How to choose a FEL certifier in Guatemala

Everyone selling electronic invoicing in Guatemala will tell you their certifier is the best one. We integrate three of them at Cuadra — INFILE, Digifact and Ainnova — and the honest conclusion is that the differences matter far less than the sales pitch suggests, and that for a good share of small businesses the right answer is to hire none of them. This is what we would tell you in person: what the SAT requires, who is authorised today, what can actually be known about prices, and how to switch without losing a day of invoicing.

What a certifier actually is

The FEL regime has four actors, defined by the SAT itself: the issuer (you), the certifier, the recipient (your customer) and the SAT as administrator of the regime. Under article 3(e) of Acuerdo de Directorio 13-2018, the certifier is the person or company that certifies and stores the DTEs transmitted by issuers. Its job is to take your signed document, validate it, assign the authorisation number and transmit it to the SAT. All of that happens online, in seconds.

Two practical consequences almost nobody explains. First, the certifier does not define your invoice: the DTE format, the validation rules and the 20 document types are set by the SAT, not by the vendor, so an invoice certified by INFILE and one certified by Megaprint are the same XML with the same legal standing. Second, the certifier is not your invoicing software. Many vendors sell both together, which is where the confusion starts — what you actually buy when you "hire a certifier" is usually the software on top, not the certification.

The official list: 18 authorised certifiers

The SAT publishes the list at portal.sat.gob.gt/portal/certificador-de-dte, and that is the only list that counts. As of 9 September 2026 there are 18 authorised companies, each with an authorisation date and a renewal date. On top of those 18 sits the SAT itself, which acts as your certifier when you issue from the Agencia Virtual or the App FEL.

• AINNOVA, S.A. (guatefacturas.com) — authorised 23/11/2018, renewal 23/11/2026
• Cámara de Comercio de Guatemala (ccg.gt) — authorised 24/02/2021, renewal 24/02/2027
• CARI Latinoamérica, S.A. (cari.lat) — authorised 22/11/2022, renewal 22/11/2026
• COFIDI, S.A. (cofidi.com.gt) — authorised 03/07/2019, renewal 03/07/2027
• Comercializadora Guatemalteca Mayorista de Electricidad, S.A. (portal.fel.guatemel.com.gt) — authorised 21/02/2020, renewal 21/02/2027
• CONTAP, S.A. (facturas.gt) — authorised 30/04/2020, renewal 30/04/2027
• Corposistemas, S.A., of Cobán (corposistemasgt.com) — authorised 06/04/2021, renewal 06/04/2027
• Digifact Servicios, S.A. (digifact.com.gt) — authorised 23/08/2019, renewal 23/08/2027
• Formularios Continuos de Centro América, S.A. (eforcon.com) — authorised 20/11/2019, renewal 20/11/2026
• G4S Documenta, S.A. (documenta.com.gt) — authorised 11/03/2019, renewal 11/03/2027
• GOM Solutions, S.A. (gomsolutions.com) — authorised 12/03/2020, renewal 12/03/2027
• Grupo CDS, S.A., of Quetzaltenango (grupocds.com.gt) — authorised 02/12/2021, renewal 02/12/2026
• INFILE, S.A. (infile.com) — authorised 29/10/2018, renewal 31/10/2026
• Inforum Consulting, S.A., trading as EDX Solutions (edxsolutions.gt) — authorised 23/11/2018, renewal 23/11/2026
• Integral Administradora de Recursos y Servicios Empresariales, S.A. (indrese.com) — authorised 17/01/2020, renewal 17/01/2027
• Megaprint, S.A. (megaprint.com.gt) — authorised 23/11/2018, renewal 23/11/2026
• Operadora Económica, S.A., trading as Ecofactura (ecofactura.com.gt) — authorised 13/02/2020, renewal 13/02/2027
• TEKRA, S.A. (tekra.com.gt) — authorised 21/12/2020, renewal 21/12/2026

Source: the SAT’s list of DTE certifiers, consulted on 9 September 2026. The second table on that page, the one for applications in progress, is empty today — so for now these 18 are all of them. Reading the full list also clears up three things that get repeated online:

• EDX Solutions is not a separate company. It is the trading name of Inforum Consulting, S.A. If EDX quotes you, your authorised certifier is Inforum.
• Ainnova is Guatefacturas. The commercial name changed; the authorisation is the same one from November 2018.
• Ecofactura is not Digifact. Ecofactura is the brand of Operadora Económica, S.A.; Digifact Servicios, S.A. is a different company with its own authorisation.

