JoFotara Registration and the Registration Document

Before you issue your first invoice through the National Invoicing System (JoFotara), and before you link your accounting software to it, there is one step nothing else can replace. That step is JoFotara registration, which creates your account on the system and gives you access to your registration document.

The short answer is that you register through the e-services on the website of the Income and Sales Tax Department (ISTD), not from inside your accounting software. Registration ends with an account into which your tax number is pulled automatically. Once the account exists, you can request your registration document from ISTD’s e-services.

This article covers the registration steps, the difference between the main user and the sub-user, where to get the registration document, and the account issues that stop registration before it starts. It does not cover entering your linking credentials in your accounting software, submission error codes or invoice types. Each of those has its own article in this series. For a wider view of the system and how to connect your business to it, read our article Jordan’s National E-Invoicing System.

Three different things that get mixed up

At this stage a taxpayer can easily believe the job is done when it has not started yet. The path has three separate stops.

• Registration. It creates your account on the system and gives you a registration document.
• Linking. It authorizes your accounting software to send invoices in your name, using credentials you generate from the device linking option (ربط الأجهزة) on the home screen.
• Issuing. This is preparing the invoice and sending it, either from the portal or from your software once it is linked.

You can be registered without being linked, in which case you issue your invoices by hand on the portal. The reverse does not exist. There is no linking before registration.

Who can join

ISTD’s procedures guide for joining the Jordanian National Electronic Invoicing System answers broadly. You can join if you are a company, establishment or institution obliged to issue invoices, whatever kind of invoicing system you have. A business with no invoicing system, one with a traditional system and one with an electronic system can all join.

The guides do not list the exempt categories. For those they refer to Instructions No. 1 of 2019 on Invoicing Affairs and Their Control, as amended. If your real question is whether you are obliged at all, that is a question for a different text, not for this step. The requirements themselves are set out in our article E-Invoicing Requirements in Jordan.

JoFotara registration steps

The steps below follow ISTD’s joining guide.

1. Go to the ISTD website and choose Log in to e-services (الدخول للخدمات الإلكترونية).
2. Log in to the e-services with your e-services username and password, then choose National Invoicing (الفوترة الوطني) from the services bar.
3. Enter the verification code (CAPTCHA), then press the National Invoicing System button (نظام الفوترة الوطني) to move to the system.
4. Create the account (إنشاء حساب). Your tax number is filled in automatically, and you choose a username and a password.
5. Choose the path that suits your business from the home screen. ISTD’s overview lists the two paths as its steps 5 and 6, issuing invoices through the portal or device linking. They are alternatives, not a sequence.

Two practical points can stop an attempt at the second and fourth steps. First, pop-ups must be enabled in your browser, or you will not reach the system at all. Second, the password has set rules. It needs at least eight characters, a mix of letters, numbers and special symbols, and at least two letters, one of them a capital. ISTD’s own example of an acceptable password is Pass@123.

The two paths after you create the account

The home screen you reach after creating the account assumes one question. Do you have accounting software?

• If you have accounting software, you choose device linking (ربط الأجهزة) to generate your credentials, complete the technical requirements for linking, and then send invoices directly from your software.
• If you do not have accounting software, you press Add a sub-user (إضافة مستخدم فرعي), enter the verification code (OTP) sent to your phone and complete the details. You then select the income-source sequence, choose a username and password, and press Add (إضافة). After that you log out of the main user and log in as the sub-user to reach Issue an invoice (تنظيم فاتورة).

For the linking path, ISTD asks the taxpayer to coordinate with the system programmer or technical solutions provider it works with to complete the technical requirements. That means your own provider, not one on an ISTD list. The credentials are confidential, and you alone bear responsibility for any unauthorized use of them.

Main user and sub-user

This point explains why the issuing option can seem to be missing. Invoices are issued only from the sub-user. The main user is the account you create first. Its job is to create, manage and activate sub-users.

If you look for the Issue an invoice tile (تنظيم فاتورة) on the main user’s screen, you will not find it. Your account is not broken. You are on the wrong screen. The fix is to create a sub-user, log out, and then log in as the sub-user.

Income-source sequence: a field of the account, not of one path

The income-source sequence appears in the Add a sub-user flow, so it is sometimes read as a field that only concerns businesses without accounting software. That reading does not hold.

• ISTD’s questions and answers guide lists having no income-source sequence as an official reason why access to registration fails, without tying it to either path.
• Version 1.5 of ISTD’s technical guide for linking describes the device linking screen this way. The taxpayer enters a username and selects the income-source sequence, and the system then generates the Client ID and the Secret Key.
• The sequence is a mandatory element of every invoice sent through the API (cac:SellerSupplierParty/cbc:ID).

So a business that links its software also has an income-source sequence and selects it, exactly like a business that issues from the portal. The joining guide simply does not spell it out in the column for the first path.

Getting the registration document

The document’s official title is the registration document in the National Electronic Invoicing System (وثيقة تسجيل في نظام الفوترة الوطني الالكتروني). The headings of ISTD’s slides call this step extracting the registration certificate, but the document carries the title above. Once your account has been created, you request it from ISTD’s e-services on the domain es.istd.gov.jo, through the page for requesting the invoicing-system registration document.

The sample in the joining guide states that the business with the tax number shown is registered in the National Electronic Invoicing System, and it carries the date, the company or establishment name and the tax number. It is not a license, an accreditation or a compliance certificate. It records that the tax number is registered.

Next to it sits a different service that is often confused with it, the registration check for the National Invoicing System. It is a lookup by tax number that tells you whether a given business is registered. The registration document is your own record about yourself. The lookup is a tool for checking others, and your customers can use it to check you.

