And where the invoice value exceeds 10,000 dinars, Article 5(c) requires the seller to prove the buyer received it. A large invoice needs evidence that it arrived, not merely evidence that it was issued.

From “a proper invoice” to “an invoice through the national system”

Here sits the distinction that makes an article like this necessary. In its original form the regulation spoke of a proper invoice in any format. Article 4 then settled the format for the current phase, providing that the Department “shall adopt the electronic invoice issued by the national electronic invoicing program, or issued by a program that has been integrated with the national electronic invoicing program.”

In plainer terms, you have two routes and no third.

• Route one: key every invoice manually into the national invoicing portal or its official app. Free, entirely lawful, and entirely disconnected from your books.
• Route two: integrate your accounting software with the system, so the invoice is issued once and reaches both the Department and your ledgers at the same moment.

The difference between them is not a difference in compliance. It is a difference in operating cost. A business issuing ten invoices a month can live with manual keying. A business issuing two hundred pays twice: once in staff time, and once in the gap that opens between the portal’s numbers and the ledger’s numbers.

Who is obligated: five groups by name

1. Businesses registered for General Sales Tax

The clearest group. Once annual sales pass the registration threshold for General Sales Tax, you become a registered taxpayer, your invoices carry the tax, and they pass through the system. Registration thresholds under the General Sales Tax Law vary by activity: 30,000 dinars for services, 75,000 dinars for goods, and lower thresholds for particular activities. A business running several activities falls under the lowest applicable threshold.

Remember also that the price charged and the tax calculated must both appear on the invoice, and that a buyer cannot recover input tax without a compliant one.

2. Businesses not registered for General Sales Tax

Registered on the commercial register, the companies register, or a professional licence, but with sales below the tax registration threshold. These issue an income invoice: a full invoice, with all five fields, and no sales tax. The absence of tax is not the absence of an invoice.

3. Professionals and service providers

Doctors, engineers, consultants, and service providers generally fall inside the definition of “seller of a service.” The regulation defines the sale of a service as “the performance, provision, or supply of the service by the seller to the buyer for consideration.” Nothing in the text carves the liberal professions out of the circle.

4. Lawyers, who have a rule of their own

Article 6 of the Instructions sets a separate mechanism for lawyers, and it is a detail rarely mentioned anywhere:

• A lawyer whose collected revenue does not exceed 50,000 dinars a year may use a receipt voucher, or any collection document, instead of an invoice for tax calculation purposes.
• A lawyer whose collected revenue exceeds 50,000 dinars a year issues an invoice under Article 5, and must do so within forty-five days of reaching that ceiling.
• If revenue later falls back below the ceiling, the position is adjusted under the same Instructions.

The critical part is the clock. Forty-five days run from the date the ceiling is reached, not from year end. Anyone reviewing revenue only once a year will discover the breach after the window has closed.

5. The buyer, partially

Article 10 holds a surprise. Responsibility for matching the invoice data to the actual transaction rests “on both the seller and the buyer equally, and each of them is responsible for invoices that do not match the actual transaction.” Accepting an invoice you know to be wrong places you inside the liability, not the seller alone.

The exempt categories, as the Instructions list them

Exemption is neither discretionary nor customary. It flows from Article 11(a) of the regulation, which delegates the detail to ministerial instructions, and then from Article 4 of Instructions No. 1 of 2019, which names the categories.

First: licensed activities with annual sales below 75,000 dinars

• Grocery stores (mini market, supermarket, or corner shop)
• Bookshops selling books and stationery
• Greengrocers selling vegetables and fruit
• Houseware shops
• Bakeries
• Popular restaurants
• Home-based businesses
• Dairy shops
• Sewing-supplies shops

Further commercial sectors have been added to this list by later amendments to the Instructions, so check the currently effective text before relying on the list above on its own.

Second: licensed trades below 30,000 dinars

“Licensed trades in any of the Kingdom’s governorates under applicable legislation, whose annual revenue is below 30,000 dinars.” The condition is double here: the trade must be licensed, and revenue must sit below the ceiling.

Third: bread-only bakeries below 150,000 dinars

This is a separate item from “bakeries” in the first list. A bakery selling bread exclusively is measured against a 150,000 dinar ceiling. A bakery also selling sweets or pastries returns to the 75,000 ceiling.

