Business certificate in Lithuania: invoice or receipt, example

If you work under a Lithuanian business certificate (verslo liudijimas) and are not registered for VAT, you are not required to issue an invoice (sąskaita faktūra). The main document for the buyer is the goods (services) purchase–sale receipt (prekių (paslaugų) pirkimo–pardavimo kvitas, form FR0508).

You may issue an invoice, and the rules for the receipt describe one case directly: where a separate contract sets payment for later, an invoice is issued when the goods are handed over or the service is provided, and the receipt when the money is received.

Example: an invoice and a receipt from a business certificate holder

The parties, amounts and numbers are invented. The service is an illustration only: whether an activity may be carried out under a business certificate is set by the list of activities approved by the Government.

Vardenis Pavardenis, who holds a business certificate for services, provided a service to UAB „Pavyzdys“ on 7 October 2026. The parties agreed in writing that the company would pay by bank transfer within 14 days. The money reached the account on 20 October.

On the day the service is provided, an invoice is issued:

On the day the money is received, a receipt is issued:

Payment was by bank transfer, so the receipt lines for the rounding amount and for the total paid after rounding do not have to be filled in. For a cash payment both are required.

Had the buyer paid at once, the receipt alone would have been enough.

Our invoice tool does not prepare the FR0508 receipt. It is made for the invoice and the VAT invoice, so it helps with the first of these two documents.

Do I have to issue an invoice under a business certificate?

No, as long as you are not registered for VAT. This follows from three points of the Rules approved by Government Resolution No. 780:

• point 3: invoices must be used by economic entities that are not VAT payers, except natural persons;
• point 8¹: residents who carry out economic activity, including individual activity, and are not VAT payers may document a supply of goods or services with an invoice;
• point 27: other requirements for accounting documents issued by residents engaged in individual activity are set in the legal acts that govern their financial accounting.

For a business certificate holder those acts are two: the accounting rules approved by the Minister of Finance's order No. 415 (below, the accounting rules), and the rules for filling in the FR0508 receipt approved by order No. 379 of the Head of the State Tax Inspectorate (below, the receipt rules).

Point 4 of the receipt rules says it plainly: residents who have acquired business certificates must use receipts when they sell or buy goods and provide services. The receipt may be on paper or electronic.

When is the receipt mandatory, and when only on request?

It is mandatory in two cases:

1. When this is provided for in the procedure for recording data on payments for goods and services (Government Resolution No. 1283).
2. When you, as a certificate holder, are the buyer of goods produced by another certificate holder, of agricultural produce grown by a resident who is not a VAT payer, or of the personal belongings of a resident who is not a VAT payer and holds no business certificate. Here the buyer, that is you, issues the receipt.

In all other cases the receipt is issued when the buyer or the recipient of the service asks for it. Resolution No. 1283 lists many separate situations and has no separate rule for business certificate holders, so check with the State Tax Inspectorate which of them fits your activity.

What must the receipt contain?

Point 8 of the accounting rules lists eight items:

1. the title of the receipt;
2. your first name, or its initial, and your surname;
3. the business certificate number;
4. the date the receipt is written;
5. the name of the goods or service;
6. the quantity, price and amount;
7. your signature;
8. the buyer's name and code, or first name, surname and personal code (asmens kodas), only if the buyer asks.

The receipt rules add practical requirements:

• receipt numbers run in ascending order: 1, 2, 3 and so on;
• a paper receipt is filled in in two copies, legibly, with no erasures or crossings-out; one copy goes to the buyer, the other stays with you;
• every copy of a spoiled paper receipt is marked „Anuliuota“ (annulled);
• the price is stated in euros and cents;
• an electronic receipt is given to the buyer where the buyer has agreed in advance;
• the receipt is signed by you or by a family member entered in your business certificate.

When is an invoice issued, and what goes into it?

This is the usual case when a client asks for a document against which to make a bank transfer.

