Electronic Invoicing in Panama: Who Must Use It and Where to Start

Electronic invoicing in Panama lives in the SFEP, the Sistema de Factura Electrónica de Panamá, governed by Law 256 of November 26, 2021, and the whole procedure goes through the DGI, the tax authority. The order is always the same and no step can be skipped. The DGI’s systems work in Spanish, so the official names are kept below next to their meaning.

This isn’t tax advice. It’s what the DGI publishes on its site, checked on September 23, 2026, with the official sources at the end, so you arrive at your accountant with the right questions.

Who has to use it

According to the DGI:

• Every new RUC since January 1, 2022.
• Suppliers to the State.
• Those who had a fiscal-printer exemption certificate: those certificates expired on March 1, 2024, and their holders must move to the SFEP.

For everyone else it’s voluntary: the DGI says any registered taxpayer can use it since June 1, 2021.

What you need, in order

1. A RUC with up-to-date details. Having one isn’t enough: the DGI requires the information to be current, including your main economic activity and the number and date of your aviso de operación. If you don’t have that yet, it’s the step before this one → the aviso de operación.

2. Access to e-Tax 2.0, the DGI’s online platform, with your RUC and NIT, because everything is done there.

3. The sworn declaration of adoption. It’s filed in e-Tax 2.0, in the electronic invoicing menu, and it’s what formally registers you as an issuer in the system. It’s free.

And if you go with a PAC, an electronic signature certificate. The DGI notes that an electronic invoice’s legal validity is guaranteed by the issuer’s qualified electronic signature, under Law 51 of 2008, and for the PAC option it requires you to get your own certificate, even when working with a provider. It starts with a request filed in e-Tax 2.0 and it’s issued by the National Directorate of Electronic Signature of the Public Registry. The free tool’s pages, on the other hand, only ask you to log in with your RUC and NIT.

The two ways to issue invoices

The DGI’s free invoicing tool. It costs nothing, it works from a phone or a computer and it’s aimed at entrepreneurial professionals and small businesses. It has a cap, which the DGI publishes in a table and has changed over the years:

Gross annual income	Documents per month
Up to USD 36,000	100

An authorized qualified provider (PAC). A company authorized by the DGI that validates your documents, grants them their authorization of use and forwards them to the DGI. It’s paid, and it’s the option for anyone who needs their own system to issue invoices: the free tool doesn’t integrate with other systems. You can work with more than one PAC.

So the choice has two filters. The cap: if you invoice more than USD 36,000 a year or issue more than 100 documents a month, the free tool isn’t for you. Where you invoice from: if you want invoices to come out of your point of sale, your inventory system or your online store, it isn’t either.

If you choose a PAC, what to ask before signing

• Does it integrate with what you already use? Point of sale, inventory system, online store. If the answer is «it can be developed», that’s a separate project with its own cost.
• How does it charge? Per document, per monthly bundle or on a flat plan. With low volume, a flat plan can cost more than another PAC.
• What happens if I leave? The documents you’ve issued are yours: ask how you export them and in what format, before you need to.
• What support does it offer? An invoicing error gets fixed the same day or it doesn’t get fixed.

The fifteen-day deadline

Anyone who files the sworn declaration of adoption under the free-tool option has a maximum of fifteen calendar days to accept the terms and conditions and start invoicing. It’s worth adopting it when you’re ready to start invoicing, not before.

How to check an electronic invoice

• With its QR code, or with its CUFE —each invoice’s unique code— in the lookup on the DGI’s electronic invoicing portal. In February 2026, explaining the total-price law, the DGI stated that electronic invoices must include a QR code.
• To find out whether a supplier issues electronic invoices, the same portal has a public list of electronic invoicers, with their name, RUC, date of enrollment and economic activity.
• If a customer wants paper, they can ask for the CAFE, the printed companion to the electronic invoice.

What this doesn’t fix

Invoicing correctly is an obligation, not a sales channel. What is worth looking after is consistency: that the name you invoice under matches the one on your Google profile and on your site. A customer who receives an invoice from a company name they don’t recognize writes to ask whether they were charged correctly, and that’s a message you could have avoided.

Official sources (in Spanish)

• How to become an electronic invoice issuer — DGI.
• The free invoicing tool — DGI.
• The authorized qualified provider option — DGI.
• Electronic signature certificate requirements — DGI.
• Electronic invoicing FAQ — DGI: who can use it, legal validity, electronic signature and PACs.
• DGI news: new RUCs since 2022, suppliers to the State, the end of the exemptions and the total-price law.