What every invoice must show
- It must be a Mushak 6.3 tax invoice, issued under rule 40 on or before the date the tax becomes payable, and it must carry both your 13-digit BIN and the buyer's BIN, alongside your name and the address the invoice is issued from.
- The time of issue as well as the date, plus the invoice number and the destination of the supply. The clock time is a real field on the form, not an optional extra.
- A line table showing, for each item, the description of the supply, the unit, the quantity, the unit price inclusive of VAT and supplementary duty, the amount of supplementary duty, and the total value in taka — then a grand total, total VAT and total tax beneath it.
- Where the supply is subject to VAT deduction at source, the same Mushak 6.3 doubles as the VAT deduction at source certificate and must show the maximum amount deductible at source. You do not issue a second document.
Numbering, keeping and correcting invoices
Section 107 of the VAT and Supplementary Duty Act, 2012 requires a registered person to keep accounts, documents and records for five years. The records must include purchase and sales statements, tax invoices, credit notes, debit notes and VAT deduction at source certificates, whether the supplies were taxable or exempt.
A credit or debit note must show its serial number, date and time, the supplier's name, address and BIN, the serial number, date and time of the original tax invoice, the nature of the adjustment and its effect on VAT (section 52). Where the VAT effect on the supply is more than Tk 5,000, the note must also carry the buyer's name, address and BIN where applicable. A credit note without that buyer information cannot be used to support a claim to reduce output tax.
Under the penalty table in section 85, failing to issue a tax invoice, credit note, debit note or deduction at source certificate carries a fine of Tk 10,000, and failing to keep records in the prescribed way carries another Tk 10,000. Suppliers of exempt goods and services are still bound by the invoice and record-keeping sections.
Electronic invoicing in Bangladesh
There is no e-invoicing mandate in Bangladesh. Nothing clears or reports an ordinary invoice to NBR before or as it is issued. What exists is narrower and worth being precise about. EFD (Electronic Fiscal Device) and SDC (Sales Data Controller) machines are compulsory for specified retail and service outlets, and NBR extended the requirement to all VAT-eligible hotels and restaurants on highways in 2025, but the rollout is far behind target — NBR publishes the list of businesses actually running the devices on its own site and it runs to a few tens of thousands against a target of 3.5 lakh. Separately, three things changed on 1 July 2026 that are digitisation but not e-invoicing: the VAT return must be filed online through eVAT and manual returns were abolished; Mushak 6.3 may be issued straight from your ERP system and preserved electronically rather than on paper; and for Mobile Financial Services the platform's own online notification or statement may be treated as the Mushak 6.3. VAT registration itself is now fully automated through eVAT with the BIN issued to your email on submission. For an ordinary business today, you generate your own Mushak 6.3 and keep it — you do not transmit it.