Oman e-Invoicing Guide

Oman built its e-invoicing regime as a programme first and a legal duty second. The Oman Tax Authority has run the Fawtara programme since 2025, publishing accreditation criteria, opening a service provider portal and taking on the role of Peppol Authority, but without a regulation behind any of it. That changed on 9 August 2026, when the Authority issued Decision No. 189/2026 amending the Executive Regulations made by Decision No. 53/2021 under the VAT Law issued by Royal Decree 121/2020.

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. Article 3 of the decision splits the rollout by size, measured on annual supplies rather than sector or headcount: taxable persons above OMR 5 million from 1 April 2027, and everyone at or below that figure from 1 October 2027.

Exchange runs on a five-corner Peppol model. Invoices travel from the supplier to its accredited service provider, across the network to the buyer's provider and on to the buyer, while the tax data reaches the Tax Authority in parallel as corner five. The dates in Decision No. 189/2026 govern the obligation. (The Authority's e-invoicing FAQ still sets out the earlier four-phase programme schedule beginning in August 2026, and the decision text has not yet been published on the portal.)

The groundwork ran through 2025 and the first half of 2026. The Authority published its roadmap and service provider accreditation criteria in September 2025, expanded the provider requirements and opened its consultation workshops in December, and was listed as the Peppol Authority for Oman in January 2026. Technical specifications and a draft data dictionary followed in November 2025, which is the artefact ERP and billing systems map against, and a developer and test environment in February 2026. Service provider registration opened on 17 March 2026 with the first release of the accreditation portal, backed by drop-in sessions later that month.

On 30 June 2026 the Authority updated its Fawtara FAQ and published the association management manual, which let taxpayers connect to and disconnect from accredited providers through the Fawtara Portal and confirmed the tests providers must pass. Decision No. 189/2026 followed on 9 August. Ahead of the legal dates, the Authority has selected 100 companies to start in August 2026 on revenue size, annual invoice volume and technical readiness, and its FAQ allows any company outside that group to adopt early on a voluntary basis with support provided. Nothing is legally required of either group before April 2027.

The duty attaches to taxable persons, so VAT registration is the gate rather than company size, and the OMR 5 million figure decides only when a business starts. Article 143 as replaced lists four triggers: 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 brings consumer sales inside the mandate.

Simplified invoices follow the same clock. The decision amends the second paragraph of Article 146 so a simplified tax invoice must be issued within the Article 143 deadlines. For consumer transactions the Authority requires a QR code on the human-readable invoice, whether the invoice is full or simplified, and does not permit consolidated B2C invoices. Storage is not a Fawtara obligation at all: it stays with the taxpayer under the VAT legislation, and Article 70 of the VAT Law sets 10 years from the end of the tax year in which the return was filed, rising to 15 years for real-estate records.

Three carve-outs apply. Sellers not registered for VAT sit outside the network entirely, and invoices they issue may not carry VAT. Out-of-scope supplies will not require an e-invoice, although the Authority advises waiting for the legislation to confirm the position. Article 143bis2 lets the Chairman exempt a taxable person from issuing electronic invoices for a set period, on application with supporting documents and reasons the Authority accepts, conditional on the applicant continuing to file returns in the prescribed form and on time and to pay the tax due on time. There are no industry exceptions.

The supplier sends to its accredited provider, which validates the document against the Oman schematron rules and passes it to the buyer's provider for delivery, while the tax data goes to the Authority in parallel with acknowledgements confirming delivery. Reporting timing differs by transaction: B2B tax data is due in real time, B2C within 24 hours. Exports take a shorter path of corner one to corner two to corner five, because the buyer and the buyer's provider sit outside the network. Invoices are issued in XML, and the Authority is direct that a PDF invoice is not an e-invoice.

Oman runs a centralised SMP. Accredited providers must connect through the Tax Authority's SMP and are not permitted to operate their own. To be accredited, a provider needs mainland commercial registration with relevant IT activities, paid-up capital of at least OMR 6,000, two years of operating history (one for Riyada card holders), declarations on bankruptcy and criminal proceedings, no outstanding tax debt collection, and it must satisfy technical and security requirements. It must then pass the eDelivery and PINT OM test suites on the Peppol testbed. Peppol membership is mandatory to receive accreditation, though the Authority does not require it at the initial stage. (The data dictionary and business rules that ERP mapping depends on were issued in draft for consultation; final guidance is pending.)

On the taxpayer side, connections are managed through the Fawtara Portal: a business requests a link to an accredited provider, can withdraw or end that link, and holds one provider at a time, though it may switch. A company that meets the criteria and passes the tests can be accredited and act as its own provider. Decision No. 189/2026 adds two supporting duties. Article 143bis obliges the Authority to announce the licensed providers to taxpayers, and Article 143bis1 puts the security of the issuing system on the taxpayer, covering protection against breach and unauthorised access, procedures for emergencies and technical failure, and data recovery so the system keeps running.

Oman has not published a penalty schedule specific to e-invoicing. The Tax Authority says only that penalties will apply according to regulations, and Decision No. 189/2026 sets the obligation and its dates without attaching 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. The court may double the penalty where an offence recurs.