How to create a VAT invoice in the UK

What a full VAT invoice must include

If you are VAT-registered, a full VAT invoice must show the following:

• a unique, sequential invoice number;
• your business name, address and VAT number;
• the invoice date;
• the time of supply (the "tax point") if it differs from the invoice date;
• the customer's name and address;
• a description of the goods or services;
• for each item: the unit price excluding VAT, quantity, VAT rate, and the amount excluding VAT;
• the total amount excluding VAT;
• the total VAT amount;
• the total amount including VAT.

Simplified & modified invoices

For retail supplies, you can issue a simplified VAT invoice when the total is £250 or less — it needs fewer details (your name, address and VAT number; the date; a description; the VAT rate; and the total including VAT). For totals above £250, issue a full invoice.

Each requirement, checked against this generator

Not a compliance promise — a field-by-field account of what the tool actually prints, so you can verify it yourself.

UK VAT rates

Unlike a single-rate system, UK VAT has several categories — one reason a good invoice lets you choose the rate rather than assuming one:

• Standard — 20% (most goods and services);
• Reduced — 5% (e.g. domestic fuel, some energy-saving materials);
• Zero — 0% (e.g. most food, children's clothing) — still VAT-taxable, just at 0%;
• Exempt (e.g. some financial and property services) — no VAT charged, and different from zero-rated.

Our generator lets you save your own effective-dated rates, so an invoice automatically uses the rate that applied on its date.

Scope: what this generator does and doesn't cover

The generator applies one VAT treatment across the whole invoice. You choose standard or reduced-rate VAT, or a whole-invoice zero-rated, exempt or reverse-charge treatment, and the generator prints its own clarity statement for that selection automatically — see the disclosures in the table above for what isn't captured (per-line VAT rate, cash-discount rate, sterling total for non-GBP invoices, margin-scheme reference). Mixed-rate line items — some items at one VAT rate and others at another on the same invoice — aren't supported yet; that's a larger, separate feature.

Worked examples — what each treatment prints

The statement printed for each selection, generated live from the same code the generator itself runs — not a phrase HMRC prescribes, but text you can check against your own invoice:

How to pay, printed on the invoice

Your account name, sort code, account number, and optional IBAN and SWIFT/BIC print automatically once set up in your Business Profile — only the fields relevant to UK payments, never foreign-bank fields left over from another country.

Frequently asked questions

Related: not sure whether you need to charge VAT at all yet? See our VAT registration guide for freelancers, or head to the VAT invoice generator page.