The ETA e-receipt and e-invoice in Egypt: what a shop owner needs to know

What is the e-receipt in Egypt?

The Egyptian Tax Authority defines the e-receipt as an electronic document that proves a commercial transaction for the sale of goods and services. Its purpose is to let the Authority capture, digitally, the receipts that shops and service providers issue to consumers at the point of sale: the business-to-consumer (B2C) side of trade.

In practice, each receipt your till issues is also sent to the Authority's platform as structured data, and the paper receipt the customer takes carries a QR code that points back to that record.

E-receipt and e-invoice: what is the difference?

Both are run by the Egyptian Tax Authority, and the Authority states that the two systems sit on the same platform. The difference is who the customer is.

• E-invoice (الفاتورة الإلكترونية): invoices between businesses (B2B), for example a wholesaler billing a shop.
• E-receipt (الإيصال الإلكتروني): receipts to consumers (B2C) at the point of sale, for example a shop selling to a walk-in customer.
• A business can have both kinds of sale, and the ETA's developer documentation describes how a taxpayer tagged for B2C also submits invoices for business customers.

Who has to issue e-receipts?

The Tax Authority decides which businesses are in scope and has brought them in over time. We do not repeat dates or turnover thresholds here, because they change and a marketing page is the wrong place to rely on for a legal duty. Check your own position directly with the Authority: through its website, through the Taxpayer Workspace, or on the Authority's hotline, 16395. If you have an accountant or tax adviser, ask them as well.

How the e-receipt works for a shop

The ETA's developer documentation sets out the rules a point of sale has to follow. In plain terms:

• Your business must be allowed to issue receipts, which the documentation describes as having the B2C tag on the system.
• Each POS device that issues receipts must be registered and linked to your tax registration number before it issues a receipt. Devices are registered on the Authority's POS Registration Platform.
• Each receipt is sent to the Authority's platform with a unique identifier (UUID) worked out from the receipt's own contents.
• The printed receipt carries a QR code holding the address of the receipt on the Authority's portal, the seller's registration number and the total.
• The documentation allows a receipt to be submitted within 24 hours, which matters for a till that loses its internet connection.

The official portals

• Egyptian Tax Authority website: eta.gov.eg, with pages on the Electronic Invoice System and the Electronic Receipt System.
• POS Registration Platform: pos.eta.gov.eg, where POS devices are registered and approved POS vendors can be checked.
• eInvoicing portal: invoicing.eta.gov.eg.
• Taxpayer Workspace: workspace.eta.gov.eg.
• eInvoicing and eReceipt SDK for developers: sdk.invoicing.eta.gov.eg.
• The Authority's hotline: 16395.

What to ask any POS vendor about the e-receipt

• Does your system submit e-receipts to the ETA in production today, not only in testing?
• Is your POS listed on the Authority's POS Registration Platform, and who registers each of my tills?
• Does the printed receipt carry the ETA QR code, in Arabic, on my receipt printer?
• If the internet drops, are receipts queued and submitted within the allowed time, and what does the till show while they wait?
• How are refunds handled: does a return produce its own submitted document?
• Can my accountant see which receipts were accepted and which were rejected, and why?
• Can the same system issue e-invoices to my business customers, or only e-receipts?

Does PointLit issue ETA e-receipts?

No, not yet. PointLit does not issue Egyptian Tax Authority e-receipts or e-invoices today, and it is not registered with the Authority as a POS solution. Support is planned, and we will say so on this page when it is ready rather than before.

If your business is already required to issue e-receipts, you need a solution that does this today, and you should not rely on PointLit for it yet. If you are planning ahead, mention ETA in your early-access request, so we know it matters to your shop.

What PointLit records today

None of this is an e-receipt, but it is the groundwork any tax record needs. Every bill keeps the tax it was charged, worked out by one VAT engine from your Tax rules, with VAT at 14% included in the price or added on top. Receipts print your Tax number, for the business or for each branch. The Z-report breaks each shift down by tax rate. Refunds are new documents written against the original bill rather than edits to it, and every stock movement is a line in an append-only ledger.

What to do now

1. Check with the Tax Authority whether your business is in scope for e-receipts, e-invoices or both.
2. If it is in scope now, use a solution that is registered with the Authority, and ask the vendor the questions above.
3. Keep your tax registration number and your branch addresses to hand: device registration links each till to them.
4. If you are considering PointLit, write to support@pointlit.com and mention ETA.