As China's photovoltaic industry enters a large-scale retirement cycle, the recycling and reuse of end-of-life photovoltaic modules has been upgraded from a supplementary link to a rigid-demand track. In the past, the recycling industry generally faced pain points such as fragmented transactions, missing invoices, inconsistencies among the three flows, and high risks of false invoicing, which severely constrained the healthy development of the industry. Recently, the implementation of payment-and-immediate-invoicing in the resource recycling industry has accelerated in many regions across the country. Coupled with the tax authorities' high-pressure crackdown on false invoice crimes, these dual forces are driving the photovoltaic recycling industry toward full-process compliance, full-chain traceability, and full-link controllability. Compliance has become an essential requirement for the survival and development of the industry.

I. Payment-and-immediate-invoicing is being rolled out nationwide, putting compliant invoicing in the resource recycling sector on a fast track

To address difficulties in invoicing for renewable resource recycling, lack of input invoices, and weak regulatory oversight, the State Taxation Administration is vigorously promoting reverse invoicing. Many regions are simultaneously implementing integrated services featuring payment upon invoicing, tax payment upon invoicing, and treasury entry upon tax payment, covering sectors such as waste materials and agricultural products, and providing a mature compliance model for photovoltaic recycling.

On March 20, 2026, the State Taxation Administration issued the Opinions of the State Taxation Administration on Carrying Out the 2026 "Spring Breeze Action for Convenient Tax Services" (Shuizong Nafufa [2026] No. 18), which mentioned promoting the building of a co-governance ecosystem. It will accelerate the promotion of the Leqi "joint-use" model, focus on third-party payment institutions with strong compliance capabilities, strong information technology, and broad market coverage, and attract more high-quality entities to participate in building the tax informatization ecosystem. It will expand the application scenarios of "payment-and-immediate-invoicing", and promote the further expansion and extension of "payment-and-immediate-invoicing" from parking lots, commercial retail, agricultural product procurement, waste recycling, catering and accommodation, cultural tourism and entertainment, transportation and travel, and other high-frequency livelihood sectors, so as to connect payment and invoicing, improve the invoicing experience for business entities and the invoice-use experience for consumers, and promote the digital transformation of the economy and society. It will carry out publicity on positive cases of compliant operation and honest tax payment, demonstrate the positive role that compliant operation brings to enterprise development, and foster a good social atmosphere of honest operation and fair competition throughout society. It will continue to expose typical tax-related illegal cases, sending a strong signal of handling tax-related illegal acts in accordance with the law and cracking down on them severely, and guiding enterprises to firmly establish the concept of law-based, honest tax payment and compliant operation.

In March 2026, the Dezhou Municipal Taxation Bureau of the State Taxation Administration in Shandong Province launched the project "Promoting Application Scenarios for 'Payment-and-Immediate-Invoicing.'" At present, "payment-and-immediate-invoicing" is mainly applied in the fields of agricultural product procurement and renewable resource recycling, focusing on solving pain points such as difficulties, low efficiency, and high risks in issuing invoices for natural persons selling agricultural products and waste materials.

On April 2, 2026, the Information Office of the Zibo Municipal People's Government held a press conference to introduce the effective implementation of "transaction-and-immediate-invoicing." The "three-flows-in-one reverse invoicing" model is mainly applied in the fields of renewable resource recycling and agricultural product procurement, and has now been fully promoted. The application rate among eligible renewable resource recycling enterprises has reached 70%, and the application rate among agricultural product procurement enterprises has reached 75.82%.

On April 13, 2026, ICBC Duyun Branch in Guizhou successfully established cooperation on reverse invoicing business with a renewable resource recycling Co., Ltd. in Guizhou. Making full use of the product advantages of the reverse invoicing assistant—"zero cost, low threshold, and high efficiency"—the bank provided dedicated service team guidance and support throughout the entire process, including natural person real-name registration, corporate operator order placement, natural person QR code scanning verification and order confirmation, corporate finance review and payment via corporate online banking U-shield, and online invoice download, achieving a full closed loop of transaction, payment, invoicing, and filing, and completing a one-stop convenient experience of "payment-and-immediate-invoicing" for resource recycling enterprises.

On May 6, 2026, ICBC Wuzhou Branch in Guangxi achieved an important breakthrough in reverse invoicing business for renewable resource recycling scenarios. In the past, in transaction scenarios involving agricultural and sideline products and renewable resources between enterprises and natural persons, there were generally problems such as difficulty in obtaining invoices, difficulty in VAT deduction, and inconvenience for natural persons to issue invoices. Enterprises faced financial and tax risks, while natural persons lacked motivation to issue invoices. To solve these industry pain points, ICBC Wuzhou Branch created a comprehensive service solution of "fund settlement + reverse invoicing + dedicated financial services" for enterprises, enabling them to realize one-stop payment, invoicing, and reconciliation services, improving settlement and reconciliation efficiency.

On May 13, 2026, the Zhejiang Branch of the People's Bank of China deeply extended the "payment-and-immediate-invoicing" service into four key fields: gas stations, parking properties, agricultural product procurement, and renewable resources, achieving empowerment across all regional scenarios. Through cooperation with supply and marketing cooperatives in many places and resource recycling enterprises, it created a "financing + payment + invoicing" one-stop digital finance model.

On May 14, 2026, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China's payment-and-immediate-invoicing has been widely applied in Wuxi City's renewable resource recycling enterprises, gas stations, supermarkets, and other industries.

On May 20, 2026, Huadong Metal City in Linyi, Shandong and ICBC Shandong Branch held discussions and exchanges on deepening cooperation in the "payment-and-immediate-invoicing" business. A team led by Teng Haiyang, Senior Manager of the Online Finance Department of ICBC Shandong Branch, visited Huadong Metal City in Linyi to conduct special business exchanges on empowering the digital transformation of the renewable resource recycling industry. The discussion focused on deepening innovative financial services for "payment-and-immediate-invoicing" and made a phased summary on helping improve quality, increase efficiency, and achieve compliant development in recycled metal trading in the park. At present, the "payment-and-immediate-invoicing" business of Huadong Metal City is being comprehensively piloted and promoted among merchants in the park.

1. It solves the pain point of procurement without invoices and sales with no input invoices, enabling enterprises to legally obtain input vouchers and reduce tax risks.
2. Transactions, funds, and invoices are bound in real time and automatically leave records, achieving full-chain traceability.

3. Simplifies the invoicing process, reduces compliance costs, and helps formal enterprises expand in scale.

II. Strict crackdown on false invoicing as a warning: photovoltaic recycling must never cross the legal red line

• Modus operandi: illegally purchased citizens' personal information, registered 346 shell companies, with no real business operations and sales without input invoices, and falsely issued 7846 VAT ordinary invoices to external parties, involving an amount of 1.2 billion yuan.

• Handling result: the principal offenders were sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of five to six years and fined, and 1936 downstream invoice-receiving enterprises were comprehensively investigated and held accountable

Article 21, Paragraph 2 of the Measures of the People's Republic of China for the Administration of Invoices stipulates: no unit or individual may engage in the following acts of false invoicing: (1) issuing invoices for others or for themselves that do not conform to actual business operations; (2) having others issue invoices for themselves that do not conform to actual business operations; (3) introducing others to issue invoices that do not conform to actual business operations.

1. Shell invoicing, identity misuse, and sales without input invoices are key targets of crackdown.
2. Tax authorities + public security use data profiling, joint analysis and judgment, and rapid net-closing, leaving false invoicing with nowhere to hide.
3. Not only are invoice issuers severely punished, but invoice-receiving enterprises are also held accountable, forming closed-loop supervision across the entire chain.