Frequently asked questions

FreeBillGen is a free hosted invoice generator for freelancers and small businesses anywhere in the world. Create tax-compliant invoices, manage clients, set up recurring billing, and download PDFs - all in your browser, in 80 languages. Run on GDPR-compliant infrastructure inside the EU. The core is free with no card to start.

Yes - the core is free forever. Unlimited tax-compliant invoices in 80 languages, recurring schedules, payment reminders, VAT and aging reports, CSV import and a read-only API, with no card to start, no invoice limit, no watermark, and no client cap. A few optional Pro extras help cover the server bill for power users, but they never gate making or downloading an invoice. There are no ads, no trackers, and no analytics on either tier.

Pro is for power users and is strictly additive - it unlocks features that cost real server and maintenance time, without taking anything away from the free core. It adds: more than one company on a single account, the write API plus webhooks (the read-only API stays free), accounting-software export formats (Xero and QuickBooks), and online card payments ("Pay now" - your buyers pay an invoice by card, settling straight to your own Stripe account). Pro is an optional one-time purchase of 49 EUR (lifetime) or 19 EUR per year. Everything else - the invoices, the 80 languages, the templates, your logo, clients, reminders, reports, and the inbound e-invoice inbox - stays free for everyone.

The promise was always that the document stays free - and it does: making and downloading a compliant invoice is, and stays, free with no card, no limit and no watermark. The optional Pro extras only cover the genuinely expensive parts (multi-company, the write API, accounting integrations) so the free core can keep running sustainably instead of quietly degrading. We would rather be transparent about a small, optional paid tier than burn out the free service. If a Pro subscription ever lapses, your invoices stay accessible and exportable - your data rights never depend on your plan.

Freelancers and small businesses anywhere in the world - every country, every continent. Europe, the Americas, Asia, Africa, Australia, Oceania, from Iceland to Greenland, from Reykjavík to Cape Town, from Helsinki to Buenos Aires, from Tokyo to Lagos - and every island in between. Country-correct invoice formats and tax rules in 80 languages, with VAT logic for European and African jurisdictions, GST for Asia and Australia, sales tax for the Americas, and flexible tax handling for everywhere else. Single-operator accounts - designed for one person running their own books, not for accounting agencies managing multiple clients.

No. FreeBillGen works for sole traders, individual activity licence holders, and any registered legal entity. Your legal status does not affect the software - it simply renders whatever company details you configure. Check with your accountant for tax compliance in your situation.

Every supported country and continent - Europe, the Americas, Asia, Africa, Australia, Oceania, including Iceland, Greenland, and remote island territories. The tool currently ships with 80 languages (English, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Polish, Dutch, and many more - with more being added). Each locale renders the correct invoice format, mandatory fields, and tax calculations for that jurisdiction - VAT, GST, sales tax, consumption tax, or 0% where not applicable; the same engine handles them all. Country-specific extras (quarterly tax reports, reverse-charge wording, small-business notes) are built in where required. Choose your locale at signup and switch any time. This is software, not tax advice - verify compliance with a qualified local accountant.

Yes. Each invoice can be in a different currency - EUR, USD, GBP, and others. The currency symbol and code appear on the PDF.

Yes. Add the recipient on the invoice and click Send by email. The PDF is attached automatically. Email delivery uses our hosted SMTP - no setup required.

Yes. You can create multiple numbering series (for example `INV-2026-0001` or `EX/2026/001`) with custom prefixes, suffixes, and starting numbers. This is useful if you need separate series for different service categories or years.

Yes. Set the frequency (monthly, quarterly, yearly, or every N days), start date, and client. The system generates invoices automatically and emails them to the recipient.

Technically yes, but it is not recommended. Accounting best practice requires correcting a sent document with a credit note. FreeBillGen allows editing any invoice regardless of status, but it warns you that the modified document differs from the one already sent - responsibility for accounting accuracy rests with you.

Yes. You can set up multiple companies under Settings → Companies, each with its own details, bank accounts and logo. When you have more than one, an "Issuing company" picker appears on the invoice so you choose which one issues it. Once an invoice leaves draft the issuing company is locked, so a sent invoice always reflects the company that issued it. Running more than one company is a Pro feature; the free core covers a single company.

Yes. Add a logo to a company under Settings → Companies and it appears on the PDF and on the online invoice page. Each company keeps its own logo, so invoices from different companies are branded separately.

