In Turkey, the history of electronic submission of VAT-related information dates back with regard to their complex and evolving legal requirements. Turkey plays the role of a leading country in the field of tax technologies with solutions such as e-Invoicing, e- Ledger, e-Delivery and so on. e-Archive has one of the significant place among Turkey’s diversity of tax reporting-related solutions. Each of these legal requirements has its own specifications and rules. The Revenue Administration (GİB) seeks to close the significant VAT gap in Turkey by enforcing all of these regulatory criteria for the required electronic submission of information linked to VAT. GİB has been working on efficient tools to combat tax evasion and to make it harder for businesses to withhold information from the authority.

As a part of the e-transformation process, the e-Archive Invoice system for  B2B and B2C transactions was introduced by the Turkish Revenue Administration. The system makes it possible to prepare, send, store, and report invoices electronically. Companies can send e-Invoices to invoice receivers registered on the e-Invoice application using the e-Archive Invoice program, and they can also send  e-Archive invoices to invoice receivers who are not enrolled on the e-Invoice application. In other words, taxpayers may give their customer an e-Archive invoice in place of a standard e-invoice if they are unable to receive and process electronic invoices. e-Archive can be sent to the client through email, SMS, or printed document. The company’s internal data processing systems or third-party organizations that have been approved by the Turkey Revenue Administration, such as SNI, can send the e-Archive invoice.

The Revenue Administration has announced that as of 1 January 2020, all e-Invoice taxpayers are obliged to switch to the e-Archive Invoice application. Apart from this, for individuals who are not taxpayers but invoice more than 30.000 TL on the same day, and taxpayers who issue invoices over 5.000 TL, including taxes, on the same day it is mandatory to issue these invoices as e-Archive Invoices. Additionally, the use of e-Archive invoices can be done on a voluntary basis even if the businesses do not have an obligation.

In order to use e-Archive and send e-Archive invoices, it is mandatory to be included in the e-Invoice system. Nevertheless, there is no requirement for recipients to be enrolled in the system;  e-Archive invoices can be sent to recipients who are not e-Invoice users.  Since e-Archive is not transmitted within the Revenue Administration but the recipient, there is no required format. However, due to the same factors, sent e-Archive invoices should be reported to the Revenue Administration in the specified format on a daily basis.