[August 9, 2019] Effective November 2, 2019, most taxpayers in Colombia will be required to transmit electronic invoices pursuant to the schema defined by Universal Business Language (UBL) Version 2.1. Specifically, the Colombian Tax Administration (DIAN) issued Resolution 000020/2019 establishing the schedule for complying with the new pre-clearance e-invoicing requirements and for upgrading to UBL schema version 2.1. Initially, most taxpayers were required to comply as of September 2, 2019. However, this requirement was later modified by Resolution 0000030/2019 that, among other changes, provided two additional months for some taxpayers to make the necessary adjustments to achieve compliance.
In the original resolution, the deadlines for complying with the new standards were defined by two basic alternate criteria:
a. The type of economic activity or nature of the business (taxpayers were divided into 14 groups as assigned by the DIAN) or
b. Whether they were previously required or enabled to start invoicing electronically under the existing system. Most large taxpayers fall into this group
Under the modified requirement, taxpayers falling into the second (large taxpayer) bucket are now required to achieve compliance by November 2, 2019.
For all other taxpayers the deadline for compliance remains unchanged and continues to be defined by the classification set by the DIAN, which can be found at the following link:
By way of a refresher, under Colombia’s current system, taxpayers have 48 hours to report to the DIAN all invoices issued. Under this new model, taxpayers will further be required to pre-validate sales invoices prior to issuance and before the goods are shipped.
For more information, click here.
