Frequently asked questions

Yes. Making an invoice here and downloading the PDF is free, with no signup and no watermark. Every feature is free — there are no accounts and no paid plans.

No — there are no accounts at all. Fill in the maker and download your PDF. Nothing is stored on the site, and there is no sign-up form or e-mail required.

Yes. Your entries stay in the maker — change anything and download again to get an updated PDF. There is no saved copy on the site, so keep the PDF you download.

Your downloaded PDF is your copy — the site doesn't store your invoices, and there is no account to save them in. To make the next one quicker, the maker remembers your From details, tax rate, and invoice numbering in this browser when you tick the remember boxes, so repeat invoices start pre-filled.

Usually no. In most places an invoice is valid without a signature — what matters is that it identifies the seller, the buyer, what was supplied, and the amount due. Some industries and some countries do expect a signature or a stamp on tax invoices, and a large customer's accounts department may ask for one as their own internal rule. If a signature is requested, sign the PDF copy you keep and the one you share; nothing about the document's arithmetic changes.

In many places, yes — sole traders and freelancers routinely invoice under their own name, and the maker only needs the name you trade under in the From box. What varies by country is the surrounding paperwork: some jurisdictions expect a tax registration number on the invoice once you pass a threshold, and some clients will only pay a registered business. Check your local rules for your situation; if you trade under your own name, invoice under your own name.

No. There is no single worldwide format. Many countries list required fields for a tax invoice (seller and buyer details, a unique number, the date, a description, amounts, and tax shown separately), but the exact list is set locally and changes. The safe approach anywhere: include the fields on our checklist, show tax as its own line when you charge it, and follow any format your local tax authority publishes for your type of business.

If your jurisdiction issues you one for business use and your invoices are tax documents, it generally belongs on the invoice — many tax systems require the seller's tax ID, and business customers often need your number (and you may need theirs) to process payment. If you are not registered for tax, do not invent a number or print a personal ID number like a Social Security number on a document that gets emailed around. When in doubt, ask your customer what their accounts team needs and check your local tax authority's invoice requirements.

Yes — an invoice can be written in whatever currency you and the customer agreed, and the maker supports a range of currencies. Two practical points: agree the currency before the work starts, because exchange rates move between the invoice date and the payment date; and expect your bank to convert an incoming foreign-currency payment at its own rate, sometimes with a fee. Naming the currency clearly on the invoice (the maker prints it with every amount) avoids the most common dispute.

If the customer gave you one, yes — put it on the invoice, in the notes or a line reference. Larger organizations match invoices to purchase orders before paying; an invoice without the expected number often sits in a queue while someone emails to ask for it, which delays your payment for a purely clerical reason. If you were not given one, leave it off — never invent a reference.

Show the full price first, then the discount as its own line with a label, then the reduced subtotal, then tax on the reduced amount if tax applies, then the total. Readers should be able to follow the arithmetic top to bottom without a calculator: price, minus discount, plus tax, equals total. The maker follows exactly that order — discount comes off first, and tax is worked out on the reduced amount.

Keep copies for at least as long as your tax authority can ask about the income — commonly several years (for example, the IRS generally suggests keeping records for 3 to 7 years depending on the situation, and other countries set similar windows). Your downloaded PDFs are your records: keep the file for every invoice you issue, plus a simple log of when each was paid. Store them in two places, such as a computer folder and a cloud drive, so one failed laptop is not a lost archive.