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Ureta  /  Invoice currency and rate  /  Directive-only member states

Eleven member states  ·  read from the Directive

Where the national law is silent, the Directive is the rule.

Eleven member states set no national rule on invoice currency: any currency on the document, the VAT in the national currency, and the ECB rate must be accepted.

The short answer, per member state

The document may be in any currency in every one of them (art. 230). The rate: any rate national rules allow, and the ECB rate must be accepted (art. 91(2)).

Belgium (BE) VAT amount in euro
Croatia (HR) VAT amount in euro
Denmark (DK) VAT amount in Danish krone (DKK)
Finland (FI) VAT amount in euro
Hungary (HU) VAT amount in Hungarian forint (HUF)
Italy (IT) VAT amount in euro Italy transposes it as a precision rule: the rate, the tax and the taxable amount rounded to the euro cent (art. 21 comma 2 lettera l), D.P.R. 633/1972).
Malta (MT) VAT amount in euro
Netherlands (NL) VAT amount in euro Measured, not assumed: art. 35a Wet OB and the rest of the Dutch VAT Act say nothing about invoice currency.
Portugal (PT) VAT amount in euro
Slovakia (SK) VAT amount in euro
Slovenia (SI) VAT amount in euro

The provision

Two articles of the VAT Directive decide it.

«The amounts which appear on the invoice may be expressed in any currency, provided that the amount of VAT payable or to be adjusted is expressed in the national currency of the Member State, using the conversion rate mechanism provided for in Article 91.»

Art. 230, Directive 2006/112/EC

Article 91(2) then sets the rate: the latest selling rate on the most representative exchange market of the member state when the tax becomes chargeable, or a rate determined by reference to it, under that state's rules - and, in its second subparagraph, a rate every member state must accept instead.

Why the ECB rate is safe in every member state. The second subparagraph of article 91(2) of the VAT Directive, inserted by Directive 2010/45/EU, says member states shall accept the use of the latest exchange rate published by the European Central Bank at the time the tax becomes chargeable, and that conversion between two currencies other than the euro goes through the euro rate of each. It is an obligation on the state, not an option for the taxpayer. The same sentence lets a member state require you to notify it that you use the ECB rate; ask your accountant whether your member state does.

When it reaches you

If you sell through the stores, this bites in one case.

Article 230 constrains the amount of VAT payable or to be adjusted. An app developer's ordinary invoice to a store or an ad network carries no VAT amount at all: it is a reverse-charge supply to another member state, or a supply outside the scope entirely. Where there is no tax line, there is nothing for the currency rule to bind. The rule reaches you on a supply that actually charges that member state's VAT.

What Ureta does about it

The rate is pinned when the month is, and it is kept with the document.

  • The ECB reference rate, for every EU tenant. It is the rate article 91(2) obliges every member state to accept. A currency other than the euro is converted through the euro, as the same article says.
  • The rate is pinned per month and stored, so a document issued last March still reports the rate it carried in March rather than a number recomputed today.
  • Nothing is guessed. Where no rate from a defensible authority is available for a currency, the engine refuses to issue rather than putting a plausible wrong number on a legal document.

How this page was read

Every sentence above came from the text, and here is which text and when.

The Directive Directive 2006/112/EC arts. 91 and 230, consolidated to 1 January 2025, read 25 August 2026 from the Publications Office. Source.

You sold. The rest is handled.

Ureta is income-reporting software for app creators. It fetches every store and ad network, converts at a rate your own authority must accept, and has the month's documents ready before the deadline.

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