Plan contractor hiring in Latvia

A Latvian individual can provide independent services through economic activity registered with the State Revenue Service, known as VID, and receive the fee agreed in a civil contract. For a defined assignment, Latvia's uzņēmuma līgums connects that fee to work the contractor undertakes to complete. Start onboarding with the person's registered supplier identity and the actual assignment. Then establish whether your business is in another EU member state or outside the EU: that distinction changes the contractor's VAT registration check even where neither invoice carries Latvian VAT. A registration record and a correctly drafted scope should both be in place before the first assignment begins.

Sources: VID, Economic activity and self-employment, Latvia, Civil Law: obligations, Latvia, Value Added Tax Law

If the line is crossed

If the actual relationship is employment, the foreign buyer can owe employee protections even though the parties used a contractor agreement. For work ordinarily performed in Latvia, choosing foreign law cannot remove otherwise applicable mandatory employment protections. Once performance has begun, failure to put an employment contract in writing does not remove its legal consequences, and the worker can demand written terms. Paid annual leave and appropriate working conditions therefore become employment issues. Salary tax also needs a new arrangement: Latvian law expressly allows payment by the foreign employer or the individual. Resolve that employment setup before continuing to process the work as independent business income.

Sources: Latvia, Labour Law, Latvia, Personal Income Tax Law

Rezidenta apliecība

Tax residence certificate

A Latvian residence certificate gives a foreign customer verifiable residence evidence when its tax process requires it for treaty relief. The contractor can generate the certificate through VID's Electronic Declaration System, EDS, and send the resulting PDF. The recipient can check authenticity using its QR code or the certificate code together with the taxpayer's registration number. Request the year relevant to the payment: certificates can cover the current year or previous years, while a future year's certificate is unavailable. The certificate supports the residence part of a treaty claim; the buyer still needs to apply its own country's conditions for the particular service payment.

Issued by: Generated by the Latvian taxpayer through VID's EDS and supplied to the requesting customer.

Timing: When residence evidence is needed for the relevant year's treaty-relief process.

Sources: VID, Latvian residents and residence certificates

An ordinary B2B service supplied to your business establishment abroad falls outside Latvian VAT under the general place-of-supply rule. For another EU business customer, the invoice can instead identify the customer's responsibility to account for VAT. For a business outside the EU, the foreign place of supply explains the absence of Latvian VAT without turning the service into a Latvian zero-rated export. Give the contractor the identity and address of the establishment actually receiving the service. Check the service description too: event admission and other services with special place-of-supply rules need their own analysis before accounts payable accepts the tax calculation.

Sources: Latvia, Value Added Tax Law

What an invoice has to show

• The individual's name and nodokļu maksātāja reģistrācijas kods

  An individual who carries on economic activity without being an individual merchant identifies themselves on the accounting document with their first name, surname and taxpayer registration code. A company or individual merchant uses its firm name and registration number or taxpayer code. Match the invoice to the supplier you contracted with, alongside the document date, number, parties, service description and value. Do not require a company incorporation number from someone trading through VID-registered individual activity. A brand name by itself is insufficient to identify the individual who issued the document and earned the fee.

  Sources: Latvia, Accounting Law, VID, Economic activity and self-employment

• Nodokļa apgrieztā maksāšana for an EU reverse-charge service

  Latvia names the reverse-charge wording nodokļa apgrieztā maksāšana when the customer is responsible for VAT. For the ordinary service invoiced to another EU business, check that wording and the supplier's and customer's VAT numbers where assigned. Latvian invoice rules continue to apply when the Latvian supplier invoices this foreign-place service. They also allow certain price and tax fields to be omitted in this case, including the tax rate and tax amount. Accounts payable should therefore check the recipient-liability statement before treating an invoice with no Latvian VAT amount as incomplete.

  Sources: Latvia, Value Added Tax Law

• An unsigned invoice needs the applicable accounting-document support

  Latvia's Accounting Law allows an outward invoice without a signature when another legally valid external document substantiates the transaction and the invoice retains its other required particulars. This can matter when an individual contractor sends a simple electronic invoice with no handwritten signature. Keep the legally effective contract or other qualifying transaction document with it, and make the connection between the assignment and the charge clear. The exception removes a signature requirement in those circumstances; it does not make an unsupported payment request adequate. Ask for the missing transaction support when the invoice cannot be connected to agreed work.

  Sources: Latvia, Accounting Law

Under Latvia's Civil Law undertaking-contract rules, the agreed fee is payable once the order is completed and accepted. Use the contract to make that point workable: identify what the contractor will submit, who can accept it and when payment will follow. If Latvian law governs the engagement, these completion rules provide the starting point for the agreed billing schedule. Finance and the delivery owner should use the same acceptance event, so an approved assignment does not sit in accounts payable waiting for an unrelated internal milestone. Record both the approval and the invoice receipt date when releasing the fee.

Sources: Latvia, Civil Law: obligations

When invoices are settled

Where Latvian law governs a private B2B services contract with no agreed payment term, default generally starts after 30 days from invoice receipt, service receipt or the applicable acceptance event. Which date applies depends on their sequence and whether the invoice receipt date is known. Agreed terms exceeding 60 days require express agreement and must not be grossly unfair to the creditor. For delay attributable to the debtor, late payment can bring statutory interest at eight percentage points above the base rate and EUR 40 in recovery costs. Write the payment deadline and acceptance procedure into the agreement, then retain the dates that determine whether either party missed it.

Sources: Latvia, Civil Law: obligations

The currency on the invoice

Latvian tax invoices can be expressed in any currency, while any payable or adjusted VAT amount must be shown in euro. Agree the fee currency and the currency you will actually pay before the contractor invoices. The contractor's Latvian accounting records convert foreign-currency amounts to euro using the applicable accounting exchange rate at the beginning of the transaction day. That is ordinarily the European Central Bank reference rate, with a recognised financial-information source used where no ECB rate exists. This bookkeeping conversion does not itself require the buyer to settle every invoice in euro. Specify any agreed conversion method separately so a bookkeeping figure is not mistaken for the contractual amount due.

Sources: Latvia, Value Added Tax Law, Latvia, Accounting Law

Rejecting a cross-border invoice because Latvia requires structured e-invoices

Latvia's mandatory structured-invoice provision addresses invoices issued to another undertaking registered in Latvia. The private domestic B2B issuing requirement starts on 1 January 2028; the budget-institution phase is already operating, including older contracts brought into scope by 2026. These domestic phases do not by themselves require your foreign business without Latvian presence to demand a structured file from the contractor. Agree a usable invoice format and check its required content. If procurement requests a structured format for its own processing, describe that as a purchasing requirement so the supplier knows which requirement the file is intended to satisfy.

Sources: Latvia, Accounting Law

Accepting a limited VAT registration as permission to invoice EU business services

Latvia's special small-business VAT registration covers specified foreign purchases and restricts use of the number to those transactions. It is unavailable to a supplier making general-rule services to registered businesses in other EU member states. Ask which registration the contractor holds before accepting a number for that engagement. The distinction also matters if the individual uses mikrouzņēmumu nodoklis, the microenterprise tax regime: its VAT exclusion contains an exception for this special registration, so a VAT number alone does not tell you the person's tax regime. An EU service assignment can require the contractor to reassess registration and the tax assumptions behind their quote.

Sources: VID, Special VAT registration for small businesses, VID, Economic activity and self-employment