ZATCA Wave 24: 34-Day Countdown to the June 30 E-Invoicing Deadline

ZATCA Wave 24 Countdown: 34 Days to the June 30 E-Invoicing Deadline

On June 30, 2026, Saudi Arabia's Zakat, Tax and Customs Authority (ZATCA) activates Wave 24 of its Phase 2 e-invoicing integration program — and this wave is a milestone. For the first time since the Fatoora program launched, the revenue threshold drops to just SAR 375,000, bringing thousands of small and medium businesses into mandatory Fatoora platform integration that was previously limited to larger enterprises.

If your business reported taxable turnover exceeding SAR 375,000 in any of 2022, 2023, or 2024, you are in Wave 24. You now have 34 days to complete your API integration with the Fatoora platform — or face escalating penalties of up to SAR 50,000 per violation.

What makes the deadline doubly urgent: ZATCA's amnesty initiative — which allows businesses to regularize past e-invoicing errors without financial penalty — also expires on June 30, 2026. Miss this date and you lose both your last chance to integrate and your last chance to clear accumulated penalty exposure simultaneously. This double deadline will not repeat.

Who Exactly Falls Under Wave 24?

ZATCA defines eligibility with a single clear criterion: any business registered for VAT in Saudi Arabia whose taxable turnover exceeded SAR 375,000 during any of the calendar years 2022, 2023, or 2024. This threshold is dramatically lower than previous waves, which targeted businesses with revenues in the millions. Now, a small business generating less than SAR 1,000 per day may be in scope for mandatory Phase 2 integration for the first time.

Affected businesses receive an official notification from ZATCA via registered mail on the authority's portal between April 1 and June 30, 2026. However, not receiving a notification does not exempt a business from compliance if it meets the revenue criteria — so do not wait for a letter before starting your integration process.

What Exactly Does ZATCA Require in Phase 2?

Phase 2 (the Integration and Linking Phase) is fundamentally different from Phase 1. Generating a PDF invoice and emailing it to the client no longer counts as compliance. What ZATCA now requires is a live, real-time API connection between your invoicing system and the Fatoora platform, enabling the authority to review every transaction as it happens. Specifically, businesses in Wave 24 must implement two distinct flows:

• Clearance for standard tax (B2B) invoices: a draft invoice must be submitted to ZATCA and approved before it is delivered to the customer. Any invoice delivered without prior clearance is a direct violation.
• Reporting for simplified (B2C) invoices: invoices must be reported to ZATCA within 24 hours of issuance, without requiring prior approval.

Additionally, your accounting or invoicing software must be officially certified by ZATCA, you must pass connection tests in ZATCA's Sandbox environment before going live, and all simplified invoices must include a correctly formatted QR code per ZATCA's technical specifications. Your CSID (Cryptographic Stamp Identifier) certificate must also be installed and renewed at least 30 days before expiration.

The Penalty Schedule: What Non-Compliance Actually Costs

ZATCA's penalty framework is progressive but escalates quickly after the grace period ends:

• First violation: Official warning with a 3-month correction window
• Second violation: SAR 5,000
• Third violation: SAR 10,000
• Fourth violation: SAR 40,000
• Serious violations (deleting or altering invoices, failure to report technical failures): up to SAR 50,000 immediately

The critical detail most businesses miss: different violation types accumulate independently. A business that has not integrated and is issuing uncleaned B2B invoices can simultaneously accrue penalties for non-integration, for missing clearance on each invoice, and for non-compliant invoice formats — all stacking at the same time.

Four Steps to Comply Before June 30

If you have not started your Wave 24 integration yet, here is the action checklist in order:

• Step 1 — Confirm eligibility: Review your 2022, 2023, and 2024 VAT returns. If taxable turnover exceeded SAR 375,000 in any of those years, you are in Wave 24 and must act immediately.
• Step 2 — Select a ZATCA-certified solution: Verify that your accounting software or invoicing system supports the ZATCA Fatoora API and is listed on ZATCA's official approved-solutions registry.
• Step 3 — Complete Sandbox testing: Connect to ZATCA's test environment, submit sample invoices through both the clearance and reporting flows, and confirm that your CSID certificate is valid and correctly installed.
• Step 4 — Go live in production: Switch to ZATCA's production environment and monitor the first live invoices carefully. Set up alerts for any integration errors or certificate expiration warnings so problems surface immediately.

The full process typically takes two to four weeks when using a certified solution with onboarding support. With 34 days remaining, starting today still leaves a workable margin — but waiting another week significantly increases the risk of missing the deadline.

How Watily Solves This

Watily offers a fully ZATCA-integrated e-invoicing solution built specifically for Saudi small and medium businesses. The platform handles the full compliance stack so business owners can focus on running their business, not debugging API connections.

The Watily ZATCA solution includes:

• Plug-and-play API integration with the Fatoora platform — no developer or technical expertise required
• Automatic clearance for B2B invoices and automated 24-hour reporting for B2C invoices
• A bilingual Arabic/English dashboard showing real-time compliance status for every invoice — cleared, reported, or flagged
• Instant alerts for CSID certificate expiration, integration errors, or rejected invoices before they become violations
• A local Arabic-speaking support team that knows ZATCA's requirements inside out and guides you through Sandbox testing until you pass

Saudi Arabia's 1.7 million active commercial registrations are being digitized at an accelerating pace. ZATCA Wave 24 brings the largest group of SMEs into Phase 2 compliance in the program's history, and it aligns directly with Vision 2030's target of raising the SME contribution to GDP from 20% to 35%. Businesses that integrate early gain not just legal protection — they gain real-time financial visibility that improves cash flow management and VAT filing accuracy.

Don't wait for ZATCA's registered-mail notification to start — those letters have already been going out since April 1. Register with Watily today and let our team guide you to full Phase 2 compliance well before the June 30 deadline.