Panama Electronic Invoicing 2026: SFEP, PAC Requirements, and POS Compliance Guide

Last reviewed: June 2026. The material below is for general information only and should not be treated as legal or tax advice — verify how the rules apply to your own situation with Panama's Dirección General de Ingresos (DGI) or a licensed local tax professional.

The short version

Meeting Panama's electronic invoicing requirements comes down to a handful of non-negotiables: every taxpayer in scope has to generate each invoice as a digitally signed XML file inside the Panama Electronic Invoicing System (SFEP), get that file cleared before the customer ever receives it, and then hand over a readable receipt stamped with a unique validation code. The rules tightened on January 1, 2026: a company that invoices above B/. 36,000 a year, or that produces more than 100 invoices in a single month, is no longer eligible for the DGI's free tool and has to switch to a Qualified Authorized Provider (Proveedor Autorizado Calificado, or PAC) or run its own DGI-certified platform. Three instruments form the backbone of all this — Executive Decree 766 of 2020, Law 256 of 2021, and Resolution 201-6299 of 2025.

Developers face a parallel checklist. A point-of-sale product reaches compliance by building valid XML, signing it with a qualified electronic signature, sending it to a PAC to be authorized, handing the resulting code and printable receipt back to the merchant, and storing everything. One clarification worth making early: Loyverse POS does not issue Panamanian electronic invoices by itself. Instead, the Loyverse App Marketplace offers a third-party connector from AlphaPOS that pulls in each sale and forwards an electronic invoice to the tax authority.

What exactly is the SFEP, Panama's e-invoicing platform?

The SFEP — short for Sistema de Factura Electrónica de Panamá — is the country's official platform for creating, clearing, and storing electronic tax documents. It is operated by the DGI, the tax administration that sits under the Ministry of Economy and Finance. Once a document has been authorized inside the SFEP, the resulting electronic invoice is a digitally signed file that carries exactly the same legal force as a printed one.

Panama follows what is known as a clearance (or pre-validation) approach. The practical consequence is straightforward: no sale becomes a legally valid invoice until the document has first been cleared upstream. Emailing a customer an ordinary PDF, or scanning a paper bill, simply does not count. Strip away any of the four essentials — structured XML, a digital signature, validation, and the unique code — and the document carries no fiscal weight at all.

Which laws and resolutions govern e-invoicing in Panama?

A stack of statutes and administrative resolutions underpins the obligation:

• Executive Decree 766 of 2020 — set up the operational foundations of the SFEP.
• Law 256 of 2021 — recognized PAC-validated electronic documents as a legitimate means of fulfilling tax duties and empowered the DGI to run the system.
• Resolution 201-7569 (2022) — created the basis on which the DGI started certifying PAC providers.
• Resolution 201-0384 (2024) — brought further groups into the net, among them state suppliers and political organizations, requiring them to log income and expenses solely through the SFEP.
• Resolution 201-6299 (2025) — the measure that, from January 1, 2026, narrowed eligibility for the free tool and moved larger-volume taxpayers to a PAC.

Who must issue electronic invoices today?

Rather than switching on overnight, the requirement has rolled out group by group. As things stand, these taxpayers are covered:

• Any new tax ID (RUC) registered from January 1, 2022 onward.
• Vendors that sell to government bodies, the Panama Canal Authority included.
• Taxpayers the DGI has designated as large or verified.
• Self-employed professionals and service providers — lawyers, accountants, and architects among them.
• Companies based in special economic areas such as the Colón Free Zone, the City of Knowledge, and Panamá Pacífico.
• Banks, insurers, and other financial entities.
• Any business that now exceeds the 2026 volume limits described further down, which is obliged to invoice via a PAC.

Not captured by any of these yet? It is wiser to read your situation as "not yet" rather than "never" — the DGI has stretched the perimeter a little wider every year since the program began.

How does a merchant get compliant, step by step?

