Simplified vs standard tax invoice: which you issue, and why they travel differently

Saudi e-invoicing has exactly two invoice types. A standard tax invoice is usually issued by a business to another business; a simplified tax invoice is usually issued by a business to a consumer. They differ in the fields they must carry, in who generates the QR code, and — from ZATCA Phase 2, the integration phase — in the route they take to the Zakat, Tax and Customs Authority: a standard invoice is cleared by ZATCA before the buyer sees it, a simplified invoice goes to the customer at once and is reported within 24 hours.

Zakat, Tax and Customs Authority, What is e-invoicing?, checked 5 September 2026.

Last verified against ZATCA’s published pages on 5 September 2026.

ZATCA defines a tax invoice as the invoice in Article 53(1) of the VAT Implementing Regulations, generated and stored in a structured electronic format and generally issued in business-to-business transactions. A simplified tax invoice is the invoice in Article 53(7), generally issued for a business-to-consumer transaction, and it does not generally include the buyer’s details. In both cases a paper invoice converted by copying or scanning is not an electronic invoice.

Zakat, Tax and Customs Authority, E-Invoicing Detailed Guideline, version 2, May 2023.

The distinction is not size or formality. It is who the buyer is and what they will do with the document. A business buying from you needs an invoice it can use to deduct input VAT, so the standard invoice carries its full details. A consumer deducts nothing, so a lighter document proving the sale and the tax is enough.

The Implementing Regulations require a tax invoice for a taxable supply to another taxable person, to a non-taxable legal person, to a sole proprietorship or to any other entity established under the laws of the Kingdom, and for intra-GCC supplies and exports. A simplified tax invoice is for supplies to anyone else — in practice the individual consumer — and must be issued on the earlier of the supply date and the date consideration is received.

Zakat, Tax and Customs Authority, Implementing Regulations of the VAT Law, Article 53.

Then there is the SAR 1,000 rule, which is widely misread. ZATCA’s detailed guideline says a taxpayer has the option to issue a simplified tax invoice for a B2B transaction if the value of taxable supplies is less than SAR 1,000, and that a simplified invoice for a B2C transaction can be generated for any value, even above SAR 1,000. The limit applies only when a supplier chooses to issue a simplified invoice to another business. It is not a ceiling on simplified invoices in general.

Zakat, Tax and Customs Authority, E-Invoicing Detailed Guideline, version 2, May 2023.

Article 53(5) lists what a tax invoice must contain, in Arabic with any other language as a translation. Article 53(8) sets the minimum for a simplified tax invoice. The gap between the two lists is exactly what an input-VAT deduction needs:

Zakat, Tax and Customs Authority, Implementing Regulations of the VAT Law, Article 53.

• Both carry: date of issue, the supplier’s name, address and tax identification number, a description of the goods or services, the consideration payable, and the tax payable or a statement that the consideration includes tax.
• Only the standard tax invoice carries: a unique sequential invoice number; the customer’s name and address; the customer’s tax identification number and a reverse-charge statement where the customer self-accounts; quantity and nature of goods or scope of services; the supply date if it differs from the issue date; the taxable amount per rate or exemption, unit price excluding VAT and any discounts; the rate applied; the tax amount in SAR; a narration where the basic rate is not charged; and a profit-margin reference for eligible used goods.
• The simplified invoice normally omits buyer details, with exceptions ZATCA names — private education and private healthcare to Saudi citizens, where the state bears the VAT.

Zakat, Tax and Customs Authority, Implementing Regulations of the VAT Law, Article 53.

The E-Invoicing Resolution then adds integration-phase fields to both types — a UUID, an invoice hash and previous-invoice hash, a sequential counter, a cryptographic stamp — which are set out field by field in what ZATCA Phase 2 e-invoicing integration actually requires. The point for this article is that those technical fields are shared. The difference between the two types stays in buyer details, tax detail, and the route.

Zakat, Tax and Customs Authority, E-Invoicing Detailed Guideline, version 2, May 2023.

ZATCA defines the QR code as a matrix barcode readable by a phone camera to enable basic validation of an electronic invoice. On a simplified tax invoice your own solution generates it before the customer gets the invoice; in the integration phase it must meet Phase 2 requirements — nine tags in TLV, Base64-encoded — including the seller’s name and VAT number, the timestamp, the total, the VAT amount, the invoice hash and the cryptographic stamp. On a standard tax invoice ZATCA generates the QR string at clearance, alongside its stamp, and you only render it on the human-readable copy.

Zakat, Tax and Customs Authority, E-Invoicing Detailed Guideline, version 2, May 2023.

