What Is a Factura Global and What Is It For?
A factura global is a CFDI (Mexico's official electronic invoice) that consolidates every sale you made to the general public during a given period into a single tax receipt, instead of issuing one invoice per transaction. You use it when your customer is an end consumer who paid with a regular sales ticket or receipt and never asked for an invoice under their own tax details; at the close of the period, you roll all of those sales up into one CFDI addressed to a generic RFC.
It's the tax mechanism built for counter-sale, point-of-sale, or low-ticket e-commerce businesses: stores, restaurants, pharmacies, or any business where most customers don't request an individual invoice at checkout, even though the SAT (Mexico's tax authority) still requires those sales to be invoiced somehow.
The Generic RFC XAXX010101000: The Key to Invoicing the General Public
Every factura global to the general public is issued under the same national generic RFC: XAXX010101000. This RFC doesn't identify any single person — it represents, in aggregate, all the end consumers who bought something without requesting their own individual invoice during the period.
Under CFDI 4.0, in addition to the generic RFC, the receiver fields on the document must carry these fixed values:
- Receiver name: "PÚBLICO EN GENERAL" (general public), never an actual person's name.
- Receiver postal code: the same postal code as the issuer's own tax address — not a customer's address.
- Receiver tax regime: code 616, "Sin obligaciones fiscales" (no tax obligations), the only value the SAT allows for this kind of transaction.
- CFDI use: S01, "Sin efectos fiscales" (no tax effect), because the document doesn't support a deduction for any specific taxpayer.
CFDI 4.0 also requires adding the "Información Global" (global information) node, which declares the periodicity, month, and year that CFDI covers. Without that node, a receipt issued to the generic RFC gets rejected during SAT validation.
Periodicity of the Factura Global: Daily, Weekly, or Monthly
The periodicity of a factura global is how often you decide to roll up your general-public sales into a single CFDI. The SAT's catalog allows daily, weekly, biweekly, or monthly periodicity (a bimonthly option exists but applies only to specific legacy tax regimes no longer open to new registrations).
A high-volume counter business — a convenience store, say — usually picks daily or weekly periodicity, because bundling an entire month of tickets into one CFDI makes reconciling totals much harder. A lower-volume business can go with monthly periodicity instead, which cuts down on the administrative load of stamping a document every single day.
One thing the SAT watches closely: once you pick a periodicity, you're expected to keep it for the whole fiscal year. Switching from daily to monthly (or the other way around) without a documented reason is one of the inconsistencies that can draw attention during a review.
How to Issue a Factura Global Step by Step
The process for how to issue a factura global follows the same logic every time, whether you do it by hand or through an invoicing system:
- Close out the chosen period (the day, week, or month, based on your periodicity) and gather every ticket or sales receipt issued to the general public during that window.
- Add up the amounts by VAT rate. If you sell products at different rates — 16%, the 0% rate, or exempt items — don't lump them into a single line; the breakdown has to reflect each rate separately.
- Generate the CFDI with the generic RFC XAXX010101000, receiver name "PÚBLICO EN GENERAL," tax regime 616, CFDI use S01, and the Información Global node with periodicity, month, and year.
- Stamp the receipt through your Authorized Certification Provider (PAC) before the deadline set by the current Resolución Miscelánea Fiscal (RMF).
- Keep the sales report or cash-register close that backs up that factura global, in case the SAT asks for it during a review.
A factura global doesn't remove the obligation to issue a receipt at the moment of sale: every general-public transaction still needs a ticket or sales slip from the moment it happens, showing the date, amount, payment method, and VAT rate applied. That detail is exactly what backs up the total you declare in the CFDI's Información Global node. If a customer asks for an invoice after already paying with a ticket, that ticket has to be subtracted from the batch that feeds your next factura global, so the income isn't counted twice.
Deadlines for Issuing a Factura Global — and What Happens If You're Late
The SAT sets a deadline, measured in hours from the close of the chosen period, for stamping the corresponding factura global. That window has shifted between different versions of the Resolución Miscelánea Fiscal in recent years, so before locking in your internal invoicing process, check the rule currently in force on the SAT's site or with your accountant, rather than assuming a fixed number of hours that may no longer be accurate.
What stays constant is the consequence of missing it: issuing a factura global past the deadline, or with recurring mismatches between the sales you report and what you declare, can register as a risk flag under the SAT's audit powers, with a direct impact on how valid your declared income looks.
Common Mistakes When Issuing a Factura Global (CFDI Global)
The mistakes that show up over and over when businesses handle a CFDI global tend to follow the same patterns:
- Lumping VAT rates together in one line instead of breaking out each rate separately on the receipt.
- Switching periodicity without justification — going from monthly to daily, or the reverse, between one fiscal year and the next.
- Using a customer's postal code instead of the issuer's own tax-address postal code.
- Forgetting the Información Global node, which causes the PAC or the SAT to reject the receipt outright.
- Not subtracting tickets that later got invoiced individually to a customer who asked for their own invoice, which duplicates income.
- Losing the cash-register close or sales report that backs up the total on the factura global.
Any one of these mistakes can create a mismatch between what you declared and what you actually invoiced — a classic red flag when the SAT cross-checks your data against the documentation required to invoice.
Factura Global vs. Individual Invoice: Which One Your Customer Needs
The rule is simple: if a customer asks for an invoice under their own RFC at the time of purchase, they get an individual invoice with their full tax details, not a factura global. The factura global is strictly for sales where the end consumer never requested a receipt under their own name.
That's different from other documents tied to the invoicing cycle, like the payment complement, which applies when an invoice gets paid in installments or after it was already issued — not when you're invoicing the general public. Knowing the difference between these CFDI types keeps you from issuing the wrong document and having to cancel it afterward.
Automating the Factura Global Cuts Down on Errors
As daily ticket volume grows, manually totaling amounts by VAT rate, building the Información Global node, and stamping everything inside the deadline turns into a task that eats hours of your admin team's time at every period close. A system that connects your point of sale to your invoicing can automatically total the period's tickets, split out VAT rates correctly, and generate the factura global ready to stamp, without anyone copying numbers by hand. This kind of process automation also makes it easier to keep the cash-register close on file — exactly the document the SAT may ask for if it reviews your factura global.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a factura global under CFDI 4.0?
It's the tax receipt that consolidates, in a single CFDI, the sales you made to the general public during a period (daily, weekly, biweekly, or monthly), using the generic RFC XAXX010101000 instead of each customer's individual RFC.
When should I use the generic RFC XAXX010101000?
When the customer is an end consumer who paid with a regular ticket or sales receipt and never asked for an invoice under their own RFC. If a customer requests an invoice under their name, you need to use their actual RFC, not the generic one.
Can I change my factura global's periodicity?
Not without justification. The SAT expects you to keep the same periodicity — daily, weekly, biweekly, or monthly — for the entire fiscal year; switching it without a documented reason can flag inconsistencies during a review.
Does the factura global replace individual sales tickets?
No. Every sale still needs to be backed by a ticket or sales slip at the moment of the transaction; the factura global only consolidates those records into a tax CFDI at the close of the chosen period.
What happens if a customer asks for an invoice after I already issued the factura global?
That ticket needs to be subtracted from the batch that feeds your next factura global, and the customer gets an individual invoice issued under their own RFC. Skip that step, and that income ends up declared twice.
If your business issues dozens or hundreds of tickets a day and you're ready to stop building the factura global by hand at every period close, at AISDC we build CFDI invoicing solutions that connect your point of sale to stamping, split VAT rates automatically, and generate the receipt ready within the deadline the SAT sets.