Learn fiscalization
These pages explain how fiscalization works in Armenia and how it ended up that way. Foundations first; history if you want the regulatory arc behind today's rules.
Foundations
Start here. What fiscalization is, when a cash register is required, hardware vs virtual, and what's on the receipt itself.
- What is fiscalization in ArmeniaLast reviewed Apr 28, 2026A plain-language explanation of what fiscalization means, why it exists, and what it looks like in Armenia — written for people who got told they need a cash register and have no idea what to do.
- Anatomy of a fiscal receiptLast reviewed Apr 28, 2026What's actually printed on an Armenian fiscal receipt, what each piece of data is for, how a receipt becomes 'fiscal', and how to verify one as a customer.
- Hardware vs virtual cash register: which fits your businessLast reviewed Apr 28, 2026Both have the same legal weight in Armenia. The choice between them comes down to where you sell, how you take payment, and how much engineering you want to own. A practical comparison.
- Product marking (e-Mark) and fiscal receiptsLast reviewed Apr 29, 2026How Armenia's national product marking system works at the point of sale, which categories fall under mandatory marking, and how marked goods interact with fiscal cash registers.
How we got here
The regulatory arc — laws, decrees, and chair's orders that shaped today's rules — written for humans rather than for lawyers.
- Fiscalization in Armenia: a timelineLast reviewed Apr 29, 2026A map of how the rules for cash registers, virtual fiscalization, and non-cash operations took shape in Armenia — from the 1998 border-villages list to the latest 2024 amendments. Which decree, law, or order changed what, and who was running it at the time.
- How cash-register certification evolved in ArmeniaLast reviewed Apr 28, 2026From a state monopoly that imported, sold, certified and serviced every cash register, to a free market with eight approved manufacturers. The full story of why Armenia's cash-register regulator was created, why it was dissolved, and what's left of it today — written in plain language.
- Ten years of Armenia's HDM integration protocolLast reviewed May 10, 2026Every published version of the technical specification that any Armenian cash register must implement — from a 17-page v0.3 in 2015 to today's v0.73 — with the named author behind each major release, recovered from PDF metadata.
- Nine years of cash-register enforcement: 9,302 suspensions, 2014–2022Last reviewed May 10, 2026What 426 of the 431 published SRC suspension bulletins reveal about which businesses had their cash-register activity halted, when, and how the volume changed across nine years of fiscal compliance enforcement.
- The receipt-back lottery: how the back of an Armenian cash-register receipt became advertising spaceLast reviewed Jun 2, 2026From 2008 the Armenian state ran a tax-administration lottery on the back of cash-register receipts — take a receipt, win a prize, the regulator gets compliance. In 2014 «K-Telecom» (VivaCell-MTS) won a tender to put its trademark on the reverse of certain HDM-receipt batches with a ~$1.5 million prize pool of MTS phones and internet plans. We have the tender protocol verbatim. When the operational programme actually wound down is the part we cannot pin to a single decree.
- The other cash-register regime: how the Central Bank, not the tax authority, supervises FX exchange pointsLast reviewed Jun 2, 2026Most of fiscal.am tracks one regulator chain — the Tax Inspectorate through today's SRC. But there is a second, parallel cash-register regime in Armenia. Since 2005 the Central Bank, not SRC, has set the equipment requirements and approval procedure for currency-exchange points. CBA board decision N 90-Ν of 3 March 2005 is the founding act; Regulation 10 (currently in force) wires it into the FX-licensing path. This is a short tour of the parallel regime, what it covers, and the load-bearing questions we haven't resolved.