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A registered cash register, a certified till software, a fiscal security module: five different names for exactly the same idea, imposed by five different EU countries, with five different fines if you get it wrong.
"Restaurant POS System: 7 Criteria to Choose the Right One", elsewhere on this site, helps you pick a till system: which features, which price, which hardware. That is half the question. The other half is less visible and far more expensive to miss: is that till system also fiscally compliant under the law of the country you run it in? A system can have every feature you need and still fail what the tax authority requires — and that gap only becomes visible during an inspection, not at the point of purchase.
Five EU countries have each introduced their own version of the same law over the past decade: a till that records every transaction immutably and, in most cases, transmits it to the tax authority. Belgium calls it a registered cash register system (GKS), France a certified till software (NF525), Germany a technical security device (TSE), Austria the RKSV, Italy a registratore telematico. Five names, one reason: cash and card revenue that never generated a receipt is invisible to a tax authority — and hospitality is exactly the sector where that happens most easily.
This is not a legal text. It is the seven numbers that decide whether your business falls under it, what the deadline is, and what missing it costs you: the turnover threshold Belgium applies, the fine per uncertified till in France, the fine ceiling in Germany, the dual threshold in Austria, and the percentage Italy charges on VAT that was never transmitted.
Further down, pick your own country and enter your own annual turnover — the checker tells you whether a fiscal system is required, since when, and what the fine risk is. Everything runs in your browser; nothing is sent or stored. For the definitive answer, your own accountant or your country's tax authority remains the source — this is the map, not the last word.
Why "a good till system" is not the same as "a fiscally compliant one"
When you choose a till system, you look at features: can it manage tables, does it work with your kitchen printer, is it intuitive for new staff. That is a real, time-consuming decision. But none of those features says anything about whether the system meets the fiscal legislation of your own country.
Fiscal compliance is a separate certificate, a separate module, or a separate registration — independent of how well the system otherwise works. A French restaurant can run the best till system on the market and still risk a fine because the vendor cannot produce a valid NF525 certificate. A Belgian business can have a system that works perfectly, yet isn't registered with the tax authority as a GKS.
The result is that "I have a till system" and "I am fiscally compliant" are two separate boxes, not one. Most vendors of well-known till systems now offer the right certification — but the duty to ask for it, and to be able to prove it, sits with you, the owner, not with the vendor.
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They run in the order in which they affect most businesses: first why these laws exist at all, then country by country — Belgium, France, Germany, Austria, Italy — and finally how long the proof has to survive after you print it.
1. €128 billion — the VAT gap these laws are trying to close
In 2023 the EU's VAT compliance gap stood at €128 billion — the difference between what member states should have collected in VAT and what actually came in. That is a €27 billion jump from 2022, when the gap was €101 billion.
Hospitality is nowhere the sole cause of that gap, but it is one of the sectors where it happens most easily: a cash payment that never generated a receipt leaves no trace, unless the system itself records it immutably. That is exactly what a fiscal till does — it makes "just not ringing it up" technically impossible rather than merely morally frowned upon.
Every law below is a different country's answer to that same problem. The numbers differ — threshold, fine, deadline — but the motive is identical everywhere: a receipt that can no longer disappear.
2. €25,000 — the Belgian turnover line that makes your till fiscal
In Belgium, a registered cash register system (GKS) is mandatory for any hospitality business serving meals on-site with annual turnover from those meals above €25,000, excluding VAT. Below that, a regular till remains allowed — above it, every receipt has to run through a registered system, with a till slip for every guest.
2026 is precisely the year the system itself is changing: GKS 2.0 becomes mandatory for new hospitality businesses from 1 January 2026, with a transition tolerance until 31 March 2026 due to a shortage of certified devices. Existing businesses running an older GKS 1.0 system get a phased deadline — 1 July 2026 for systems registered between 2014 and 2017, 1 July 2027 for systems registered between 2018 and 2021.
The fine for a non-compliant registered till ranges from €1,500 to €5,000. Fail to issue a GKS receipt and it starts at €50 for a first offence — a figure that climbs on repeat violations.
3. €7,500 — the French fine per uncertified till
France has required every VAT-liable hospitality business to run certified till software since 2018 — NF525 is the best-known certification, issued by AFNOR or LNE. Since 2025, a vendor's self-declaration is no longer enough: only an accredited certification body may issue the proof.
The fine on inspection is €7,500 per non-compliant till — and that figure applies per device, not per business. A restaurant with three till points that all turn out non-compliant risks, in theory, €22,500, with a sixty-day window to fix it before the fine becomes final.
The proof you need during an inspection is simple but has to actually be there: a certificate (NF525 or LNE) or an individual attestation from the software vendor, kept and ready to produce. Ask your vendor explicitly, because "the system works fine" is not an answer to the question an inspector asks.
4. €25,000 — the German fine ceiling for a broken TSE
Germany has required every electronic till — computer till, tablet till or classic register — to run with a BSI-certified technical security device (TSE) since 1 January 2020, which locks every transaction immutably. Since 1 January 2025, a reporting duty on top of that requires every till to be registered with the tax office via ELSTER.
The general penalty provision (§379 AO) allows fines of up to €25,000 for violations of the till rules — a ceiling that applies equally to a bakery and a restaurant, regardless of size. There is no turnover threshold: the duty applies to every electronic till, however small the business.
What sets this apart from, say, Belgium is that there is no floor below which you can still run a plain till — German law reasons from the system itself, not from the turnover flowing through it.
Belgium and Austria both cap at €5,000. France charges €7,500 per till. Germany goes up to €25,000 — five times Belgium's ceiling.
