What a commercial invoice actually is
A commercial invoice states what shipped, to whom, on what terms, and for how much. It is issued when the goods leave, not when the deal is discussed, and it is the only document in the export pack that is simultaneously a demand for payment, a declaration of value to two customs authorities, and an accounting record. Every export produces exactly one — which is why it is the highest-volume document in the set, and why an error on it is the most expensive kind of paperwork mistake an exporter makes.
Your buyer is not its most important reader. Customs at the destination is. Under the WTO Customs Valuation Agreement — the GATT Article VII framework that virtually every trading nation applies — the primary basis for the customs value is the transaction value: the price actually paid or payable for the goods when sold for export. Your invoice is the evidence of that price. Duty, import VAT and any excise are assessed on a value built from it, adjusted according to the Incoterm you named. Where the declared value cannot be accepted, customs falls back to the other valuation methods and the importer pays the difference — usually with a penalty and always with a delay.
The bank is its second reader. Under a documentary credit governed by UCP 600, the commercial invoice is a core presented document, and Article 18 is specific about it: it must appear to have been issued by the beneficiary, be made out in the name of the applicant, be in the same currency as the credit, and — a detail that surprises people every year — need not be signed. Article 18(c) requires the description of the goods to correspond with the description appearing in the credit. Not resemble. Correspond.
So the invoice is read by the buyer, the buyer's bank, your bank, both customs authorities, the forwarder and the insurer. That is six or seven institutions checking one page against documents you wrote at different times. Anything on it that is not reproducible from the other documents is a discrepancy waiting to be found.
What has to be on it
The parties, in full. Your legal name and address as they appear on your commercial registration, and the buyer's exactly as the credit or the purchase order names them — UCP 600 Art. 18(a)(ii) requires the invoice to be made out in the name of the applicant, and an abbreviation your buyer uses informally is not their name. Add the importer's tax number, and their EORI number if they are in the EU or the UK, because their customs will not clear the consignment without it.
A unique invoice number and date, plus the order reference the buyer knows the shipment by. If a proforma preceded it — and on any credit-backed shipment one did — cite it. That is the thread the buyer's bank pulls to tie the credit, the order and the invoice into one file.
A description of the goods that a customs officer can act on, and an HS code per line. The Harmonized System is a six-digit WCO nomenclature that around 200 countries apply identically before extending it to eight or ten digits nationally; classification decides the duty rate and any preference or restriction. Your warehouse's description is not a description: "Model A-3" tells customs nothing, and a description that cannot be reconciled with the code invites a physical inspection.
Country of origin per line, and the quantity, unit price and line total in one stated currency. Origin is where the goods were produced — not where they shipped from, and not where your company is registered. Then the Incoterm with its named place, marked as Incoterms 2020, because the rule tells customs what the invoice price already contains: freight and insurance under CIF, freight only under CFR, neither under FOB. Get that wrong and the customs value is wrong even though the number is right.
Net and gross weights that agree with the packing list, total packages, the total in figures and in words, and — since the invoice is a demand for payment — bank details complete enough that the buyer's wire form can be filled from them alone.
How it fails
Under a letter of credit, failure has a name: discrepancy. UCP 600 Art. 14(b) gives the bank a maximum of five banking days following presentation to decide whether the documents comply, and Art. 14(d) sets the standard the invoice is judged by — data in a document need not be identical to data in the credit or in the other documents, but must not conflict with them. That is a low bar and it is missed constantly, because the invoice, the packing list and the bill of lading are typically typed by three different people from three different spreadsheets.
The classic conflicts: a goods description on the invoice that paraphrases the credit instead of corresponding to it; an invoice currency that is not the credit's currency; an amount that exceeds the credit without a tolerance to absorb it; a gross weight that disagrees with the packing list by a few kilos; a port name spelled one way on the invoice and another on the B/L. Any one of them lets the issuing bank refuse the presentation, at which point payment depends on the applicant waiving the discrepancy — that is, on your buyer choosing to pay. Also watch the clock: Art. 14(c) requires a presentation including an original transport document to be made no later than 21 calendar days after the date of shipment, and in any event no later than the credit's expiry.
