Domestic B2B, B2G AND B2C (consumer receipts are fapiao too). All VAT taxpayers, general and small-scale. Excludes imports/exports and non-established foreign entities — a foreign seller cannot issue a fapiao; the Chinese buyer self-withholds.
PRIMARY AND SECONDARY SOURCES DISAGREE on whether e-fapiao is compulsory. The STA's own Announcement 2024 No. 11 uses 'promote the application of' (推广应用) and establishes capability plus equal legal effect nationwide — it contains no universal issuance mandate and does not repeal paper fapiao. Several vendor sources (Edicom, Comarch, ecosio, Fiscal Solutions) assert it 'became mandatory' from Dec 2024; VATupdate's Feb 2026 briefing says the opposite. Compulsion is arriving bottom-up via provincial/municipal/sectoral paper withdrawals, not one national switch — so a multi-province group hits different cut-offs in different entities. Chinese self-media claim a national 1 July 2026 end to paper VAT special invoices; NO corresponding announcement was found on chinatax.gov.cn — treat as unverified. The XML is the legal original, not the OFD/PDF you print; retaining a printout alone is non-compliant. Invoice quota is granted algorithmically and high-growth entities get throttled at month-end. Buyers may not refuse an e-fapiao.
3 of 5 are primary sources. Mandate dates move — treat this page as a starting point and confirm against the primary source before committing a plan.
A page is a starting point. A scoped analysis gives you the specification, the mapping and the effort — in weeks, not quarters.