Italy isn't on this bar: its penalty isn't a fixed amount but 90% of the VAT on the unreported amount — the bigger the hidden revenue, the bigger the fine, with no ceiling.
5. €7,500 and €15,000 — the two Austrian thresholds that decide if you need a till at all
Austria works with a dual threshold. A registered till (under the RKSV, the cash register security ordinance) only becomes mandatory once a business clears both more than €7,500 in cash turnover and more than €15,000 in total annual turnover. Both conditions have to hold together — not just one.
For most hospitality businesses that is a theoretical question: a restaurant with normal card turnover clears those numbers within the first few months. But the logic is worth knowing, because it explains why a small food-truck project or a pop-up with a few thousand euros in cash turnover a year can genuinely sit outside the duty, while every established restaurant falls under it automatically.
Clear both thresholds and still run without a registered till, or fail to issue a receipt, and you risk a fine up to €5,000 — for the missing till itself and for the missing receipt alike.
6. 90% — the Italian penalty on VAT for a receipt your till never sent
Italy has required a registratore telematico since its phased rollout from 2019: a till that automatically issues a "commercial document" to the guest on every transaction and electronically transmits the day's revenue to the Agenzia delle Entrate. From 2026, a mandatory link between the till and the card terminal is added on top.
Where Belgium and France work with a fixed fine amount, Italy charges proportionally: if revenue goes unrecorded or untransmitted, the penalty is 90% of the VAT owed on that amount. For a fault you don't have repaired promptly while still selling without an emergency register, the administrative fine runs between €250 and €2,000.
From 2026, a separate set of fines is added for the link itself: €1,000 to €4,000 if the till isn't connected to the card terminal, and €100 to €1,000 per quarter for failing to transmit electronic payment data.
Austria was first, in 2016. Belgium is last — and in 2026 sits right in the middle of its own transition to GKS 2.0.
The date is always when the core duty took effect, not the system's latest update — Germany added a reporting duty in 2025, Italy a card-terminal link in 2026, and Belgium's own GKS 2.0 phases through to 2027.
7. 10 years — how long the proof has to survive after you print it
A registered or certified till system solves the problem of recording — not the problem of keeping. In Germany, the GoBD — the rules for proper digital bookkeeping — require till data, like any other accounting record, to be kept for 10 years, digitally and immutably accessible for an inspection.
That figure is not a German quirk: most EU countries apply a retention period of 7 to 10 years for fiscal records, and a till system that is compliant today has to keep being able to show that data across all those years — even after a system change, a takeover, or the vendor's own software company going bust.
That is the question most easily skipped when buying a till system: not "is it compliant today", but "can I still show exactly what was on this receipt nine years from now". Ask your vendor before you sign, not after the tax authority asks.
Check your own country
Pick the country your business runs in and enter your annual turnover, excluding VAT and in euros — all five countries below use the euro, so nothing gets converted. The field is pre-filled with a sample turnover so you can see straight away how it reads.
You'll see whether a fiscal till is required for you, since when that requirement has applied in that country, and what the fine risk is if you don't comply.
Country checker: fiscal till
One country, your own turnover, and the answer in three tiles.
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This checker states the core rule per country based on the legislation as it stands today — it doesn't replace advice from your own accountant or your country's tax authority, especially around transition rules like Belgium's GKS 2.0 phasing. Everything runs in your browser; nothing is sent or stored.
What stands out walking through all five countries: only Belgium and Austria have a turnover threshold below which you can still run without a registered till. France, Germany and Italy require the system from the first euro — the size of your business plays no role there.
Run in more than one country — a second location just across a border, say — and each site follows the law of the country it's actually in. A Belgian GKS certificate carries no weight with a French inspector, and the reverse is just as true.
What to do with this this week, this month and this quarter
Fiscal compliance isn't a project you tick off once — it's a question you ask again at every system change, every new location and every change in the law. Three steps to start with.
This week — ask your vendor for the proof
- Ask your current till vendor explicitly for the certificate or registration that applies in your country — an NF525 attestation, a GKS registration number, a TSE conformity statement.
- Check whether that proof has an expiry date or is tied to a specific software version — a certificate for an older version doesn't automatically cover an updated system.
- Walk through the functional side of your till system while you're comparing anyway — fiscal compliance and a system your team actually enjoys using are two separate checklists.
This month — put the deadline on your calendar
- If you're a Belgian business on an older GKS 1.0 system, note which phase applies to you — 1 July 2026 or 1 July 2027 — and plan the switch well ahead of it.
- Keep every certificate, attestation and registration confirmation somewhere your accountant can find too, not only in an inbox.
- Compare the turnover threshold from the checker above with your own latest annual figures — a business growing past it rarely notices in time.
This quarter — pair it with the rest of your VAT file
- Review your fiscal till alongside your VAT rates — both files concern the same relationship with the tax authority and belong in the same annual check.
- Confirm with your accountant that the retention period for your till data — typically 7 to 10 years — is technically guaranteed by your system, not just promised by the vendor.
- Repeat the checker above whenever you open a second location, especially in another country — every site falls under the law of its own country, not whatever your first one already sorted out.
Five laws, one same question
Every one of these five systems ultimately asks your till the same question: can a euro that comes in ever disappear without a trace? The answer every country legally imposes is no — the only difference is how strict, since when, and against what fine.
That makes fiscal compliance something other than a nice feature of your till system: it's the condition for being allowed to use the system legally, regardless of how well it otherwise works. Choosing a till system remains the question that decides your taste and your workflow — this page is the question that decides your licence.
Check with your vendor, your accountant, or your own country's tax authority before you buy a new system — a certificate you check in advance costs a phone call. One you discover missing only during an inspection costs a fine.