On the customs side, the expensive failure is a value that does not hold up. Under-invoicing to reduce your buyer's duty is not a favour; it is a false declaration by the importer, and when the goods are later valued properly, the difference, the penalty and the reputational flag land on your buyer's file and on yours. The mirror-image mistake is honest but just as costly: quoting a CIF value while omitting the freight and insurance from the invoice total, so the declared value is not the value the term implies.
The last one is quiet. An invoice that does not match your own proforma — a price adjusted after the credit opened, a line added, a unit changed — is a document that no longer describes the deal the bank financed. The bank does not need to understand your commercial reasons; it only compares.
How it sits in the document pack
The proforma comes first and is an offer: it is what the buyer takes to their bank to open the credit or to their ministry for an import licence. The commercial invoice is the same shipment after it became real, and every material term the two share — goods, amount, currency, Incoterm, port pair — must survive the journey unchanged, because the credit was written from the proforma and the invoice is checked against the credit.
The packing list is the commercial invoice with the money removed and the detail added: the same lines, the same weights, the same marks, plus cartons, dimensions and container numbers. Where the two disagree on a weight or a package count, the bank has a discrepancy and customs has a reason to open the container. Generate them from one set of figures, not twice from memory.
Alongside them sit documents you do not issue and this tool will never produce: the bill of lading is the carrier's, the certificate of origin is the chamber of commerce's, EUR.1 is customs'. For a container moving by sea, the VGM declaration under SOLAS Chapter VI Regulation 2 is yours but goes to the carrier rather than the buyer, and its container number should match the one you wrote on the invoice's marks and the packing list. Ports on all of them are best written as the UN/LOCODE name, container numbers as their ISO 6346 form — spelling variants are the cheapest discrepancy to avoid.
Then the bank documents hang off the invoice by reference. A bill of exchange is drawn for the invoice amount; a bills-for-collection schedule under URC 522 lists the invoice among the enclosed documents and instructs the collecting bank when to release them; a beneficiary certificate attests to things the credit asked for and cites the invoice number. Exporting from Egypt adds one more link: the ACI/Nafeza advance filing means the ACID number has to appear on the commercial invoice before the goods sail, not after.
Common questions
What is the difference between a proforma and a commercial invoice?
The proforma is an offer, issued before the order is confirmed, and can be revised until the buyer accepts it. The commercial invoice is issued when the goods ship: it demands payment, declares the customs value, and enters your books. If a letter of credit was opened against the proforma, the commercial invoice must match what the credit says — the goods, the amount, the currency, the Incoterm — or the bank raises a discrepancy.
Does a commercial invoice have to be signed and stamped?
For a letter of credit, no: UCP 600 Art. 18(a)(iv) says the commercial invoice need not be signed. Customs is a different question — a number of destination countries, and any consular legalisation route, do require a signed and stamped original. The document this tool produces prints an authorised-signatory block for exactly that reason; sign it by hand and stamp it if your destination asks.
Can I invoice in any currency I like?
Commercially, yes — whatever you and the buyer agreed. Under a letter of credit, no: UCP 600 Art. 18(a)(iii) requires the invoice to be in the same currency as the credit, and an invoice in a different currency is a discrepancy on its own. Also check that your bank can actually receive the currency cheaply; a USD wire usually routes through a correspondent bank, and omitting that detail is a common cause of a payment sitting unapplied.
Is this commercial invoice generator free?
Yes — free, and there is no account to create. Fill the form, watch the invoice build as you type, and we email you the PDF. We ask for an email address only because that is how the document reaches you.
Do you store the data I type, including my bank details?
We keep your submission so we can generate and email the document, and we delete it on a fixed retention schedule. The live preview stores nothing at all — it runs before we ask you for anything. If you tick "remember my company details", only your own company block is saved on this device: never your bank details, and never your buyer's data. See our privacy policy for the detail.
Continue your document set
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