What happens if the Fawtara platform is unavailable?

The public OTA guidance reviewed for this FAQ does not set out a complete, generally applicable outage procedure for taxpayers. Businesses should therefore agree on a documented continuity process with their accredited service provider and check the latest OTA instructions if a disruption occurs.

An outage can affect invoice transmission, validation responses, and delivery to the buyer. Your team should be able to identify which invoices were created, which reached the service provider, which were transmitted, and which received a final status. This prevents missed submissions and duplicate documents when service resumes.

Do not assume that a system outage automatically extends a statutory deadline or removes the taxpayer’s responsibility. Record the time and impact of the incident, retain error messages or provider notices, and follow the provider’s instructions for retrying pending transactions.

Key points

• Know the escalation route: Keep your provider’s support contact and incident process available.
• Track pending invoices: Maintain a queue or report that distinguishes created, transmitted, accepted, and rejected documents.
• Keep evidence: Save timestamps, error messages, incident notices, and support communications.
• Confirm retry rules: Avoid resending an invoice blindly, as this may create duplicate submissions.
• Check OTA instructions: Do not treat an outage as an automatic exemption from compliance deadlines.