Singapore InvoiceNow to become mandatory for all GST-registered businesses by 2031

Encouraging businesses to use more technology to increase productivity, the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore (IRAS) used the occasion of the Committee of Supply Debate 2026 to announce that all GST-registered businesses will have to comply with InvoiceNow [↗︎] and submit invoice data directly to IRAS via the InvoiceNow network, which is simply the local name for the Peppol network.

In practice, this requirement operates as an e-reporting obligation, as invoice data must be transmitted to the tax authority. However, the exchange of invoices between suppliers and buyers remains unregulated, meaning businesses may continue to issue invoices in PDF or paper format, although they are strongly encouraged to use the InvoiceNow network for this purpose.

New implementation timeline

The current phase of InvoiceNow began on November 1, 2025 and applies to businesses that voluntarily registered for GST within 6 months from incorporation. The new implementation, expected to bring about 90,000 more businesses between 2028 and 2031, will be done progressively according to the following schedule, starting with SMEs and finishing with larger businesses:

• April 1, 2026 – All new voluntary GST registrants, regardless of their incorporation date or business structure (already adopted prior to the announcement)
• April 1, 2028 – All new compulsory GST-registrants and existing GST-registered businesses with total annual supplies up to SGD 200,000 (~135 000 EUR)
• April 1, 2029 – Existing GST-registered businesses with total annual supplies up to SGD 1 million (~675K EUR)
• April 1, 2030 – Existing GST-registered businesses with total annual supplies up to SGD 4 million (~2,7M EUR)
• April 1, 2031 – Existing GST-registered businesses with total annual supplies exceeding SGD 4 million (~2,7M EUR)

As communicated by the IRAS [↗︎], the “total annual supplies refer to the total value of standard-rated, zero-rated and exempt supplies made in all the prescribed accounting periods ending in calendar year 2025”.

GST-registered businesses that were registered before 2026 will be informed by the IRAS of their respective mandatory implementation date by mid-2026 and can, in the meantime, self-help and use the Excel calculator provided by IRAS [↗︎]  to determine their applicable implementation.

Businesses out of scope of InvoiceNow

The following groups of businesses should remain, at least for now, exempted from the InvoiceNow obligations:

• Overseas entities, including overseas vendors that are liable to register for GST under the Overseas Vendor Registration (“OVR”) Pay-Only regime and OVR Full regime
• Businesses that are liable to register for GST wholly due to the Reverse Charge regime

Additional support for SMEs and larger businesses

InvoiceNow’s goal is to reduce manual processing, decrease errors, and shorten payment cycles” but also to allow businesses to “benefit from improved tax compliance with faster GST audits and refunds”.

To facilitate the adoption and encourage early action, the Government, through IMDA and IRAS, will provide additional support for SMEs:

• Free-of-charge InvoiceNow-Ready solutions are available until Mar 2031
• A new grant of up to $1,000 will be introduced for SMEs to defray any operational costs of adopting InvoiceNow-Ready Solutions
• SMEs can also tap on the existing Productivity Solutions Grant to defray up to 50% of the eligible software subscription costs

Larger businesses will also benefit from additional support:

• The new progressive implementation schedule provides these businesses more time to align the necessary updates with their software upgrade cycles
• A new grant of up to $5,000 will be provided for early adopters