JoFotara, Jordan's national e-invoicing system: a guide for shops

In short: If your shop uses JoFotara, every invoice has to reach it and carry a QR code. The least effort is a cashier app that sends them for you, and the official word on your shop belongs to the Income and Sales Tax Department and your accountant.

JoFotara, Jordan's national e-invoicing system, is a platform run by the Income and Sales Tax Department to record invoices electronically. This is a plain guide for shop owners: what the system is, who decides what applies to your shop, the invoice types, how to connect your cashier app, what the QR code on a receipt means, and every JoFotara guide in one table.

What JoFotara is

JoFotara is a government platform run by the Income and Sales Tax Department, with its official portal at portal.jofotara.gov.jo. The idea is that every invoice a connected business issues is sent to the system as it is issued. The system records it and gives it a unique number and a QR code that can be checked.

The stated goal is a consistent invoice format across the market and more accurate tax records. According to the department, using the system itself carries no extra fee. Invoices can be issued by hand on the portal, or the system can be connected to your accounting or cashier software so invoices go through automatically.

Its English name is the Jordan National Invoicing System, and you will also see it written JoFotarah or Fawtara. They all mean the same system.

Official sources

• The JoFotara portal: portal.jofotara.gov.jo, for signing in, managing invoices and device connection details.
• The Income and Sales Tax Department: istd.gov.jo, with the official instructions and guides.
• The department's e-services: es.istd.gov.jo, including the invoice lookup service (FawtraQuery).
• The government JoFotarah app in both app stores, for issuing invoices from a phone without a cashier app.

Who decides what applies to your shop?

Which businesses have to use the system, the phases it rolls out in, and the invoice type each business issues are set by the Income and Sales Tax Department in its instructions. Those instructions can change or widen, so what is true today may not be tomorrow.

The department is the official reference, so ask your accountant or the department directly about your shop, keep their answer in writing, and check the instructions on its website. If your shop uses JoFotara, Ghalleh is connected to the system and sends every invoice for you.

JoFotara requirements for a shop

• A tax number and an account with the Income and Sales Tax Department.
• Access to the JoFotara portal for your business.
• A way to issue invoices: by hand on the portal or the government app, or a cashier or accounting system connected to the platform.
• For a connected system: the connection details from the portal, entered once in your software.
• Items set up with the right invoice type and tax rate, agreed with your accountant.

The invoice types you will see

The system distinguishes an income invoice, usually for businesses not registered for sales tax, from a sales tax invoice for those that are. The general sales tax rate in Jordan is 16%, with special rates and exemptions for some goods. An invoice can be cash or on credit (receivable), and a return gets a credit note linked to the original.

Cash or receivable? Which type should you issue? That question comes up a lot, and our guide to JoFotara invoice types covers it. What matters here is that your accountant knows how you are registered, and that your cashier app is set to the right invoice type and the right tax on each item from day one.

How registration and connection work

1. Registration
   The business signs in to the JoFotara portal with its tax department account and tax number, and completes its activity details.
2. Choose how to issue
   Either issue invoices by hand on the portal, which is exhausting for a shop selling dozens of times a day, or connect your sales system to the platform.
3. Connection details
   If you connect, the portal gives you credentials specific to your business, including the Client ID, the Secret Key and the income source sequence, which you enter once in your cashier app. Guard them like your online banking password.
4. A first invoice to confirm
   After connecting, issue one small real invoice and check that it appears on the portal and that the QR code printed on the receipt.
5. Keep an eye on it
   Open the portal now and then and check the invoice count matches your shop's. Your accountant can help with each step.

What the QR code on the receipt means

Once the system records an invoice, it sends a QR code back to your cashier app, which prints it on the receipt. The code carries the invoice's key details and lets the customer, or an inspector, confirm the invoice is registered in the system.

To check an invoice, use the lookup service in the department's e-services at es.istd.gov.jo, or the method the department describes on its website. For you, the QR is proof the invoice arrived. A receipt without one in a connected shop means the invoice has not been sent yet, or sending failed and is waiting for a retry.

An e-invoice is not a PDF

An e-invoice in JoFotara is not an invoice printed from a computer, and not a PDF sent to the customer. It is structured data in a format the system reads, sent to it when the invoice is issued, and the system sends back proof that it was recorded, including the QR code. A PDF is only a picture of an invoice that the system knows nothing about.

In a connected shop the cashier's work barely changes: scan the items, take the payment, print the receipt, while the sending happens in the background. An example: a supermarket in Shmeisani issues 140 invoices in a day, each sent at the moment of sale without the owner opening the portal. At closing the owner sees 138 delivered and two waiting for the internet to come back, to be sent on their own.

Before you connect: your keys and your business details

The connection details you take from the portal work like a password: never post them in a group chat or hand them to anyone you do not know. Make sure the business name, tax number and classification in your cashier app match the portal, so invoices are not refused later for a mismatch.

An example: picture a café in Weibdeh that types its invoices into the portal by hand at the end of the night, a full hour of work. With its cashier app connected, a 2.750 JOD coffee invoice goes to JoFotara at the moment of payment and the receipt comes out with its QR code.

What happens when the internet drops

Sending an invoice to JoFotara needs a connection, and each cashier app handles outages its own way. Some stop selling. Others save the invoice on the device and send it later. Ask about this before you choose, because losing the connection at peak hour is not rare.

Ask your accountant how late an invoice may be sent, and never let unsent invoices pile up.

JoFotara for small businesses

For a small shop, the practical question is not the standard behind the invoice but the daily routine: every sale has to reach the system without slowing down the counter. Issuing invoices by hand on the portal works for a business with a few invoices a day. A shop that sells all day needs its cashier app to send each invoice itself, keep invoices made offline, and retry the ones that failed.

So when you compare systems, ask three things: does it send the invoice at the moment of sale, does it print the QR on the receipt, and does it tell you when an invoice did not go through?

How Ghalleh sends your invoices automatically

Ghalleh is connected to JoFotara. Once you enter your shop's connection details, Ghalleh sends every invoice to the system at the moment of sale and prints the QR on the thermal receipt. If sending fails or the device is offline, Ghalleh keeps the invoice and resends it automatically when the connection returns, so you are not checking invoices one by one. That is what JoFotara integration means in practice.

Ghalleh sends your invoices, but it does not decide your tax obligations. How you are registered, which tax applies to your items, and what the JoFotara instructions ask of your shop are questions for your accountant or the Income and Sales Tax Department.

Every JoFotara guide in one table

Each JoFotara question has its own guide. Find your question in the first column and read the guide that answers it:

Tap a guide's name to open it. Every JoFotara guide is also in the list at the foot of this page.

Common questions