IRAS InvoiceNow for Singapore salons and spas

What InvoiceNow actually is

InvoiceNow is the Singapore implementation of Peppol, an international network for sending structured electronic invoices directly between businesses' systems. It is not a portal you log into and it is not a PDF emailed to a client — it is machine-readable invoice data moving between accounting systems over a shared network, with IRAS receiving a copy of the relevant data for GST purposes.

The distinction matters because it determines what "being ready" means. A salon that emails PDF receipts is not doing e-invoicing in this sense, no matter how tidy the PDFs are. Readiness means your system can produce and transmit structured data through an accredited access point.

Who it applies to, and when

The requirement follows GST registration rather than industry, and it is being phased in. The published sequence began with newly incorporated companies registering voluntarily for GST from 1 November 2025 and extended to all new voluntary GST registrants from 1 April 2026. Those two dates are the ones most articles quote, and they are also the two least likely to apply to you: an established salon is neither newly incorporated nor a new voluntary registrant. The phases that cover existing GST-registered businesses were confirmed at Committee of Supply 2026 and run from 1 April 2028 to 1 April 2031, stepped by annual supplies — up to $200,000 from April 2028, up to $1m from April 2029, up to $4m from April 2030, and above $4m from April 2031. IRAS has also said transitional funding will be available, indicatively up to $1,000 for SMEs and up to $5,000 for larger businesses.

For a salon or spa this means the trigger is your GST status and registration timing, not your treatment menu. Businesses below the GST registration threshold are outside scope for now — but many growing multi-outlet salons cross that threshold without treating it as a systems event, which is exactly when this becomes urgent. Confirm your position with IRAS or your accountant rather than inferring it.

What changes at the counter

Ideally, nothing visible. The data IRAS wants — what was sold, to whom, at what price, with what GST — is data your point of sale already has at the moment of payment. The only question is whether it can leave the system in the right shape without someone re-keying it.

Where salons get into difficulty is the same place they do with Malaysian MyInvois: the information is captured at the counter or it is not captured at all. A bookkeeper cannot reconstruct in April what nobody recorded in January, and the busiest months are the ones where manual steps are skipped. Compliance that is a by-product of checkout survives a busy Saturday; compliance that is a monthly chore does not.

If you operate in both Singapore and Malaysia

A group with outlets on both sides of the causeway now has two separate national e-invoicing regimes to satisfy — IRAS InvoiceNow on Peppol in Singapore, and LHDN MyInvois in Malaysia, which has its own phases and its own consolidated-invoice treatment for walk-in clients.

Running two systems to satisfy two regimes is the expensive answer, and it also splits your client records, your package balances and your reporting across a border for no operational benefit. One system that handles both keeps the business a single business. That dual coverage is the specific reason cross-border salon groups shortlist LABÉAU against WESS and Zenoti.

E-invoicing coverage compared

Indicative as of August 2026 and based on published vendor positioning. E-invoicing requirements change — confirm current capability with each vendor and your own obligations with IRAS.

Frequently asked questions