Yes. Each invoice has a "View invoice online" link - a signed, expiring URL that shows the invoice without anyone needing to log in. For online payment you have two options. Connect your own Stripe key under Settings → Companies and a "Pay now" card-payment button appears on the online invoice and in the email; the buyer pays by card and the money settles directly to your Stripe account - FreeBillGen is never in the funds flow and takes no cut. Or, without connecting Stripe, paste any hosted payment link (PayPal, Wise, a bank pay page) and that link becomes the Pay button instead. EUR invoices also show a SEPA scan-to-pay QR automatically when your IBAN is set.

Yes, if you turn them on. Enable reminders in Settings and pick the cadence - on the due date, and a number of days after - and the system emails a branded reminder for unpaid invoices on that schedule. Reminders are opt-in and off by default.

Open a paid invoice and use "Create credit note" - this is only available once an invoice is paid. It creates a separate, numbered credit-note document that nets against the original in your VAT report and is excluded from the aging and outstanding figures. This is the recommended way to correct or reverse an invoice instead of editing the original.

Yes. The invoices list has a Download CSV button, and the VAT and Aging reports each export to CSV from their page. You can open those files in a spreadsheet or hand them to your accountant. Pro also adds Xero- and QuickBooks-formatted CSV exports; automatic two-way sync with those platforms is on the roadmap but not built yet.

For many jurisdictions, yes, free. For EU and EEA sellers FreeBillGen produces an EN 16931 e-invoice: a Factur-X / ZUGFeRD file (a PDF/A-3 with the invoice XML embedded), the EN 16931 XML on its own, and a Peppol BIS 3.0 UBL file. For Latin America it produces the clearance XML for Mexico (CFDI), Peru (CPE) and Brazil (NF-e). The download links appear on the invoice page when they apply, and the API exposes the same files. More countries are being added.

Yes, free. The Inbox reads structured e-invoices your suppliers send you - Peppol UBL and Factur-X / ZUGFeRD - and turns the raw XML into clean, readable fields while keeping the original file for audit. Two ways to get an invoice in: upload the file your supplier sent, or use your personal inbox email address (shown on the Inbox page, like [email protected]). Give that address to a supplier or forward a bill to it, and any e-invoice attachment is parsed and filed automatically. Each received invoice shows its supplier, totals and per-rate VAT, and a EUR bill with the supplier IBAN gets a scan-to-pay QR so you can pay it from your banking app. Being able to receive structured e-invoices is mandatory before issuing them in much of the EU, so this stays in the free core.

Yes. There is a token-authenticated REST API that can read and write your invoices, clients and companies. You create keys under Settings → API keys, where each key gets per-resource read or write scopes - a new key is read-only unless you opt into write - plus an optional expiry. The token is shown once at creation and stored only as a hash, so copy it then; revoke cuts off a key right away.

Interactive docs live at /docs/api, generated from the code so they track the live endpoints. Every create or action call (issue, send, duplicate, credit-note, record a payment) accepts an Idempotency-Key header - resending the same key returns the original result instead of creating, re-numbering or re-sending a second time, so a dropped or retried request is safe.

Yes. Register a webhook endpoint under Settings → Webhooks and we POST a signed JSON callback on invoice and payment events - invoice created, paid, sent or cancelled, a payment recorded, or a client created. Each request is signed with HMAC-SHA256 using your endpoint secret, in the X-FreeBillGen-Signature header, so you can verify it came from us; failed deliveries are retried with backoff and every attempt is logged. The signing secret is shown once when you create the endpoint, then masked.

An API key only grants the scopes you pick, and only to your own account - the same per-account isolation applies as in the web app, so a key cannot reach another user's data. Keys are stored as hashes, never in plain text, and you can set an expiry or revoke any key at any time to cut off access. Give a key write scope only if the integration actually needs to make changes.

On servers inside the European Union, under EU GDPR. Single data controller, single jurisdiction, no third-party processors handling your invoice content. Customers worldwide get the same GDPR-grade protection - one of the strongest privacy frameworks anywhere.

Operationally, yes - we run the infrastructure, so we have the technical access needed to keep the service running. We do not analyse, sell, share, or read your data. The full scope of processing is described in the Privacy Policy.

Yes. Reports → CSV exports for invoices and VAT reports. PDFs download individually. For a full data export covering everything we hold about you (GDPR Article 20), email us - we respond within 30 days.

Settings → Account → Delete, or email us. Under accounting law, certain invoice records may be retained for up to 10 years in a restricted-access archive - those are the only records that survive deletion, kept only as long as legally required.

Passwords are stored as bcrypt hashes - neither we nor anyone else can reverse them. Passkeys (WebAuthn) are also supported and eliminate passwords entirely. We recommend enabling two-factor authentication (TOTP) for additional security.