How to Invoice Properly in Ghana (2026)

An invoice in Ghana has stopped being a piece of paper you design yourself. Since the Value Added Tax Act, 2025 (Act 1151) took effect on 1 January 2026, a VAT-registered business does not print its own tax invoice at all — it issues one through the Commissioner-General's certified invoicing system. And the group of businesses caught by that rule got dramatically larger, because the new Act removed the VAT registration threshold for services entirely.

Most small Ghanaian businesses are still invoicing the way they did in 2024. This guide covers what a compliant invoice now looks like, what leaves your invoice before the money reaches you, and the details that decide whether you actually get paid.

The change most service businesses missed

Under the old Act 870, you registered for VAT once your turnover crossed a threshold. Under Act 1151 that logic survives only for goods.

The GRA's own administrative guideline for the Act is blunt about services: "There is no registration threshold for service providers. This implies that all service providers are registerable except otherwise directed by Commissioner-General." Service providers must register within thirty days of commencing service, or within thirty days of the Act's effective date if they were already trading. A consultant, a hairdresser, a graphic designer, a mechanic, a cleaning company — all registerable, whatever the turnover, unless the Commissioner-General directs otherwise.

For goods, the threshold is ₵750,000 of taxable supplies during or at the end of any twelve-month period. There are also forward-looking triggers, so you cannot wait out a good year: ₵375,000 over six months or less, ₵187,500 over three months or less, or ₵62,500 at the end of a single month. Auctioneers must register within 30 days of becoming an auctioneer regardless of turnover, and a promoter of public entertainment must register not less than 48 hours before the event.

If you are unsure which side of this you fall on, read our fuller explainer on how VAT works in Ghana and the broader complete guide to tax in Ghana before you issue another invoice.

Your VAT invoice is not yours to design

The guideline states that taxable persons "are required to issue a tax invoice or sales receipt to clients through the certified invoicing system of the Commissioner-General when they make taxable supplies." That is the E-VAT system — which the GRA is careful to say is not a new tax, only an electronic way of issuing VAT receipts. GRA installs it free of charge for VAT-registered businesses that do not already have a system.

A genuine E-VAT receipt carries a set of features you cannot fake: the Commissioner-General's signature, a QR code for verification, a receipt signature that cannot be altered, an exact timestamp, a serial number, a receipt number, and a machine registration code. Your customers can and increasingly do scan that QR code. An "invoice" without those features is not a tax invoice, and a customer who needs to claim input tax cannot use it.

Three practical consequences:

• If you run your own approved invoicing software, you had to reconfigure it to the prevailing VAT rate by 1 January 2026. Own computer-generated invoices must be approved by the Commissioner-General.
• If you still hold VAT flat-rate invoice booklets, the flat-rate scheme is gone. Return unused booklets to your assigned tax office and collect standard-rate ones.
• If your old invoice template has a COVID-19 Health Recovery Levy field, ignore it. That levy has been repealed.

The system also has a documented downtime procedure, and it is worth knowing before it bites you. If your e-invoicing software or your ERP/POS goes down, notify GRA immediately — the guideline names evat.support3@gra.gov.gh — and upload every transaction that happened offline once connectivity returns. If the certified system becomes inaccessible to the Commissioner-General, you have 24 hours to report it. And if you plan to upgrade your invoicing hardware or software, or install antivirus on it, tell GRA 24 hours beforehand. Businesses get into trouble here not by evading tax but by silently trading through an outage.

Laying out the tax lines

The mechanics confuse people because VAT and the levies sit on the same base rather than stacking on each other. The guideline's own worked illustration: a supply costing ₵100,000 attracts GETFund/NHIL of 5% × 100,000 = ₵5,000 and VAT of 15% × 100,000 = ₵15,000, for a total of ₵120,000 and tax payable of ₵20,000.

So your invoice shows the fee, then NHIL at 2.5%, then GETFund at 2.5%, then VAT at 15% — each calculated on the fee, never on each other. The combined effect is a flat 20%.

