In a growing number of countries, a receipt or an invoice is not only a piece of paper between a seller and a buyer. The seller's register or invoicing software reports it to the tax authority, sometimes before the customer has left the counter. What that means for you as a buyer depends on the country: some authorities let you open the full receipt from its QR code, some let a business download every invoice issued to its tax number, and some only confirm that a document exists.
Three ways tax authorities hold receipts
- Clearance: the invoice only becomes valid once the authority's platform has received and stamped it. Brazil (NF-e and NFC-e), Mexico (CFDI), Italy (SdI) and Poland (KSeF) work this way, and the authority's copy is the legal document.
- Real-time reporting: the seller issues the invoice itself and reports its data within seconds or days. Hungary's Online Számla and Greece's myDATA are examples.
- Signed at the till: the register signs each receipt and keeps the record on the device or with the merchant. Germany, Austria and Quebec's restaurant devices work this way. The customer can check that a receipt is genuine, but there is no central copy to download.
What a buyer can actually retrieve
Two different things are easy to confuse. A consumer lookup starts from one receipt you already hold: you scan its QR code or type its access key, and the authority shows that document. A bulk download starts from your tax number: the authority hands you every invoice issued to it, usually as XML files, once you sign in with a digital certificate or a token.
Bulk downloads only cover documents that name you. A till receipt with no buyer tax number on it is anonymous, so it will never show up in your company's list. In Brazil, Mexico, Portugal and Poland, giving your company's tax number at checkout turns that receipt into an invoice issued to you.
Country by country
- Brazil: the NFC-e QR code opens the state tax portal's copy of a consumer receipt, items included. Companies receive every NF-e issued to their CNPJ through the national distribution service. See how to look up an NFC-e.
- Poland: since February 1, 2026, every business receives its structured invoices through KSeF. See receiving invoices in KSeF.
- Hungary: NAV holds the data of every invoice; the buyer queries those addressed to its tax number. See querying NAV Online Számla.
- Mexico: the SAT's mass download returns every CFDI you issued or received. See downloading CFDI in bulk.
- Portugal: e-Fatura lists every invoice that carries your NIF, without line items. See validating e-Fatura invoices.
- Italy: every B2B invoice passes through the SdI, and the Fatture e Corrispettivi portal shows the ones you received. See finding received invoices.
- Greece: myDATA shows a business the documents issued to its VAT number, and B2B e-invoicing is mandatory from 2026. See invoices in myDATA.
- Spain: Verifactu puts a QR code on every invoice that the buyer can check with the tax agency. See Verifactu explained.
- Peru: SUNAT confirms any receipt or invoice from its issuer, series, number, date and total. See the SUNAT validity check.
- Colombia: the DIAN's catalog finds an invoice by its CUFE and lists the ones a business received. See checking a CUFE.
- Chile: every invoice issued to a RUT lands in the SII's purchase register, with 8 days to claim it. See the Registro de Compras y Ventas.
- Slovakia: every eKasa receipt can be checked from its QR code. See checking an eKasa receipt.
- France: from September 1, 2026, every business must be able to receive e-invoices through an approved platform. See what changes in France.
Where Smartbills fits
None of these systems keeps the receipts a business never got a tax-numbered copy of: the coffee, the taxi, the hardware store run paid by an employee. Smartbills collects those from the email inbox, from a photo in the app and from the online accounts our agent signs in to, and keeps each one with its items, every tax and the total. For governments that want citizens to keep the fiscal receipts their mandate already produces, see Smartbills fiscalization.