The texts we read contain no separate list of what a business certificate holder writes in an invoice. The example follows three provisions:

• Article 7(1) of the Law on Financial Accounting lists the required information of an accounting document: the name (first name, surname) of the entity that carried out the transaction, the date the document was prepared, the content of the transaction, its date if different from the document date, the result in money and (or) in quantity, the title of the document, and the recipient's name and legal entity code.
• Points 5 and 6 of the Rules approved by Resolution No. 780 provide that an invoice also states the buyer's name and code, the name and price of the goods or service, and a series and number. The number runs in ascending order and may not repeat.
• Point 2.7 of Resolution No. 780 sets when the buyer may treat a cost as a deductible expense on the basis of an invoice: it must show the supplier's code and the buyer's name and code. A supplier who is a natural person with no VAT identification number chooses to state the personal code, the individual activity certificate number or the business certificate number.

See also the guides to an invoice without VAT, to invoice numbering and to invoice requirements in Lithuania.

Who can I sell to under a business certificate?

Government Resolution No. 1797 sets the income on which the fixed-amount income tax is paid:

• income from selling goods and providing services to residents (private individuals), with the exceptions stated in the resolution;
• income from selling goods and providing services to legal persons, if the kind of activity stated in the business certificate is not one of the kinds of activity the legal person carries out. This does not include the letting of residential premises.

The same EUR 4,500 limit applies to a certificate for trade, except that it also counts income for goods (other than goods you produced yourself) sold to residents for the purposes of their own individual trading activity. Under a trade certificate the fixed-amount tax cannot be paid on income from trading in cars, motorcycles and mopeds.

The resolution does not explain how to decide whether your kind of activity is one of the client's. Before taking a larger order from a company, consult an accountant or the State Tax Inspectorate.

Is a business certificate the same as individual activity?

A business certificate is one of the ways to carry out individual activity (individuali veikla).

The Law on Personal Income Tax defines it as a document confirming that the fixed-amount income tax has been paid for carrying out individual activity and (or) the letting of property that is immovable by nature, where these kinds of activity are on the list approved by the Government. A separate certificate is issued for each kind of activity.

The other way is registered individual activity under an individual activity certificate (individualios veiklos vykdymo pažyma), covered in the guide to the self-employed invoice. This guide does not advise which to choose: that depends on your activity and income, and is a question for an accountant.

What if you become a VAT payer?

The Law on VAT does not mention the business certificate, so it has no separate rule for certificate holders.

Under Article 71(2), a Lithuanian taxable person is not required to register for VAT if the total consideration for goods and services supplied within the country did not exceed EUR 45,000 in the previous calendar year and is not expected to exceed that limit in the current one.

A VAT payer documents a supply with a VAT invoice (PVM sąskaita faktūra) under Articles 79 and 80 of that law; see the guide to the VAT invoice.

Point 8¹ of the Rules approved by Resolution No. 780 adds that a resident who was required to register for VAT but did not must issue an invoice in the cases where, once registered, a VAT invoice would have been required. If you are approaching the limit, speak to an accountant.

How is income recorded, and how long are documents kept?

You enter income and expenses in the income and expense journal of a resident who has acquired a business certificate; a different procedure applies to those who use a cash register and keep a cash register operations journal. The journal may be on paper or electronic, for example in i.APS, a subsystem of the State Tax Inspectorate.

Income counts as received when you actually receive the payment, and the journal is filled in chronologically. Its data are used for the annual income tax return.

Point 18 of the rules approved by Resolution No. 1797 sets two retention periods:

Receipts are not named separately in that point. If you are unsure which period applies to a document, check with an accountant.

What to do now

1. When you are paid at once, issue the FR0508 receipt with its eight items.
2. When a separate contract sets payment for later, issue an invoice noting that payment will be made later, then the receipt when the money arrives.
3. Track what you receive from legal persons during the year, so that you notice the EUR 4,500 limit in time.

You can prepare that invoice in the free invoice tool: no registration is needed, the draft stays in your browser, the tool shows which required information is missing, and you print the document or save it as a PDF through the browser's print window.

It is not accounting software: it does not prepare the FR0508 receipt or the income and expense journal, keeps no register and sends nothing to the tax authority.

This guide explains what the legal texts say and is not tax advice.