Two things to watch. If you quote a tax-inclusive price, the tax fraction is 20/120, or one sixth of the total; the VAT-only portion is 15/120, or one eighth. Our VAT calculator does this both ways. And in two sectors an earlier tax joins the base first: for electronic communications services the Communications Service Tax is added to cost to arrive at the taxable value before VAT and levies, and for excisable goods the excise is added to the ex-factory price first. Getting that order wrong understates your own liability. This also has to feed back into your pricing: a business that treats the 20% as its own money is quietly running at a loss, and if you have not formalised the business yet, start with registering a business in Ghana.

VAT returns are due on or before the last day of the month immediately following the month the return covers. If GRA has verified you as below the threshold but has not yet deregistered you, you file NIL returns in the meantime.

What leaves the invoice before you are paid

This is the part that catches new businesses hardest: a compliant invoice for ₵48,000 does not put ₵48,000 in your account.

Income tax withholding. Where the payment exceeds ₵2,000 per annum, an appointed withholding agent deducts and remits tax on your behalf at rates published by GRA: 3% on the supply of goods, 5% on the supply of works, 7.5% on the supply of services by an entity, and 7.5% on general services supplied by an individual. Rent is withheld at 8% for residential property and 15% for non-residential. The agent must file the prescribed statement and pay within fifteen days after the end of the month, and must issue you a withholding certificate.

That certificate is not paperwork — it is money. It is credited against your own income tax liability, so a lost certificate is tax you have paid twice. Withholding is normally deducted on the fee rather than on the tax-inclusive total, since VAT and the levies were never your income; if a client withholds on the gross, ask them to check the base and reissue the certificate.

Withholding VAT. Separately, an appointed VAT withholding agent withholds 7% of the taxable value of your local taxable supply at the time of payment. Per the guideline, the agent pays you the taxable value, plus the levies, plus the remaining 8% of the taxable value — and remits the 7% directly to GRA, filing and paying by the 15th of the following month. You receive a withholding VAT certificate showing the amount withheld, both TINs, the serial number on the invoice issued, the date of issue, the nature of the transaction and the period. That certificate gives you a tax credit equal to the amount withheld, and where your deductible input tax exceeds output tax for the period, the excess is credited to the next tax period.

If your compliance record is clean, you can apply to the Commissioner-General to be exempted from withholding VAT altogether. The guideline lists good cause as returns filed on time, taxes paid on time, proper record keeping, and any other compliance requirement the Commissioner-General determines. For a business with thin working capital, that exemption is worth chasing — it is the difference between holding your own cash and lending it to the state until you file.

One invoice, all the way through

You are a VAT-registered consultancy. You bill a corporate client — an appointed agent for both taxes — ₵40,000 for services.

The client withholds VAT of 7% × 40,000 = ₵2,800 and pays it to GRA. It pays you the taxable value (40,000), the levies (2,000) and the remaining 8% (3,200) — ₵45,200. It then withholds income tax at 7.5% on the ₵40,000 fee, or ₵3,000.

Cash into your account: ₵42,200. Plus two certificates worth ₵5,800 in credits. If you priced the job as a ₵48,000 job, you have already lost the argument.

When you are not VAT-registered

If you are below the goods threshold, or an individual migrated to the Modified Taxation System, you are not issuing tax invoices — but you still need proper ones. The Revenue Administration Act requires you to keep records, and it names invoices among the underlying documents, retained in Ghana for at least six years.

A workable non-VAT invoice carries: your registered business name and address; your TIN — for most individuals this is now the Ghana Card PIN; a unique sequential invoice number you never reuse; the invoice date and the date the work was done or goods delivered; the client's name, address and TIN; a line-by-line description with quantities and unit prices; the total in cedis; your payment terms; and your payment details. Do not describe an unregistered business as charging "VAT" — collecting VAT you are not registered to collect is a serious problem, not a rounding issue.

