How to get an invoice for an AliExpress order
The short answer: AliExpress does not issue one, and it is not going to. Here is what you actually get, what it is missing, and how to produce a document your accountant or tax office will accept.
Why there is no "download invoice" button
AliExpress is a marketplace, not the seller. When you buy a phone case, the contract is between you and an independent merchant in Shenzhen who has no VAT registration in your country and no obligation to issue you anything. AliExpress provides the payment rails and the dispute process; it does not issue commercial documents on the merchant's behalf.
What you can reach is the order detail page, which shows the order number, the date, the items, and a price breakdown. That page is the raw material. It is not a document — it has no issuer, no recipient, no document number, and it disappears from your account after a retention period.
What your accountant actually needs
Requirements differ by country, but the overlap is remarkably consistent. A document that functions as a purchase record almost always needs:
| Field | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Document number and date | Makes the record uniquely referenceable in your books |
| Supplier name | The merchant — not "AliExpress". Naming the marketplace states the wrong counterparty |
| Your own details | Company name, address, and VAT number where you are registered |
| Line items with quantity and unit price | So the total is auditable rather than asserted |
| Shipping, tax and discounts, itemised | A single "total" with no breakdown cannot be posted to the right accounts |
| The currency actually charged | Not the currency the site happened to display |
The three things that go wrong
1. The price breakdown is collapsed
AliExpress hides shipping and coupon rows behind a small arrow next to the subtotal. If you copy the figures without expanding it, you get a subtotal and a total with an unexplained gap between them — and a document that does not add up is worse than no document at all. Expand the breakdown before you record anything.
2. The currency is not the one you think
AliExpress displays prices in your chosen currency but may charge your card in another, with its own conversion. The figure on your bank statement and the figure on the order page can legitimately differ. Record the one you were actually charged, and keep the order page figure as supporting detail.
3. The supplier is the store, not the platform
The order page names the store — something like "COXO Official Store". That is the supplier. Writing "AliExpress" on the record misstates who you bought from, which matters the moment anyone reconciles it against a bank line or a customs document.
Doing it by hand means opening the order, expanding the breakdown, copying eight or nine fields into a template, and repeating that for every purchase. It takes a few minutes an order, and the errors it produces are silent ones.
OrderVault is a free Chrome extension that reads the order page you already have open and produces the document — with your company details, your VAT number, and your own numbering. It works entirely inside your browser; nothing is uploaded anywhere. If it cannot read a figure with confidence, it says so instead of printing a number that looks plausible.
Can you claim VAT back on an AliExpress purchase?
Usually not on the purchase itself, and this is the most common misunderstanding in this area. A Chinese merchant does not charge EU or UK VAT, so there is no input VAT on the invoice to reclaim. What you may have is import VAT, charged at the border or collected by the platform under the EU's IOSS or the UK's low-value consignment rules. That is a different document — usually from the carrier or shown as a separate line at checkout — and it is the one your accountant needs for a reclaim.
The purchase record still matters: it substantiates the business expense itself, which is a separate question from VAT recovery. Keep both.
How long do you have?
AliExpress order history is not permanent, and the detail behind older orders thins out over time. Most tax authorities expect records to be retained for five to seven years. The gap between those two facts is the actual argument for producing the document at purchase time rather than at year end — by the time your accountant asks, the page may no longer hold what you need.