Connecting to BIR's EIS
After the Permit to Issue, your system proves it can talk to BIR's Electronic Invoicing System: certification within 6 months. Here's the order, the tests, and the rules that come with e-invoices.
← 2.3 Permit to IssueThe PTI is in
Kuting Kitchen's Permit to Issue arrives on 20 November 2026. From now on, its invoices are e-invoices.
One step is left: proving to BIR that the system can talk to BIR's Electronic Invoicing System (EIS).
Six months on the clock
The order is: register the system and get the AC, get the PTI, then get EIS certification within 6 months of the PTI.
For Kuting Kitchen that's by 20 May 2027. Miss it and BIR can revoke the PTI.
EIS certification: a set of tests
Certification happens online, in BIR's EIS Certification Portal (eis-cert.bir.gov.ph). It's a test environment: the system runs 5 mandatory tests, or 7 if it uses an API callback.
BIR needs to test that your system can pull out, process and send sales data the way BIR specifies.
Data, not a picture
BIR's EIS takes invoice data in JSON, a structured format computers read without anyone typing. The fields are the ones already on your invoice, plus details such as discounts and withholding.
Your system can keep its own format inside, as long as it can convert to BIR's.
Two trips for every invoice
To the buyer, now: by email, an online page, a QR code or an app. A printout if the buyer asks.
To BIR: not yet. Sending sales data to BIR hasn't started; the next step explains why.
Permit to Transmit: BIR not ready
Issuing e-invoices and reporting sales data to BIR are two separate duties under the law. RMC 98-2026 makes the first one due by 31 December 2026. The second hasn't started, because BIR itself isn't ready: under RR 11-2025, sales reporting waits until BIR has a system that can receive the data and issues its sales-reporting rules.
The Permit to Transmit (PTT) belongs to the second duty. You apply for one only when the BIR Commissioner tells you to. As of October 2026, no such directive has been issued. Once reporting starts, guides describe each invoice reaching BIR within 3 days; confirm that when the rules come out.
So don't apply for a PTT now. EIS certification is still required: it shows your system is ready for when BIR switches reporting on.
Never edit an issued e-invoice
An e-invoice, once issued, is never deleted or changed. A refund or discount after the sale is a credit note that points to the original invoice. An extra charge is a new e-invoice.
When the system is down
Power out, internet down, system broken: you still invoice every sale, on a manual invoice authorized by BIR.
When the system is back, replace each manual invoice with an e-invoice that carries the manual invoice's number. Keep a registered booklet ready for this.
Who supplies the system
You may build it in-house, buy software, or use an e-invoicing service provider (ESP). Under RMC 110-2026, an ESP must be accredited by BIR before it serves taxpayers; ask to see its accreditation certificate. Software you license and run on your own infrastructure, for your business only, follows the CAS rules instead. Whichever you pick, in-house included, the system still needs EIS certification.
The setup cost has a tax upside: a one-time extra deduction of 100% of it for micro and small taxpayers like Kuting Kitchen, 50% for medium and large.
Pop Quiz: the whole path, in order
Tap the five steps in the order a seller goes through them.
General information for learning, not tax advice. Kuting Kitchen and its dates are fictional. The rules for sending sales data to BIR had not been issued when this was written; check BIR's EIS Certification Portal and your RDO for what applies now.
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