Keep proforma invoices visibly distinct. A proforma is a quotation: it is not a demand for payment, it does not enter your books as a sale, and it should say "PROFORMA — NOT A TAX INVOICE" across the top.

Getting paid

Compliance gets you a lawful invoice. These get you the money.

Put the payment rails on the invoice. Bank name, account name, account number, branch and, if you accept it, the mobile money number and the registered name on that wallet. Mismatched names are the single most common cause of a delayed transfer. If you take payment by MoMo, price for the cost — our guide to reducing mobile money charges covers where those fees land, and a business account may be cheaper than you assume; compare options in our bank accounts guide.

State terms in days, not adjectives. "Payable within 14 days of invoice date" is enforceable in a way that "payment on receipt" is not. Say what happens after that date, and apply it consistently.

Invoice on delivery, not at month end. A fortnight's delay in issuing is a fortnight added to every payment cycle, permanently.

Reconcile weekly. An aged debtors list of five lines beats a memory of five clients. Chase at day 7 past due with a copy of the invoice attached, not a reminder that assumes they still have it.

Do not fund your clients indefinitely. Persistent late payment is a working-capital problem, and the fix is either a deposit up front, staged billing, or short-term finance — see SME lending from Development Bank Ghana and our business loan comparison. Financing receivables is expensive; restructuring your terms is free.

For invoices priced in foreign currency, remember the cedi moves between issue and settlement. Our note on protecting money from cedi depreciation explains why a 60-day dollar invoice is a currency position whether you meant it to be or not.

Mistakes that cost real money

• Stacking the levies on top of VAT. They all sit on the same base. Stacking overcharges your customer and invites a dispute.
• Reusing invoice numbers. It breaks reconciliation and looks like concealment during an audit.
• Filing the withholding certificate loosely. No certificate, no credit.
• Issuing paper invoices while VAT-registered. The tax invoice must come through the certified system.
• Trading through an outage without telling GRA. The procedure exists so you can keep trading — use it.
• Assuming a services business is too small for VAT. Under Act 1151, size is not the test for services.

Frequently asked questions

Do I need to register for VAT if I only earn ₵60,000 a year from services? Under the GRA's guideline for Act 1151 there is no registration threshold for service providers, so yes — service providers are registerable regardless of turnover unless the Commissioner-General directs otherwise. Register within thirty days of commencing service and confirm your position with your assigned tax office.

Can I still write my own invoices in a book? Not as tax invoices, if you are VAT-registered. Those must be issued through the Commissioner-General's certified invoicing system. If you use your own computer-generated invoices, they need the Commissioner-General's approval and must reflect the prevailing rate.

What if my client withholds tax but never gives me a certificate? Ask for it in writing, quoting the invoice number and payment date. The agent is required to issue a withholding certificate, and it is the only way you claim the credit. Without it you will pay the same tax twice.

Is the VAT rate 15% or 20%? Both figures are correct about different things. VAT itself is 15%; NHIL at 2.5% and GETFund at 2.5% are charged on the same taxable value, so the total tax on a supply is 20%. On a tax-inclusive price, the tax is one sixth of the total.

How do I check whether an invoice I received is genuine? Scan the QR code. A genuine E-VAT receipt also carries the Commissioner-General's signature, an unalterable receipt signature, a timestamp, a serial number, a receipt number and a machine registration code. If those are missing, you cannot rely on it for input tax.

What is the penalty for not issuing a proper VAT invoice? Act 1151 and the Revenue Administration Act carry offences and penalties around invoicing and record-keeping, but the amounts change with amending legislation. Confirm the current penalty directly with the GRA rather than relying on a figure quoted online.

Reviewed 6 September 2026 against the GRA's VAT Administrative Guidelines for the Value Added Tax Act, 2025 (Act 1151), Guideline No. GRA/AG/25/002 of 31 December 2025, the GRA withholding tax rate schedule, and the GRA E-VAT service page.

This article is general information, not financial or tax advice. Tax positions turn on facts specific to your business — confirm yours with the Ghana Revenue Authority or a licensed tax practitioner before acting.