Why the simplified invoice in particular? Because it reaches the customer before ZATCA sees it. A standard invoice passes through ZATCA first and carries ZATCA’s stamp; a simplified one leaves your device straight into the customer’s hand, and ZATCA receives its copy only in the later report. The QR code is how a customer — or an inspector — checks that the receipt is a genuine invoice from a registered taxpayer, through ZATCA’s app or its e-invoice validity check. If you want to see what a code on an invoice in front of you actually carries, the ZATCA QR decoder unpacks the nine tags in your browser.

Zakat, Tax and Customs Authority, E-invoicing validity check, checked 5 September 2026.

This is the difference that changes how a system is built. Clearance, in ZATCA’s definition, is the Authority verifying that the tax invoices and notes transmitted to it through integration meet the controls in the E-Invoicing Resolution and its two annexes, and inserting its cryptographic stamp only on those that do. ZATCA states plainly that clearance does not apply to simplified tax invoices.

Zakat, Tax and Customs Authority, E-Invoicing Detailed Guideline, version 2, May 2023.

Reporting is sharing simplified tax invoices and their notes — already generated electronically and stamped by your solution — with the Authority within 24 hours of issue, as XML through the Fatoora platform’s APIs. The platform validates the file against the XML implementation standard, runs additional referential checks, and returns an API response.

Zakat, Tax and Customs Authority, E-Invoicing Detailed Guideline, version 2, May 2023.

• Standard tax invoice: your solution generates XML → sends it to Fatoora in real time → ZATCA validates, stamps and adds the QR code → returns the cleared invoice → only then do you give it to the buyer, as XML or PDF/A-3 with XML embedded. Clearance is a prerequisite for the invoice to be regarded as legal and valid.
• Simplified tax invoice: your solution generates XML, stamps it and adds the QR code → the customer gets it immediately, printed or, by agreement, electronically → your solution uploads the XML to Fatoora within 24 hours → the platform validates and responds.

Zakat, Tax and Customs Authority, E-Invoicing Detailed Guideline, version 2, May 2023.

Two practical consequences follow. First, a standard invoice needs a working connection at the moment of sale, or at least before the invoice is handed over; ZATCA publishes the expected behaviour when its servers do not respond, covered in the Phase 2 article. Second, a simplified invoice tolerates hours offline, but your system needs a queue that guarantees the 24-hour report and tells someone when it is late. A business in Wave 25 has to have both paths built by 1 February 2027.

Zakat, Tax and Customs Authority, Wave 25 selection criteria, 24 July 2026.

Most simplified invoices come out of a point-of-sale device, not an accounting system. ZATCA’s own guideline describes the situation in its worked example: a company operating three stores with more than twelve cash registers, each register generating a simplified tax invoice with a QR code on every sale, all invoices sent to the company’s central repository and finance system, and all of them reported within 24 hours of issue.

Zakat, Tax and Customs Authority, E-Invoicing Detailed Guideline, version 2, May 2023.

• Each POS device is an “e-invoicing solution” in ZATCA’s terms: onboarded on the Fatoora portal separately, with its own cryptographic stamp identifier. A branch that adds a register adds an onboarding.
• On a simplified invoice the device itself applies the stamp, so the private key lives on the device or in a service it calls, and must not be exportable.
• Each device’s invoice counter is sequential and cannot be reset, and every invoice is chained to the previous one by hash — so replacing or re-imaging a register is not only an IT event.
• Reporting within 24 hours means the device or the central service holds what has not yet been reported, retries, and surfaces anything overdue to a person.

Zakat, Tax and Customs Authority, E-Invoicing Detailed Guideline, version 2, May 2023.

And when a customer at the counter asks for “a tax invoice in the company’s name”, you have moved from the second path to the first in the middle of a sale: you need the buyer’s details and VAT number, and you need ZATCA’s clearance before you hand over the paper. The question to ask a POS vendor is not “do you support e-invoicing?” but “does the device itself issue both types, and what does it do about clearance when the connection drops?”

To place your business against the integration deadlines, the ZATCA wave lookup takes a minute, and the integration waves dataset lists every wave announced since 2023 with its ZATCA source.

If your two invoice types come out of two different systems — a POS for the simplified ones, accounting for the standard ones — the real question is not the invoice but its single source. Ten minutes on WhatsApp will tell you whether this fits: tell us what you invoice from today.

1. ZATCA — What is e-invoicing? — checked 5 September 2026
2. ZATCA — E-Invoicing Detailed Guideline, version 2 (May 2023) — checked 5 September 2026
3. ZATCA — Implementing Regulations of the VAT Law (Article 53 and the input-tax deduction article) — checked 5 September 2026
4. ZATCA — E-invoicing validity check — checked 5 September 2026
5. ZATCA — Simplified guide to the reclassification of VAT field violations (30 January 2022) — checked 5 September 2026
6. ZATCA — Wave 25 selection criteria (24 July 2026) — checked 5 September 2026

Primary ZATCA pages only, each checked on the date shown.