Business correspondence and invoices

In the Netherlands, your business correspondence must satisfy various statutory requirements. You are obliged to state your trade name and trade register number from the Chamber of Commerce (KvK) on outgoing letters, orders, offers and invoices. This also applies to your company website and e-mails (apart from advertising e-mails).

Invoice requirements

Your invoices must satisfy other statutory requirements as well. You must state a number of basic details on all invoices, such as your VAT number, the VAT amount and the invoice date. The invoices must also be numbered sequentially. If you provide goods/services to another EU Member State, you must also indicate your customer’s VAT number. In addition, you must specify what goods or services were provided and when.

Turnover tax

Invoices which do not fulfil these requirements must be rectified. This is particularly important for turnover tax (VAT), because if your invoices do not satisfy the requirements, your buyer will not be entitled to a VAT deduction.

Electronic invoicing

You can also send invoices electronically. These must satisfy the same requirements as printed invoices. You are required to save electronic invoices as electronic messages. You must save invoices relating to immovable property for 10 years and other invoices for 7 years.