The ISTD guides this article draws on do not state a validity period for the document, a fee for getting it, or a specific body the taxpayer must submit it to. If someone asks you for the document for a particular purpose, its conditions come from the body asking for it and from ISTD, not from an inference drawn from the guides’ silence.

Four cases that stop registration before it starts

ISTD’s questions and answers guide records documented cases with their official cause and fix. These four concern the registration stage.

• The National Invoicing option (الفوترة الوطني) does not appear in the e-services. The official cause is that the taxpayer’s file type is users (مستخدمين). The fix is to submit a request to change the file to individuals (أفراد).
• Trying to register sends you back to the invoicing home page. The cause is that there is no active income-source sequence. The fix is to have one added.
• The message “the account has been suspended, please contact the system administrator” (تم إيقاف الحساب الرجاء الاتصال بمسؤول النظام). The cause the guide gives, addressed to the taxpayer, is that you suspended the sub-user. The fix is to reactivate it from the main user.
• The verification code still goes to your old phone number after you changed it. The guide’s instruction is to enter the password incorrectly so that your phone number is updated. It names no screen and no number of attempts.

These cases share one feature worth noticing. Each looks to the user like a system fault, and each is in fact an account condition with a stated cause and a stated fix.

After registration: three practical results

• Registration alone does not produce an accepted invoice. An invoice has to be issued through the system or through software linked to it, and once ISTD accepts it, it comes back with a QR code from ISTD.
• Keep your linking credentials safe from the moment you generate them. They are confidential, and you alone bear responsibility for any unauthorized use. The joining guide tells you to keep them in a safe place and not to share them with anyone. The guides cited here do not say how a lost credential is handled, so if that happens, take it up with ISTD.
• Decide early between the portal and software. Moving from the portal to linked software later is possible. Undoing a link, by contrast, is an invoicing-system support request to ISTD, limited to a business that has no accounting system and linked by mistake. Working by hand on the portal for months and then switching also means entering the same activity twice during the changeover.

How Qoyod helps

Registration is a step you complete yourself on ISTD’s portal. What starts after it is the daily work, and that is where Qoyod Cloud Accounting Software, integrated with the National Invoicing System, comes in.

• The taxpayer needs no digital certificate or signature of their own to send invoices through Qoyod.
• Qoyod builds the invoice file in UBL 2.1 format with its unique identifier (UUID) and sends it to the National Invoicing System without any manual intervention. Once ISTD accepts the invoice it returns a QR code, and Qoyod shows that code on the invoice.
• Qoyod checks each invoice at field level as it is created, covering the tax number, the document type and payment method, the General Sales Tax rate and whether the lines are complete, and alerts you to any error before the invoice is sent, to reduce rejections. The pre-send check is an alert, not a guarantee.
• ISTD returns the invoice status and any error message, and Qoyod shows them in its status panel. The status panel lists invoices that were not sent and need to be resent, and when you resend one it keeps the same UUID.

One point of accuracy. Qoyod does not register you in the system and does not get your registration document for you, because both are steps on ISTD’s portal in your own name. What Qoyod does starts once you are registered and linked.

Where to go next

This article covered one step, registration and getting the registration document. To complete the picture, continue with the neighboring topics.

• The next step. Entering your credentials and starting to send, in our article how to connect to Jordan’s National Invoicing System.
• Portal or software. When manual entry on the portal is enough, in our article the National Invoicing portal vs an accounting system.
• Whether you must use the system. Read our article on who must use e-invoicing in Jordan.
• If your first invoice is rejected. Rejection codes and their causes in our article JoFotara error codes.
• Before all of that. Use the JoFotara readiness check.

Frequently asked questions

How do I complete JoFotara registration?

You start on the ISTD website through Log in to e-services (الدخول للخدمات الإلكترونية) and choose National Invoicing (الفوترة الوطني) from the services bar. You then enter the verification code (CAPTCHA), create the account, where your tax number is filled in automatically and you choose a username and password, and finally choose the path that suits your business.

Where do I get my JoFotara registration document?

You request it from ISTD’s e-services on the domain es.istd.gov.jo, through the page for requesting the invoicing-system registration document, once your account has been created. Its official title is the registration document in the National Electronic Invoicing System (وثيقة تسجيل في نظام الفوترة الوطني الالكتروني).

What is the difference between the registration document and the registration check?

The registration document is yours, and you get it for your own account. The registration check is a lookup by tax number that confirms whether another business is registered, and your customers can use it to check you.

Why don’t I see the Issue an invoice tile after registering?

Invoices are issued only from the sub-user, and the main user creates and manages sub-users. Create a sub-user, log out, and log in as that sub-user.

Why doesn’t the National Invoicing option appear in the e-services?

The official cause given in ISTD’s questions and answers guide is that the taxpayer’s file type is users (مستخدمين). The fix is to submit a request to change the file to individuals (أفراد).

Does the registration document have a validity period?

The ISTD guides this article draws on state no validity period for the document and no fee for getting it. For that, the reference is ISTD or the body asking you for the document.

References

• Income and Sales Tax Department (ISTD), procedures guide for joining the Jordanian National Electronic Invoicing System, 2026 edition (in Arabic), pp. 3 to 14.
• Income and Sales Tax Department (ISTD), questions and answers guide for the National Invoicing System, 2026 (in Arabic).
• Income and Sales Tax Department (ISTD), technical guide for integrating with the National Invoicing System through the API, version 1.5 (in Arabic), pp. 7 and 8.
• Instructions No. 1 of 2019 on Invoicing Affairs and Their Control, as amended (in Arabic).
• ISTD’s National Invoicing System guides (in Arabic)