What is SAF-T and which countries require it?
SAF-T (Standard Audit File for Tax) is an OECD standard for the electronic export of accounting and tax data to tax authorities for audit purposes. SAF-T files contain structured data from the general ledger, sales ledger, purchase ledger, and asset register in a predefined XML schema. Countries requiring SAF-T include Portugal, Poland, Norway, France (FEC variant), Lithuania, and others.
What does a SAF-T file contain?
A SAF-T file contains: (1) Header: company information, fiscal year, currency; (2) Master files: customers, suppliers, products, tax table, general ledger accounts; (3) General ledger entries: all journal entries with date, account, amount, description; (4) Sales invoices: each invoice with line-level detail, VAT codes, amounts; (5) Purchase invoices: purchase transactions with supplier and VAT data; (6) Payments: receipts and payments linked to invoices; (7) Asset register (where required). Country-specific versions (e.g., JPK in Poland, SAFT-PT in Portugal, FEC in France) have specific schema variations.
Frequently Asked Questions
- Is SAF-T submitted routinely or only on audit request?
- SAF-T submission requirements vary by country. Portugal requires monthly SAF-T-PT submission for sales data. Poland requires monthly JPK_VAT (SAF-T VAT subset) submission by all VAT-registered entities. Norway requires SAF-T on tax authority request. France requires SAF-T (FEC) submission on tax audit initiation. Lithuania requires periodic SAF-T submission. Businesses operating in multiple SAF-T countries must configure their ERP to produce multiple country-specific SAF-T outputs.
- What is the JPK in Poland and how does it relate to SAF-T?
- JPK (Jednolity Plik Kontrolny, or Single Control File) is Poland's national implementation of SAF-T. JPK_VAT is the mandatory monthly electronic VAT record submission combining the VAT register (formerly VAT-7 return) and invoice-level transaction data. JPK_VAT replaced paper VAT returns from October 2020. Poland also has other JPK structures for general ledger (JPK_KR), bank statements (JPK_WB), and invoices (JPK_FA) that can be required on audit request.