Build a properly compliant invoice in the browser — per-line tax rates, a rate-by-rate breakdown, and a check against the fields your tax authority actually demands. No account, no watermark, nothing uploaded.
Document & tax setup
Design & branding
Text on coloured panels switches between black and white automatically to stay readable.
Who is billing
Resized in your browser and never uploaded anywhere. PNG with a transparent background looks best.
Who is being billed
Kept in this browser so you don't retype regulars. Saving again under the same name updates it.
Mandatory on Indian GST invoices and used to decide CGST+SGST vs IGST.
Numbering & dates
Line items
Discounts, shipping & payment
Subtracted from the total to show the balance still due.
Deducted by your customer at source — common in India (TDS) and parts of Asia and Africa. Applied to the taxable value, not the tax, so the invoice total is unchanged and you see what will actually land.
Payment details & notes
Your invoice — live preview
Printing outputs the invoice above on its own, in your chosen template — no site header, totals panel or checklist.
Compliance check
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Tax breakdown by rate
Total due
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Subtotal—
Discount—
Taxable amount—
Tax total—
Shipping—
Invoice total—
Already paid—
Balance due—
Withholding / TDS—
Expected payment—
Your draft is kept in this browser only — nothing is uploaded, and there is no account to create.
Embed this calculator on your site — free
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What actually makes an invoice legal
An invoice is not a design exercise. In most of the world it is a document with a defined minimum content, and if a field is missing the invoice can be rejected — which usually means your customer cannot reclaim the tax on it, and they will send it back rather than pay it.
The fields almost every jurisdiction demands
A unique, sequential number. Not a date, not a customer name. It has to be unique across your whole business and it should not have gaps you cannot explain.
Your legal name and address, plus your tax registration number if you are registered.
The customer's name and address. "Accounts department" is not a customer.
Two dates: the date you issued the invoice and the date the goods or services were actually supplied — the tax point. They are frequently different, and the tax point is the one that decides which return the transaction falls into.
A clear description of what was supplied, with quantity and unit price.
The tax rate and the tax amount, shown separately from the net figure. A single gross number is not enough.
The total payable.
Where the rules diverge
UK and EU VAT add the requirement that the document is identifiable as an invoice and that each rate is broken out separately, so a mixed-rate invoice needs a rate-by-rate summary rather than one blended figure. Indian GST is the strictest: Rule 46 of the CGST Rules lists sixteen mandatory fields, requires the heading to read exactly "Tax Invoice", caps the invoice number at sixteen characters, and requires an HSN or SAC code on every line plus a stated place of supply, which decides whether you charge CGST plus SGST or IGST. Australian GST requires the words "Tax invoice", your ABN, and — for sales over 1,000 — the buyer's identity. US sales tax has no federal invoice format at all, but where you have nexus the tax must appear as its own line rather than being folded into the price.
Reverse charge
On cross-border B2B supplies within the EU, and on some domestic supplies such as UK construction services, you do not charge tax at all. The customer accounts for it on their own return. Two things then become mandatory: the customer's validated tax number on the face of the invoice, and explicit wording saying the reverse charge applies. Selecting reverse charge above zeroes the tax and adds that wording for you.
Most late payment is not a cash-flow problem at the other end. It is friction: the invoice arrived without a purchase order reference, it went to a person rather than the accounts inbox, the bank details were in an email instead of on the document, or the due date said "net 30" without naming an actual date. Every one of those is a reason for an invoice to sit in a tray.
A few things reliably shorten the wait. Put a real calendar date next to the terms, because "Net 30" invites a debate about when the clock started. Carry the customer's own reference — the PO number, the project code, whatever their system expects — in the reference field, since that is often the only thing their accounts payable software matches on. Put the payment details on the invoice itself rather than in the covering email, which gets detached from the attachment the moment it is forwarded. And invoice on the day the work finishes; the single largest delay in most freelance payment cycles is the gap between finishing and billing, and that one is entirely self-inflicted.
Numbering that survives an audit
Pick one sequence and never restart it mid-year unless your prefix makes the year explicit. INV-2026-001 is fine. Restarting at 001 every January without the year in the string is not, because you end up with two invoices carrying the same number. Never reuse a number for a corrected invoice either — issue a credit note against the original and raise a fresh one.
Quotes and proformas are not invoices
A proforma invoice or a quote is a statement of what something will cost. It creates no tax liability, carries no invoice number from your sequence, and your customer cannot reclaim tax against it. Once the work is done or the goods have shipped, a real invoice has to follow. Choosing Proforma or Quote above adds a note to that effect so nobody in your customer's finance team mistakes it for the real thing.
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Frequently asked questions
Is this invoice generator really free, with no sign-up?
Yes. There is no account, no email capture, no trial timer and no watermark on the finished invoice. The page runs entirely in your browser, so your customer names, addresses and amounts are never sent to a server.
Where is my invoice data stored?
Only in your own browser, using local storage, so a refresh or an accidental tab close does not lose your work. Nothing is uploaded to ListCalc. Clearing your browser data will clear the draft, so download or print the PDF once the invoice is finished.
How do I save the invoice as a PDF?
Press Print / save PDF. Your browser's print dialogue opens with the invoice on its own — no site header, navigation or ads — and you choose 'Save as PDF' as the destination. That gives you a clean, selectable-text PDF rather than a screenshot.
Can it handle different tax rates on different lines?
Yes, and it is one of the reasons to use it. Each line has its own rate, and the tax summary groups the invoice by rate showing net, tax and gross for each — which is exactly the breakdown a mixed-rate VAT invoice is required to carry.
Does it do Indian GST with CGST, SGST and IGST?
It does. Choose GST (India), then pick intra-state to split each rate into equal CGST and SGST halves, or inter-state to show a single IGST line. The compliance check also looks for your GSTIN, the place of supply, an HSN or SAC code on every line and an invoice number within the sixteen-character limit.
What does the compliance check actually check?
It compares what you have filled in against the mandatory fields for the tax treatment you selected — so the list changes if you switch from VAT to Indian GST to reverse charge. It is a completeness check on the document, not tax advice, and it cannot tell you whether the rate you chose is the correct one for what you sold.
How do I invoice a business in another EU country?
Select Reverse charge. The tax is set to zero, the legal wording is added to the invoice, and the check will insist on the customer's VAT number, which you should validate before sending. You still have to report the supply on your own return.
Can I put my own logo and brand colours on it?
Yes. Upload a logo, pick a brand colour and a font, and choose one of five templates — Classic, Modern, Minimal, Bold or Compact. Everything is applied live and carries through to the PDF. The logo is resized inside your browser and never uploaded to a server.
Will my brand colour make the invoice unreadable?
No. Where a template puts text on a coloured panel, the text switches between black and white automatically based on the colour's relative luminance, so a pale yellow brand colour gets dark text and a navy one gets white.
Can I add a deposit or part payment?
Yes. Enter what has already been paid under deposit or amount already paid, and the invoice shows the full total, the amount received and the balance still due as separate lines.