Two conditions that dissolve the exemption

An exemption is not permanent, and two doors lead back into the mandate:

The first. Article 11(b) provides that where a non-obligated person sells a good or service and sufficient evidence indicates that sales exceed the threshold, “the Director may compel them to organize and issue the invoice, and the provisions of this regulation shall apply to them.” The Department does not wait for you to declare the breach.

The second. The exemption is measured against the actual activity, not the licence alone. The text requires the business to be “actually practising this activity,” so a grocery licence does not shelter a wholesale trading operation running underneath it.

Working the other way, Article 11(c) allows exempt parties to apply in writing to the Department to issue invoices, bringing themselves under the regulation by choice. That is a practical option for anyone selling to companies that need compliant invoices.

Two situations that need no invoice at all

Alongside the exempt categories, two provisions exempt the transaction rather than the business:

Goods on consignment. Article 5 of the Instructions provides that an invoice is organized “in the case of a sale,” while placing goods on consignment with a third party requires no invoice, provided the goods moved under documents supporting that status. The Department may ask for proof. In practice: move the stock under a documented transfer note, and issue the invoice when the sale actually occurs.

Lease contracts. Article 13 of the regulation adopts lease contracts containing the data specified in Article 5 in place of invoices. A contract carrying the required fields stands in for the invoice in that case.

Compliance does not end at issuance

Anyone who assumes the duty ends with a button click is mistaken. The regulation attaches three continuing obligations after the invoice is issued:

The invoice register (Article 6). Every obligated person must keep a paper or computerized register of sales invoices for goods and services, headed with the seller’s name, showing the register page number, the buyer’s name, the invoice number, and the invoice total. That turns keeping proper accounting books into a tax obligation, not merely an administrative habit.

Four-year retention (Article 8). The period runs from the latest of three dates: the end of the tax period in which the invoice was organized, the filing of the tax return, or notification of an administrative assessment. Where a dispute is live, retention extends until it is settled or a final judgment issues. Helpfully, paragraph (b) adopts the national e-invoicing program’s data in place of retaining the paper invoice.

Enabling the Department (Article 9). Every seller must enable the Department to transfer invoice data and contents electronically.

There is also a specific accommodation for commercial markets. Article 7 permits commercial markets, or any other entity, to organize a single aggregate invoice per day covering all of that day’s sales, on prior approval from the Director and upon their request.

Penalties: the numbers live in the Income Tax Law

The invoicing regulation names no penalty amounts. Article 15 refers to “the penalties provided for in the law,” and Article 6(d) of the Instructions points directly at Article 64 of Income Tax Law No. 34 of 2014 as amended. That is where the figures are:

Default penalty (Article 64). An additional tax of not less than 200 dinars and not more than 500 dinars, imposed in cases that include refusing to issue an invoice or document when the beneficiary requests it, failing to keep records or documents, and refusing to produce records that must be retained. These amounts double on repetition.

Tax evasion (Article 66). Here the scale of the risk changes. The law counts “failing to issue a proper invoice” among the acts of tax evasion, and its penalty is a compensatory fine equal to the tax difference. On repeat offences the penalty rises to imprisonment, with the term escalating each time.

Beyond the monetary penalty, two practical consequences weigh more over time:

• An invoice not issued through the system is not accepted as a tax document, so the buyer loses the input tax deduction and the expense is not recognized for income tax purposes.
• Exclusion from government tenders and public procurement, which makes compliance an entry condition rather than a way of avoiding a fine.

How to settle your own position

If invoice volume is what pushes you toward integration, the case for leaving spreadsheets behind is worth reading in full: when to stop managing your invoices in Excel.

Five mistakes that keep recurring

1. “Not registered for sales tax, therefore not obligated.” The most widespread confusion. An unregistered business is obligated too, through an income invoice carrying no tax.
2. Relying on exemption lists copied from unofficial sites. The list changes through amendments to the Instructions, and the reference is the text currently in force at the Income and Sales Tax Department.
3. Editing an invoice after issuance. An invoice issued through the system cannot be edited. Correction runs through a return invoice, referencing the original with a written reason.
4. Dropping the buyer’s name from a credit invoice. Article 5(b) requires it on credit, instalment, and tranche sales, and it remains among the most frequently omitted fields.
5. Neglecting the register and the retention period. Businesses issue every invoice through the system faithfully, then cannot produce the invoice register on request, and fall under Article 64 for an entirely different reason.