For a merchant, getting compliant follows a fairly predictable order:

1. Sign up with the DGI and make sure your RUC stays accurate and up to date.
2. Secure a qualified electronic signature certificate — the Firma Electrónica Avanzada (FEA) — issued by a provider accredited by the National Directorate of Electronic Signatures.
3. Register inside the SFEP as an authorized issuer.
4. Pick your issuing channel: the DGI's free tool while you remain under the caps, or a PAC once you pass them or want to connect your accounting.
5. Emit documents that conform to the prevailing technical specification (the ficha técnica) — the prescribed XML layout, all required fields, tax elements like the ITBMS, and the formatting rules. A single invoice can hold as many as 1,000 line items.
6. Release only documents that have been authorized. Since nothing is fiscally valid until it clears validation, never give a customer a file that has not.
7. Keep every record. Retain the signed XML alongside its readable receipt — most businesses store them for a minimum of five years to cover audits.

Should you use the free tool or a PAC?

What changed on January 1, 2026?

If one rule is going to force businesses to change how they invoice, it is Resolution 201-6299. From January 1, 2026, the free invoicing tool is reserved for taxpayers whose billing stays at or below B/. 36,000 per year and who issue 100 or fewer invoices per month. Step over either line and you are required to adopt a PAC or stand up your own DGI-certified invoicing platform. Because the free service had been the default for thousands of small firms and independent professionals, many now need a sturdier arrangement — so the sensible move is to watch your rolling totals and migrate ahead of the limit instead of waiting until you breach it.

How does an invoice move through validation? (CUFE, CAFE, FEA)

Knowing how a document travels from creation to approval is what makes it possible to build — or shop for — a compliant tool. The journey looks like this:

1. Creation — the issuing software writes the invoice as structured XML.
2. Signing — the issuer attaches the qualified electronic signature (FEA) drawn from an approved certificate.
3. Sending — that signed XML is transmitted to a PAC (or the DGI tool) to be checked against the technical standard.
4. Approval — the PAC validates the document and clears it for use.
5. Unique code (CUFE) — the platform issues the Código Único de Factura Electrónica, the identifier that allows anyone to confirm the invoice with the DGI.
6. Readable receipt (CAFE) — a printer-friendly version, normally a QR-bearing PDF, is generated for the buyer.

The framework also anticipates problems. Credit and debit notes exist to fix invoices after they have been issued, and a contingency mode keeps the tills running through technical outages, queuing the documents for validation as soon as the connection is back.

What does a POS developer have to build?

Building point-of-sale software for Panama means treating compliance as real engineering rather than a tick-box. The bare minimum your product has to do:

• Generate XML that conforms to the DGI's current ficha técnica — every mandatory field, the ITBMS tax breakdowns, and the line-item structure (up to 1,000 entries).
• Sign each document using the merchant's FEA certificate.
• Talk to a PAC for the clearance exchange — or, to issue on your own, obtain DGI certification for your platform.
• Grab and persist the CUFE handed back on authorization, and draw the CAFE with its QR code so a cashier can print or send it.
• Wire up credit- and debit-note handling plus a contingency path, so neither corrections nor downtime break compliance.
• Translate POS data into the correct invoice fields — items, prices, customer identity, taxes, and payment methods all have to land in the right XML elements.
• Store the records for the mandated retention period and keep them retrievable for audits.

In practice, plugging into a PAC that already holds authorization tends to be the more sensible path for most teams than chasing certification directly, because the PAC already owns the validation step and the DGI connection.

Where does Loyverse fit in?

Loyverse is a cloud point-of-sale system, and it does not generate Panamanian electronic invoices on its own. What it offers for Panama instead is a marketplace listing: a third-party integration created by AlphaPOS (Soluciones Técnicas Alpha S.A.), filed under the e-invoicing category with a free plan on offer.

