Sending your first invoice to a client in another country can feel risky, especially when you are used to simple domestic billing. Suddenly you are thinking about currency swings, VAT treatment, international payment fees, and whether you have put the right information on the invoice. None of that is fun when all you want is to get paid for your time.

Cross-border invoicing gets much easier once you follow a set process. Below are the four decisions in order: the currency, the VAT treatment, how the client pays, and what the invoice must show.

This is general information, not tax or legal advice. Rules change regularly, so check the current official guidance close to the time you invoice. For UK-based consultants that's HMRC VAT Notice 741A on the place of supply of services; elsewhere, your local tax authority or the EU's own guidance.

Decide which currency to charge in

Start by deciding which currency to bill in. You have two options, and both work.

If you invoice in your home currency, your bookkeeping stays tidy and you always know what you are charging. Your client carries the exchange rate risk, because their cost in their local currency moves as rates change. If you invoice in your client's currency, you take on that risk yourself, but you make life easier for them and often remove a barrier to saying yes to your proposal.

When choosing, think about where you spend the money. If most of your costs are in pounds, billing in GBP keeps things clearer. If your client is in the eurozone and you expect a long relationship, quoting in EUR may fit their budgeting better. You also need to honour any contract terms you have already agreed, especially if you fixed a currency at proposal stage.

Your bank and payment providers matter too. Some accounts let you hold balances in several currencies, so you can invoice in USD and convert to GBP when rates suit you. Others convert everything automatically and charge an FX fee each time. It is worth checking:

Which currencies you can hold
Conversion fees and spreads
Whether incoming payments carry extra charges
How long settlement takes for each currency

Whatever you choose, show it on the invoice with both the symbol and the three-letter code (GBP, EUR, USD), and never mix currencies on a single invoice.

Understand VAT on cross-border services

VAT on international services turns on two questions: where the service is treated as supplied, and whether your client is a business or a consumer. The answers differ across the UK, the EU, the US and elsewhere, so local advice is essential.

For UK-based consultants, HMRC's place of supply guidance gives a helpful structure. In summary, and without giving advice:

UK consultant to UK client: normal domestic VAT rules apply, so if you are VAT registered you usually charge UK VAT at the appropriate rate.
UK consultant to EU business client: for many business-to-business services, the place of supply is the client's country. You do not charge UK VAT, and the client accounts for VAT locally under the reverse charge. The invoice may need specific reverse charge wording.
UK consultant to a business client outside the EU: many services are outside the scope of UK VAT, so you may not charge VAT, but the detail depends on the exact service and location.

Always check the latest guidance and discuss your specific services with an accountant. A related concept is the tax point, the date used for VAT reporting. Depending on local rules, this might be the invoice date, the date payment is received, or the date the work is completed. Getting it right decides which VAT return a transaction lands in.

VAT is separate from income tax or corporation tax. Cross-border work can also raise questions about withholding tax, where a client's country holds back part of your fee against local tax. Double tax treaties and local rules decide how this works, so an accountant in your jurisdiction is the best person to advise.

Choose payment options that work internationally

Next, decide how clients will pay. Each common option trades cost against speed and convenience.

Bank transfers over SWIFT are widely used for larger invoices. They are familiar, but they can be slow, and both sides may pay fees. Local payment rails such as SEPA in Europe can be cheaper and faster where available, but may need you to hold a local account. Card payments through providers such as Stripe or PayPal are convenient for clients, particularly for smaller invoices or one-off projects, but fees tend to be higher and you may face automatic currency conversion at a less favourable rate.

Services like Wise give you local account details in several currencies, which can make a cross-border payment feel like a domestic transfer, usually with clearer FX fees. For ongoing consulting relationships, this reduces friction when both sides prefer bank transfers but want to avoid heavy international bank charges.

When you compare options, look at:

Fees on each side, including FX costs
Settlement times and payout schedules
What the client needs, such as an account or only card details
Chargeback risk and how disputes are handled
How refunds work if you need to credit a client in another currency

Agree your preferred payment methods, and who pays which fees, in your proposal and contract, not when an invoice is already overdue.

What to put on an international client invoice

A cross-border invoice needs everything a domestic one does, plus a few extras. At a minimum, it should show:

Your legal name, business address and registration numbers, such as company number and VAT number where relevant
Your client's legal name, address and VAT or tax number if applicable
A unique invoice number, a clear invoice date and a payment due date
A description of the services, the dates or period worked, your hourly or day rate, and the total time
The invoice currency, the VAT rate and amount if charged, and the net and gross totals

Show the time behind the total. When logged hours become line items with the agreed rate applied, the client sees what you did and when, and has fewer reasons to query the invoice.

Cross-border invoices often need a few extras. If the reverse charge applies, include wording stating that VAT is accounted for by the customer. Your bank details need to work internationally, for example IBAN and SWIFT/BIC, or you can add a clearly marked payment link for cards. Larger organisations often need a purchase order number or internal reference before they can process your invoice, so confirm these before you bill.

Your payment terms should still appear, including your late payment policy and who covers bank or platform fees.

Make international billing a repeatable routine

After a few cross-border invoices, write down what you do so you stop solving each new country from scratch. A short international billing playbook covers a default currency policy with clear exceptions, a VAT approach your accountant has reviewed, your preferred payment methods, and standard wording for the notes on each type of invoice.

How I handle this in Kiaro

I built Kiaro for this kind of work, and most of the playbook above lives in the client record.

Currency per client. Set a client's billing currency once and every new invoice for them uses it. Each invoice's currency is locked when it's created, so changing the client later never rewrites an invoice you've already issued. Kiaro currently supports USD, EUR, GBP and ZAR.
VAT details on the invoice. Your VAT ID and the client's VAT or tax number print on the invoice, and each client can have a default VAT rate. For a reverse charge client, set their default rate to 0% and add the reverse charge wording in the invoice notes. Kiaro doesn't detect reverse charge cases for you, so that call stays with you and your accountant.
Bank details by currency. Save a bank account per currency, with IBAN and SWIFT/BIC fields, and a EUR invoice picks your EUR account automatically. Clients see the details on the invoice, the PDF and the client portal, where they can copy the IBAN in one tap.
Card and local payments. Connect your own Stripe account and every invoice carries a payment link. Clients can pay by card, or by SEPA Direct Debit or iDEAL if you enable them in Stripe, and the invoice marks itself paid when the money arrives. Bank transfers you mark as paid yourself.
Hours straight into line items. Create an invoice from tracked time and each entry becomes a line with its hours and rate, so the client sees exactly what they're paying for.

Kiaro doesn't replace an accountant. It applies the rules you've agreed with one the same way on every invoice.