Invoice Generator — Create a PDF Invoice Free
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What is Invoice Generator?
Invoice Generator makes a simple invoice as a PDF. Enter who it is from and who it is for, an invoice number, the date and due date, the currency (USD, EUR, GBP, CAD, AUD or INR), payment terms, one tax percentage and up to 200 line items in the form Item | Qty | Unit price. The PDF lists each item with its amount, then the subtotal, the tax and the total. An optional logo appears in the top right corner. Your details are sent over HTTPS to build the PDF for that request and then discarded. No signup, no watermark, and no invoices are stored.
How to use Invoice Generator
- Open Invoice Generator. Optionally choose a logo image.
- Fill in From and Bill to (several lines each), the invoice number, date, due date, currency and payment terms.
- Type one item per line as Item | Qty | Unit price, for example Logo design | 1 | 450. Enter the tax percentage, or leave it at 0.
- Click Generate PDF, open invoice.pdf and check the totals before you send it. Keep your own copy, because nothing is saved here.
Why use this tool?
Freelancers and small shops often need one clean invoice without signing up for accounting software. This tool does the arithmetic and the layout and gives you a PDF to attach to an email. It is not bookkeeping: it does not remember your clients, number your invoices or file anything for tax. Check the wording your country requires on an invoice, such as a tax registration number, and add it to the From block.
An invoice is a legal record, not just a bill
It is easy to think of an invoice as a glorified request for money, but it is more than that — it is a formal commercial document that creates a record of a transaction, establishes the date a payment became due, and in many places is required for tax purposes on both sides. The business issuing it needs it to recognise revenue and account for tax collected; the customer needs it to claim the expense and reclaim any tax paid. Because it carries that weight, an invoice has to contain specific information to do its job, and a missing field is not a cosmetic flaw — it can mean the invoice is not valid for a tax deduction, or that a client's accounts payable system bounces it back. Getting the contents right is the whole point of using a structured generator rather than typing a number into an email.
What every invoice must contain
Across virtually all jurisdictions, a handful of elements are non-negotiable. A clear label — the word "Invoice" — so it is not mistaken for a quote or a receipt. A unique invoice number, because every invoice must be individually identifiable for your records and for any audit. The issue date and the payment due date, which together define the payment terms. The seller's details (name, address, and any tax registration number) and the buyer's details. An itemised list of goods or services with quantities and unit prices, so the charge is transparent and disputable line by line rather than as one opaque sum. And the totals: the subtotal, any tax applied, and the final amount due. A generator's value is that it lays out exactly these fields, so you fill them rather than remember them.
Invoice numbering: boring, and worth getting right
The invoice number seems trivial and quietly causes the most trouble. The rule almost everywhere is that numbers must be unique and sequential — no gaps, no duplicates — because a tax authority looking at your books expects to see an unbroken run and reads a missing number as a possibly-deleted (and unreported) sale. The practical advice is to adopt a consistent scheme and never break it: a simple incrementing integer works, but many businesses prefix a year or a client code (2026-014, ACME-0007) to make numbers self-describing. What you must not do is restart the count arbitrarily, reuse a number for a corrected invoice, or skip numbers. If you void an invoice, keep the number recorded as voided rather than deleting it, so the sequence stays intact. A generator helps here only if you feed it the next number in your own series — it cannot know what you issued last week.
Tax: the field that trips up freelancers
Tax handling is where invoices diverge most by country and situation, and it deserves real attention. If you are registered for a sales tax or value-added tax (VAT, GST, and equivalents), you generally must show your registration number, the rate applied, and the tax amount as a separate line — the customer needs that breakdown to reclaim it. If you are not registered (common for small or new freelancers below a threshold), you typically must not charge or imply tax, and some jurisdictions expect a short note explaining why no tax is shown. Cross-border work adds another layer: services to a business in another country are often "reverse charged", meaning you show no tax but state that the customer accounts for it. This generator has one tax-percentage field; a registration number or a reverse-charge note goes into the From block or on a line of its own in the item list. What it cannot do is tell you which case is your case — that depends on your registration status and local rules, and when the amounts are significant it is worth a quick check with an accountant.
Payment terms that actually get you paid
An invoice's commercial job is to get money to you, and small wording choices measurably affect how fast that happens. State the due date as an actual date, not only "Net 30" — a concrete date ("due by 30 June") is easier for a client to act on than a term they have to calculate. This generator has a separate due-date field for exactly that. Spell out the accepted payment methods and include the details needed to use them (bank account, payment link), because every extra step the payer has to look up is a reason to set the invoice aside. If you charge late fees or offer an early-payment discount, state them on the invoice so they are enforceable and visible. And send the invoice promptly — the clock on most payment terms starts at the issue date, so an invoice sent three weeks after the work is an invoice paid three weeks later.
From filled-in form to a file you can send
The output that matters is a clean, fixed document you can attach to an email and that the recipient can file and print without it shifting around — which is exactly why an invoice should leave as a PDF rather than an editable file. A PDF looks the same on every device, discourages accidental (or deliberate) alteration of the amount, and is what every accounts department expects to receive. Keep your own copy of every invoice you issue, filed by its number, as your record. If you need to bundle several invoices for one client into a single document, merging the PDFs keeps them together in order, and if an invoice with an embedded logo comes out larger than your mail server likes, compressing it trims the size without touching the figures. Fill the fields correctly, number it in sequence, state a real due date, and send it as a PDF — that is the whole discipline of invoicing, and it is what turns finished work into money in the bank.
Frequently asked questions
- How do I add line items?
- Write one item per line in the form Item | Qty | Unit price, for example Website hosting | 12 | 9.99. The tool multiplies quantity by unit price for each line and adds them up. A line in any other format is printed as a note and is not counted in the total.
- Does it calculate tax and totals?
- Yes. Enter one tax percentage and the PDF shows the subtotal, the tax amount and the total, rounded to two decimals. There is no separate discount, shipping or second tax rate field; add a negative-price line such as Discount | 1 | -20 if you need one.
- Which currencies are supported?
- USD, EUR, GBP, CAD, AUD and INR. The symbol is printed in front of every amount, and the total line names the currency code.
- Can I add my logo?
- Yes. Choose an image file and it is placed in the top right corner, scaled to fit a box about 150 by 60 points. A wide, simple logo looks best.
- How many items can one invoice have?
- Up to 200 lines. When the table reaches the bottom of a page it continues on the next page with the column headings repeated, and the totals come after the last item.
- Are my invoices saved?
- No. The details are sent over HTTPS, the PDF is built for that request and everything is discarded. Download the PDF and keep your own copy and your own invoice numbering.
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