Advance invoices in Slovakia and the tax document for a received payment: what, when and how

The client pays up front and you deliver later. Such a deal can involve three documents: an advance invoice (zálohová faktúra) asking for the payment, an invoice for the received payment that a VAT payer must issue once the money arrives, and a final invoice that settles the advance.^⁠[1]⁠[2]

This guide explains which of them is a tax document and which is not, the deadlines, how VAT on an advance is calculated, what applies to non-VAT payers and foreign clients, and what changes with e-invoicing from 2027.

An advance invoice is not a tax document

An advance invoice (often called a proforma) is a request for payment. If it does not contain the particulars of an invoice under the VAT Act and issuing it does not create a tax liability, it is not an invoice for the purposes of the VAT Act.^⁠[4]

Two things follow: no VAT is paid on an advance invoice, and the customer cannot deduct VAT from it, because a deduction requires an invoice from a VAT payer.^⁠[1]

When the advance arrives: the invoice for the received payment

If a VAT payer receives a payment before supplying the goods or services, the tax liability arises on the day the payment is received.^⁠[1] It must issue an invoice for the received payment within 15 days of receiving it, or by the end of the calendar month in which it was received.^⁠[1]⁠[2] In practice this is called the tax document for a received payment (daňový doklad k prijatej platbe).

• Content: the invoice for a received payment carries the particulars of § 74 of the VAT Act; instead of the date of supply it states the date the payment was received, if that differs from the date of issue.^⁠[1]
• Tax base: the amount received includes the tax, so the tax base is the payment reduced by the tax. For a payment of €1,230 at 23 %, the base is €1,000 and the VAT €230.^⁠[1]
• Partial payment: the tax liability arises on what actually arrived: if half the advance is paid, you tax half.^⁠[1]

The final invoice: settling the advance

Once the goods or services are supplied, you issue an invoice for the whole supply, even though the advance has already been taxed. In it you settle the advance: from the whole supply you deduct the tax base and VAT already stated on the invoice for the received payment, so VAT is only paid on the rest.^⁠[2]

If you received 100 % of the price in advance and already paid the VAT on it, you must still issue a final invoice. The invoice that settles the full advance ("amount due 0") is not, however, included in the VAT return or the control statement.^⁠[2]

Non-VAT payers and advances from foreign clients

A non-VAT payer does not pay VAT on a domestic sale, so it does not issue an invoice for the received payment either: the advance invoice is only a payment request, and after the supply it issues an ordinary invoice that deducts the advance from the amount due.^⁠[1]

Services to a foreign business whose place of supply is the customer's country are different:^⁠[3]

• even a non-VAT payer must issue an invoice for the received advance: within 15 days of the end of the month it was received for an EU client, within 15 days of receiving it for a client outside the EU,^⁠[3]
• the invoice to an EU business carries the words "prenesenie daňovej povinnosti" (reverse charge) and goes into the EC sales list.^⁠[3]

A VAT payer supplying goods to another EU country under the § 43 exemption does not have to invoice the received advance; it invoices only the goods supplied.^⁠[2] More on invoicing abroad is in Invoicing foreign clients from Slovakia.

Advances and e-invoicing from 2027

The whole move to e-invoicing is described in E-invoicing in Slovakia from 1 January 2027.

Checklist

• Label the advance invoice so that it is clearly not a tax document.
• Are you a VAT payer? Once the payment arrives, issue the invoice for it within 15 days or by the end of the month.
• Calculate VAT from the amount received, which already includes the tax.
• After the supply, issue the final invoice and settle the advance in it.
• For a foreign client, check the deadlines and the "prenesenie daňovej povinnosti" wording.
• From 1 January 2027, send a domestic business the invoice for a received payment as an e-invoice.

Advances in vporiadku

1. You issue an advance invoice as a document type of its own, even on the free Start plan, and send it with a PAY by square payment QR code.
2. When you record the payment (by hand or, on the Profi plan, by importing a bank statement), vporiadku automatically issues the tax document for the received payment for a VAT payer, with its own numbering series. It splits the payment across the VAT rates in proportion to the advance, and one payment always yields exactly one document.
3. You turn the advance invoice into the final invoice with one button. vporiadku adds the taxed advance to it as negative lines per rate, so the VAT is not charged twice.

You can try invoicing for free and see the plans in our pricing. The mandatory details of every invoice are summed up in Invoice requirements in Slovakia 2026.