SUNAT (Peru e-invoicing)

SUNAT is Peru's tax authority and the body that governs the country's e-invoicing system.

Definition

SUNAT (Superintendencia Nacional de Aduanas y de Administración Tributaria) is Peru's tax and customs administration. It operates one of Latin America's earliest mandatory e-invoicing systems, the Comprobantes de Pago Electrónicos (electronic payment vouchers) regime.

Documents (invoices, credit and debit notes) are issued as XML files compliant with the UBL standard, electronically signed and then submitted for validity checks.

OSE and PSE: the validation actors

Two kinds of intermediaries operate in the scheme:

• An OSE (Operador de Servicios Electrónicos) is a provider accredited by SUNAT to validate electronic vouchers on the authority's behalf.
• A PSE (Proveedor de Servicios Electrónicos) is a technical provider that helps the business generate and transmit its documents.

Once validated, the document receives a Constancia de Recepción (CDR), an acknowledgement confirming its compliance.

Good to know

The Peruvian model is a clearance system: an invoice's validity depends on its acceptance by SUNAT (directly or via an OSE). A rejected invoice has no fiscal value.

This approach is similar in principle to the tax-clearance models used in other Latin American countries, even though formats and code sets differ from one country to another.