The marketplace listing describes the integration this way:

• It links Loyverse to the tax authority. The app reads sales out of Loyverse and automatically builds and transmits electronic invoices to the tax authority, leaving staff to ring up sales exactly as they always have.
• It sets out a defined data path. Loyverse hands over the sale's details — product, price, customer, taxes, and payments — along with the cue to raise an invoice; AlphaPOS then forwards the finished invoice, an XML paired with a QR-coded PDF, to be validated.
• It covers more than one scenario. Per the listing, it works both for businesses issuing under their own numbering and for resellers handling several clients at once.
• It is set up a single time and then runs by itself. AlphaPOS configures the merchant's credentials and ties the integration to the Loyverse account; the listing also says the app is already running in active Panamanian businesses.
• Its compliance claim comes from the vendor. The listing presents the integration as fully compliant with the DGI's electronic invoicing rules — a statement made by the provider itself.

One thing worth checking on your own: Panamanian rules require electronic invoices to be authorized through the SFEP, by way of either the DGI's free tool or a registered PAC. As of June 2026, AlphaPOS (Soluciones Técnicas Alpha S.A.) is not listed among the DGI's published Qualified Authorized Providers (PAC). Before leaning on any integration for compliance, merchants can cross-check the current roster of authorized providers on the DGI's own website.

Getting going, according to the listing, means downloading the AlphaPOS Integrator app from Google Play (for now, Panama only) and reaching out to AlphaPOS to handle licensing, activation, installation, and setup.

Common questions from merchants and developers

Does a PDF count as a valid invoice in Panama?

No. A regular PDF, or a scan of a paper bill, is not a valid electronic invoice. To carry fiscal weight, the document has to be structured XML, digitally signed, validated through the SFEP, and stamped with a unique code (CUFE).

CUFE and CAFE — what is the difference?

The CUFE is the unique identifier created at authorization that lets anyone verify an invoice with the DGI. The CAFE is the human-readable counterpart — usually a PDF with a QR code — that you print or send to the customer.

Who is obliged to use a PAC in 2026?

Any taxpayer invoicing more than B/. 36,000 a year, or issuing more than 100 invoices a month. Stay under both and the DGI's free tool is still open to you.

For how long do electronic invoices need to be kept?

Plan on holding the signed XML and the readable receipt for at least five years, consistent with normal audit and record-keeping expectations.

Can sales continue if the system goes offline?

Yes. The Panamanian framework permits contingency issuance, with the documents submitted for validation once connectivity returns.

Does Loyverse produce Panama e-invoices on its own?

No. Loyverse has no native Panamanian e-invoicing. For Panama, its App Marketplace lists a third-party AlphaPOS integration that captures Loyverse sales and forwards electronic invoices to the tax authority.

The essentials at a glance

• Being compliant in Panama hinges on signed XML, pre-validation, a unique code, and sound archiving — emailing a PDF is not enough.
• The controlling instruments are Law 256 of 2021, Decree 766 of 2020, and Resolution 201-6299 of 2025.
• Since January 1, 2026, any taxpayer above B/. 36,000 a year or 100 invoices a month has to rely on a PAC or a DGI-certified system.
• Developers need to build valid XML, sign it, clear it through a PAC, and return both the CUFE and the CAFE.
• For Panama, Loyverse lists a third-party AlphaPOS integration that captures POS sales and forwards electronic invoices to the tax authority; since AlphaPOS itself is not on the DGI's published PAC list, confirm the certified provider standing behind any integration.

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Here's a glimpse of what the Loyverse API makes possible: a third-party developer shipped a single Marketplace app that channels Loyverse sales straight into Panama's national e-invoicing platform (SFEP) — turning a compliance burden into a solved problem for merchants across the country.

One developer. One API. A whole country unlocked. Your integration could be the next one on this list.

🔧 Dig into the docs → developer.loyverse.com
🤝 Ready to publish on the Marketplace? → https://share.hsforms.com/1qkxqlh34QZWuk7OkTru9eg14psi