One detail worth checking before you sign: a certifier’s authorisation carries a renewal date, and several fall due between October and December 2026. In practice they get renewed, but if a vendor wants to tie you into a two-year contract, open the SAT list and look up their date. It takes ten seconds.

What it really costs

Here is the uncomfortable part: not one authorised certifier publishes a price list. We checked the sites of INFILE, Digifact, Megaprint, Tekra, Ecofactura, the Cámara de Comercio and Ainnova on 9 September 2026, and every one of them asks you to request a quote. Ainnova says so outright in its FAQ: the fees payable to Guatefacturas are agreed with each taxpayer who requires the service, according to document volume and other variables.

That is why this article publishes no per-document figure, and why you should be sceptical of the ones you find elsewhere. The ranges circulating in blogs and comparison posts have no traceable primary source: follow them back and they land on a 2019 press piece in which an auditor — not a certifier — estimated what an electronic invoice cost. Repeating that number in 2026 would be inventing data, and you cannot budget on invented data. What can be stated with the source in hand is this:

• Issuing through the SAT’s own systems costs nothing. Asked whether issuing DTEs in its systems has any cost, the SAT answers no, provided the taxpayer uses the web application in the Agencia Virtual or the App FEL.
• The electronic signature certificate is free too. It is issued to you when you are enabled as a FEL issuer, and the SAT states plainly that it has no cost.
• A private certifier’s price is unregulated. The SAT does not set those fees, which is why the same vendor charges a corner shop and a pharmacy chain very different rates.

When you do ask for a quote, the number that matters is not the price per document. Ask three vendors, with your true monthly volume on the table, and ask for the total annual cost: a business with real volume has real negotiating power, precisely because the price is unregulated and all 18 want the contract. Then ask these five questions and compare the answers side by side:

• Is there a monthly minimum even in a month when I issue nothing? That is what catches seasonal businesses.
• Do you charge separately for setup or for the API integration, and how much?
• Do unused documents roll over to the next month, or are they lost?
• Does the contract have a minimum term and an exit penalty?
• Does support answer on Saturdays? If you invoice at weekends, that weighs more than a few cents per document.

How to choose, in order

Few invoices a month: use the App FEL

The SAT is a certifier. You enable yourself as an issuer from the Agencia Virtual or the App FEL and, from that moment, the SAT is registered as your certifier automatically — no accreditation step, no vendor. It is free, it is legal and the invoice is worth exactly the same. The SAT’s requirements are: access to the Agencia Virtual, up-to-date details in the RTU, at least one active establishment in the RTU, registration for IVA (or ICT if you are in the primary or livestock regime) and a located fiscal address.

The free tool fills each DTE in a web form, supports bulk issuing from the Agencia Virtual with an Excel file, prints on letter paper or as a receipt-width ticket, and small taxpayers can even issue by voice from the App FEL. If you sell professional services, if you are a small taxpayer, if you invoice a handful of times a day and carry no inventory, your search ends here: hiring a certifier will not give you anything you do not already have.

Typing every invoice by hand: get a system

This is the real breaking point. The SAT’s free tool does not know your products, your prices or your customers — every line description is typed again on every invoice. Somewhere around twenty or thirty invoices a day, or the moment you want the invoice to come out of the same place where you take payment and move stock, typing stops being viable. That is when it pays to separate the two purchases: what you need is a system that issues, and that system already has a certifier behind it. Picking "the best certifier" before picking the system is starting at the wrong end.

What a point of sale that charges and invoices in one step looks like

Own system: judge the API and the support

When you are integrating against a certifier from your own ERP, different things decide it: the quality of the technical documentation, the available libraries, a sandbox that genuinely works, service response times, and who picks up the phone at six on a Friday evening when the till cannot invoice. Ask for an integration trial before you sign, with your own developer, against the vendor’s sandbox. An afternoon of real work tells you more than any comparison table, ours included.

