Countries which use fiscal devices

On the picture you can see the countries where fiscal memory devices are used or have specific legal requirements which mandate that software development conform to the relevant laws.

Fiscal memory devices are used by certain government bodies to add another layer of control over tax collection.

Depending on the situation instead of a fiscal device you may have to work with ESC/POS printers, cash registers, other kinds of printers etc and so on and so forth, while your software will need to be registered and certified by the relevant agency. You, as manufacturer, will have to guarantee the quality of the software, it’s proper and law-compliant operation, as well as the forwarding of required information to revenue agency servers.

If you are producing and distributing software in countries which use fiscal devices, then what you’ll be dealing with falls in one of the following categories:

• Fiscal memory cash registers;
• Fiscal printers;
• Electronic signature devices;

Fiscal memory in itself is a kind of electronic memory certified for use by the relevant government body. In some cases an encryption module may also be included. Some devices involve the use of an electronic journal (or electronic control tape) which is a module readable only by the fiscal device itself, in some countries - by other means as well. It usually contains an electronic copy of the issued documents (fiscal or otherwise). In most cases the modules with the e-journal are regular SD or MicroSD cards, the information on which is encrypted (or at the very least signed) and cannot be accessed directly. If the laws permit, these SD cards can be removed and read even by an ordinary user. It is common practice for this e-journal to initialise and connect to the fiscal device based on its serial number so that it can’t be replaced or used on another fiscal device. Fiscal memory which stores more specific information needed by tax authorities is typically single-use only.

Worldwide, fiscal devices (or their variants) print receipts for about 1 325 330 000 people. At the time of writing this article that equates to 17.67% of the global population. I’ve used approximate data and I’ve probably made mistakes in rounding the population counts but it’s still a very impressive number. Over one billion and three hundred people receive a receipt printed by a fiscal device while shopping at least once a day. As you’ll see in other articles, that’s not always easy to execute or understand, because laws tend to limit the printing possibilities of fiscal devices. The topic is important though, because if your software passes all the legal prerequisites, then you have a fairly large market to work with. I’m giving  you a list of countries for which I’ve gathered information from various sources over the years down below.  The statistics written here should only be used as a reference - when you read this article they may be out of date.

I'll start from Bulgaria only because this is my own country. I have no preferences and prejudices and will try to cover all which I know in the list. 

Bulgaria

• Population: 7 059 000 
• Percentage of world population: 0.09 %
• Surface area: 110 994 Km²
• Population density: 65 p/Km²
• Urban population: 74.1 %
• Average population age: 43.7

 

 

Romania

• Population: 19 270 000
• Percentage of world population: 0.26 %
• Surface area: 230 080 Km²
• Population density: 84 p/Km²
• Urban population: 61.3 %
• Average population age: 42.5

 

 

 

 

 

 

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