In a clearance model — also described as continuous transaction controls — the invoice is submitted to a government platform first. The platform validates it, assigns it an identifier, and only then is the document considered legally issued. Until that happens, there is no valid invoice to send.
The alternative is the post-audit model, where businesses exchange invoices directly and the tax authority inspects afterwards, as tax administrations traditionally have. Belgium mandates structured invoicing over the Peppol network without pre-clearance; Poland’s KSeF requires clearance. France sits between the two, with certified private platforms handling exchange while a public portal feeds data to the tax administration.
Why It Matters
The model determines how e-invoicing feels day to day. Under clearance, the government platform is on your critical path — its availability is your availability, and an invoice that fails validation is not merely rejected but not yet issued. Under post-audit, you keep control of the exchange and the scrutiny comes later. If you trade in a clearance country, invoice timing and platform downtime become operational concerns in a way they never were with PDFs.
Example
A Polish supplier issues an invoice through KSeF. The platform validates the structure, registers it and returns an identifier. Only at that point does the invoice legally exist, and the identifier becomes the reference both parties and the tax authority use for it.
Frequently Asked Questions
What happens if the government platform is down?
Systems that mandate clearance generally publish contingency procedures — offline issuance with later submission, or a grace period. The rules are specific to each country and worth reading before you need them rather than during an outage.
Is clearance the same as real-time reporting?
They overlap but differ. Clearance means approval is required before the invoice is valid. Real-time or near-real-time reporting means transaction data must be transmitted promptly, but the invoice may be valid regardless. Some regimes combine both.