Oman Puts Its e-Invoicing Dates in Law: 1 April and 1 October 2027

What the Tax Authority issued

On 9 August 2026 the Oman Tax Authority issued Decision No. 189/2026, amending the Executive Regulations of the VAT Law. Until that day the Fawtara programme had run for more than a year on announcements alone: accreditation criteria, a service provider portal, Peppol Authority status and a published four-phase timetable, with no regulation behind any of it. The Authority's own FAQ said so plainly, promising that regulation would be released in due time.

The decision is short. Article 1 makes the amendments, Article 2 repeals anything that conflicts with it, and Article 3 provides for publication in the Official Gazette and sets two commencement dates. (At the time of writing the text had not appeared among the amending decisions on the Authority's VAT law and regulations page.) It sits under the VAT Law issued by Royal Decree 121/2020 and amends the Executive Regulations made by Decision No. 53/2021.

The operative change is the replacement of Article 143. A taxable person must issue the tax invoice in an approved, secured electronic format that keeps it intact and stored, with a unique number for each invoice. Paper invoices, PDF files and images of invoices emailed to a buyer stop counting as tax invoices once the duty applies.

The two compliance dates

Decision No. 189/2026 replaces the four-phase Fawtara schedule with a single turnover test and two dates. The earlier phases of February 2027 for large companies and August 2027 for the remaining taxpayers no longer carry legal effect. (The Authority's e-invoicing FAQ still sets out the four-phase schedule.)

Scope is set by annual supplies rather than by a cohort the Authority assigns, so a business reads its own date off its own figures.

The 100 companies selected for the first group start in August 2026, ahead of any legal duty, since nothing is required before April 2027. The Authority's FAQ separately allows any company outside the group to adopt early on a voluntary basis, with support provided.

The amended articles

The decision replaces two articles of the Executive Regulations and adds three. Together they set the scope of the obligation and who carries it.

Article 143, replaced. Four triggers require an electronic tax invoice: making supplies, including supplies to a person not subject to tax or to a taxable person taking them for private purposes; deemed supplies; receiving consideration in whole or in part before the supply date; and any other case set out in the Regulations. That first trigger is where consumer sales enter the mandate. Oman is not running B2C as a later phase.

Article 146, second paragraph, replaced. The simplified tax invoice must be issued within the Article 143 deadlines, which pulls retail-style invoicing onto the same clock rather than leaving it behind.

Article 143bis, new. The Authority must announce to taxpayers the companies licensed to supply approved electronic tax invoice services. The accredited provider list becomes a published obligation.

Article 143bis1, new. System security sits with the taxpayer, not the provider: protection against breach and unauthorised access, procedures for emergencies and technical failure, and data recovery mechanisms so the system keeps running.

Article 143bis2, new. The Chairman may exempt a taxable person from issuing electronic invoices for a set period, on application with supporting documents and reasons the Authority accepts. The exemption is conditional on continuing to file returns in the prescribed form and on time and to pay tax due on time.

Penalties

Oman has published no penalty schedule specific to e-invoicing. The Tax Authority says only that penalties will apply according to regulations, and Decision No. 189/2026 attaches no fines of its own. (Penalty guidance is pending.)

The general VAT framework already reaches the obligation. Under Article 100 of the VAT Law, deliberately refraining from issuing a tax invoice when required carries imprisonment of between two months and one year, a fine of between OMR 1,000 and OMR 10,000, or one of the two. The same article covers deliberately failing to keep tax invoices and documents for the required period, and the court may double the penalty where an offence recurs.

What Omani businesses should do now

Work out which date applies to you. Annual supplies above OMR 5 million puts you in April 2027, roughly eight months out. At or below and you have until October 2027, six months more. The threshold decides timing, not whether you are in scope, and there are no industry exceptions.

Do not plan around B2C arriving later. Article 143 covers supplies to persons not subject to tax, simplified invoices run on the same deadlines, a QR code is required on the human-readable invoice for consumer transactions, and consolidated B2C invoices are not permitted. Reporting timing differs by transaction type: B2B tax data in real time, B2C within 24 hours.

Pick a provider, then check how you connect. Every invoice passes through an accredited service provider, and Oman runs a centralised SMP that providers must connect through rather than operating their own. Taxpayers link to a provider through the Fawtara Portal and hold one at a time, though they can switch. Our Vendor Match tool helps shortlist Peppol-ready providers by size, region and stack.

Read the data dictionary before scoping ERP work. Mandatory, optional and conditional fields sit in the Authority's data dictionary and business rules, and the mapping guidance is the PINT OM specification rather than a generic Peppol profile.

Full scope rules, technical requirements and the amended articles are set out in our Oman e-Invoicing Guide, and the Oman country page tracks the mandate live. If you operate across the Gulf, the Oman dates now sit between the live regime in Saudi Arabia and the UAE rollout starting January 2027.

References

Oman's e-invoicing mandate is tracked live on e-Invoice.app.