FBR Digital Invoicing (DI) API Guide for Pakistan: What Integrators Need to Know

The FBR Digital Invoicing (DI) API is the interface PRAL exposes so licensed integrators and invoicing software can validate and post sales tax invoices. Official detail lives in FBR's technical documentation (e.g. DI API Technical Documentation V1.12) and the Digital Invoicing User Manual - this article is a plain-language map, not a substitute for those PDFs.

Validate and post

Compliant software sends structured JSON payloads to PRAL endpoints. The API checks seller/buyer identifiers, sale type, HS codes, quantities, UOM, tax amounts, and related fields. A successful post returns an invoice number issued by the FBR system plus status data you must persist. Failed validation returns error codes you fix before retrying.

Sandbox vs production

Sandbox mirrors rules without affecting live tax records. You receive a sandbox security token after IP whitelisting, complete assigned scenarios, then move to production tokens. Production posting without sandbox completion is not the documented path.

QR code printing

Technical docs require the Digital Invoicing logo and QR on each issued invoice. Published QR printing guidance includes Version 2.0 (25×25) and approximately 1.0 × 1.0 inch dimensions - confirm the current PDF before print templates go live.

Fields teams get wrong

Common payload fields include seller NTN, buyer registration type and NTN/CNIC, invoice date, sale type, HS code per line, quantity and UOM, values excluding sales tax, sales tax, further/extra/withheld tax where applicable, and SRO schedule references when required. Same HS code with different sale types must remain distinct lines (FBR FAQ on SKUs). For debit notes, reference invoice length rules differ for NTN vs CNIC cases in the API documentation.

DI CRM

PRAL provides Digital Invoicing CRM support for integration issues. Keep registration and ticket numbers handy - many “API bugs” are master-data mismatches.

Taxora.pk

Taxora.pk implements validate/post workflows so finance teams do not build against the DI API from scratch. See connect PRAL and bulk upload.