How Qoyod helps you comply

Qoyod is integrated with the National E-Invoicing System (JoFotara), and the integration covers precisely the points the regulation places on you:

• Issuing straight through the system. You issue the invoice once in Qoyod. It reaches the Department, comes back carrying the QR code the Department returns, and posts to your double-entry ledgers in the same movement.
• A Jordanian invoice template carrying the tax number and the five fields Article 5 requires, in Arabic and English.
• A General Sales Tax engine: the 16% rate alongside reduced, exempt, and zero-rated treatments, instead of working the tax out by hand on each line.
• Income invoices and sales tax invoices. The document type follows your tax status, so you are not maintaining separate templates manually.
• Credit notes for returns, so corrections run through the lawful route rather than editing a document already issued.
• Invoice register and archive. Every invoice is stored and tied to its customer and journal entry, satisfying the Article 6 register and the Article 8 retention duty without paper files.
• Recurring invoices and collection reminders, which matter specifically on credit sales, where the invoice has to be tied to the customer’s balance and followed up.
• Branches and user permissions: you define who issues an invoice and who approves it, a direct control over the shared accuracy liability in Article 10.
• Financial reports and cost centres. Invoices feed your books directly, so a clean trial balance is a by-product rather than a scramble, so the tax return becomes the product of daily work rather than an end-of-period project.

All of it inside one cloud accounting platform, rather than a separate compliance tool bolted on top of separate accounting software. If you want to organize the receivables side before integrating, the accounts payable register template and the monthly sales report template are practical starting points, and the break-even analysis template helps you weigh the operating cost of manual keying against integration.

Start your free trial and comply with JoFotara

Frequently asked questions

Is e-invoicing mandatory for small businesses in Jordan?

Yes, unless the business falls within the categories exempted by Article 4 of the Instructions. Size alone grants no exemption. What grants it is a specifically named activity together with the sales ceiling set for it.

Do I need JoFotara if I am not registered for General Sales Tax?

Yes. An unregistered seller issues an income invoice carrying no tax, and it passes through the system like any other. Registration decides the invoice type, not the existence of the obligation.

What is the exemption ceiling for my activity?

75,000 dinars a year for the nine activities the Instructions name, 30,000 dinars for licensed trades, and 150,000 dinars for bakeries selling bread only. Later amendments added further sectors, so check the text currently in force.

What happens if I cross the exemption ceiling during the year?

You become obligated. Under Article 11(b) the Director may compel you to issue invoices once sufficient evidence of crossing the threshold exists, without waiting for you to declare it.

Is the fine 500 dinars per violation?

Article 64 of the Income Tax Law imposes an additional tax between 200 and 500 dinars, doubling on repetition. Separately, failing to issue a proper invoice may be treated under Article 66 as tax evasion, whose fine equals the tax difference.

Can I keep keying invoices manually into the portal?

Yes. The official portal and its app are free and satisfy the obligation. But manual keying stays disconnected from your books, which means double entry and a discrepancy that surfaces at return time.

Can I edit an invoice already issued through the system?

No. Correction is made through a return invoice referencing the original and carrying the reason for the return, and it cannot exceed the original quantities.

Are lease contracts accepted instead of invoices?

Yes, where the contract contains the data specified in Article 5 of the regulation. Article 13 adopts it in place of invoices in that case.

The practical summary

Start from the correct assumption: you are obligated, until the text of the Instructions proves otherwise for your specific activity. Then verify three things only: the activity you actually run, your annual sales against your activity’s ceiling, and your General Sales Tax status.

If it turns out you are obligated, the next question is not whether to comply. It is by which route. And the route that does not double your work is the one where the invoice is issued once, from your accounting system, reaching the Department and your ledgers together.

This content is for general awareness and does not replace advice from a certified accountant or a direct review with the Income and Sales Tax Department. The governing reference is the text currently in force of the Regulation for Organizing and Controlling Invoicing Affairs No. 34 of 2019 and its Instructions No. 1 of 2019 as amended.