How to switch without going dark

The best news in the whole regime is also the least known: you can have more than one certifier at the same time. Article 14 of Acuerdo de Directorio 13-2018 says it in full — the issuer may operate with more than one certifier simultaneously. Article 13 "A" speaks of accrediting the certifier or certifiers the issuer considers appropriate, in the plural. That turns a risky migration into a boring one:

• In your Agencia Virtual, go to Servicios Tributarios > Factura Electrónica en Línea > Acreditación de Certificadores and accredit the new one from the list of authorised certifiers.
• Generate the electronic signature for third-party issuing if you do not have it yet, using the option "Otros certificadores de DTE (terceros)". That signature is installed in the system you will issue from.
• Issue test documents with the new certifier in parallel, while the old one is still active, and confirm each one in the SAT’s Verificador Integrado.
• Move your operation across when you are satisfied — not before.
• Only then go back to Acreditación de Certificadores and set the old one to "No acreditado".

The SAT’s own manual confirms the last step in a line: if you no longer want the service, you change its status to "No acreditado". Never de-accredit the old certifier before the new one is issuing; there is no reason to, and it is the one way to end up unable to invoice on a Monday morning. What you should check first is your commercial contract: the SAT lets you move whenever you like, but a vendor may hold you to a minimum term with an exit penalty, and that is between you and them. If anyone tells you the SAT requires a minimum term, ask them for the article.

What happens to your old invoices

This is the question that stops most people, and the answer is reassuring: the DTEs you have already issued are not going anywhere. The SAT administers the regime, receives every certified DTE and makes it available to both issuer and recipient, so your documents can be consulted and downloaded from the Agencia Virtual (Servicios Tributarios > Factura Electrónica en Línea > Consultar DTE), from the App FEL and from the Verificador Integrado, regardless of who certified them. They do not expire either: the SAT states that the authorisation is unique to each document at the moment of issue and certification.

The XML archive, though, is yours to keep. Article 21 of Acuerdo 13-2018 puts the duty on the issuer: keep the XML files of certified DTEs until the limitation period in the Tax Code has run, which is four years. Article 22 says the certifier keeps them until its own authorisation is renewed, at which point it may be told it can stop storing what it has certified so far. So before you de-accredit a vendor, download all your XML files from their portal. Not the PDFs: the PDF is the graphical representation, and the file that constitutes proof is the XML.

Where Cuadra fits

If you got this far because what you want is not a certifier but an invoice that issues itself when you take payment: Cuadra issues the DTE with Ainnova included, so you do not contract the certifier separately, and it also connects to Digifact and INFILE for businesses that arrive with their own arrangement and want to keep it. The Pro plan is Q249.00 a month and includes 250 DTEs a month, then Q0.75 per document; Premium is Q500.00 a month, includes 500 DTEs and then charges Q0.50 per document. You can try it for 14 days at no charge. That said: if you issue ten invoices a day from your phone and carry no inventory, the SAT’s App FEL solves it for free and you need neither Cuadra nor anyone else. We would rather tell you here than charge you for three months first.

Cuadra’s FEL e-invoicing, in detail

Frequently asked questions

• Do I have to hire a private certifier? No. The SAT offers two routes: free issuing through the Agencia Virtual and the App FEL, where the SAT itself is your certifier, or authorised certifiers at a cost. Both produce documents with identical legal standing.
• Can I have two certifiers at once? Yes. Article 14 of Acuerdo de Directorio 13-2018 allows it explicitly, and it is the sensible way to switch: accredit the new one and test before dropping the old one.
• What does a FEL certifier cost in Guatemala? None of the 18 publishes a price list; all of them quote by volume, and the SAT does not regulate those fees. Get three quotes with your real volume and compare monthly minimums, setup costs and contract terms — not just the per-document price.
• What happens to my issued invoices if I change certifier? They remain available through your Agencia Virtual, the App FEL and the Verificador Integrado, and they do not expire. Even so, download the XML files from the outgoing certifier’s portal before de-accrediting: keeping them for the four-year limitation period is your duty as the issuer.
• What do I need to be enabled as a DTE issuer? Access to the Agencia Virtual, up-to-date RTU details, at least one active establishment, registration for IVA or ICT as applicable, and a located fiscal address. Enrolment is done online and the electronic signature certificate has no cost.
• Is an invoice from a private certifier worth more than one from the App FEL? No. It is the same XML, with the same validation rules and the same authorisation number. What changes is the software you generate it with, not the validity of the document.