INVOICE - The Law Mind Legal Dictionary

INVOICEAuthored

The Law Mind • 887 words

Definition

A commercial document issued by a seller to a buyer itemizing goods sold or services rendered, specifying quantities, descriptions, prices, and charges, and constituting a demand for payment. In its classical commercial law sense, an invoice is the written account accompanying or describing a shipment of goods — sent by a merchant to a factor, consignee, or correspondent — that records the particulars of each package or lot, including marks, quality, quantity, value, and any associated charges. An invoice serves multiple functions simultaneously: it is a record of the transaction, a basis for customs valuation in import/export contexts, a document of account in disputes over delivery or payment, and evidence of the terms of sale.

Common Language

Modern common usage (Wiktionary): A document issued to request payment for goods or services; also used as a verb meaning to bill a customer or to issue such a document.

Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): "A written account of the particulars of merchandise shipped or sent to a purchaser, consignee, factor, etc., with the value or prices and charges annexed." Also, the lot of goods itself as shipped or received.

The common and legal meanings are closely aligned, but the legal sense carries additional weight. In commercial law, an invoice is not merely a billing document — it is a record of legal significance in disputes over title, delivery, customs valuation, and insurance. The Webster's 1913 definition captures the goods-in-transit context that dominated historical use; the modern colloquial sense has broadened to cover services and domestic transactions where no shipment occurs at all.

Why It Matters in Research

Researchers working with pre-twentieth-century commercial law sources will encounter invoice almost exclusively in the context of maritime trade, consignment, and import/export — not in the generalized billing sense familiar today. An invoice in those sources is tied to a specific shipment and often to a bill of lading, letter of credit, or marine insurance policy. Conflating the historical shipping-document sense with the modern service-billing sense can distort analysis of older cases and treatises.

In customs and revenue law, invoice has a technical statutory meaning distinct from ordinary commercial usage. Customs invoices must meet specific content requirements — country of origin, true cost or value, description — because they are the basis for duty assessment. Historical sources, particularly Burrill's citation to Andrews on Revenue Laws, signal this distinct customs-law dimension, which has its own regulatory overlay entirely separate from the law of sales.

In evidentiary contexts, an invoice may be offered to prove the value of goods, the terms of a sale, or the fact of delivery. Its admissibility and weight depend on whether it qualifies as a business record. Researchers should note that an invoice standing alone does not prove payment — only that payment was demanded.

The corpus will show invoice appearing in insurance law (as the basis for valuing insured cargo), in sales law (as evidence of contract terms), in customs and tariff cases, and in agency law (factor-correspondent relationships). Each of these contexts attaches slightly different legal significance to the same document.

Historical Dictionary Support

The historical sources are in strong agreement on the core definition. Black's (both editions), Bouvier's, Anderson's, and Burrill's all define invoice as a list or account of goods shipped, sent from merchant to correspondent, factor, or consignee, recording marks, quantities, values, and charges. The language across these sources is nearly identical, suggesting a stable, well-settled commercial law concept by the nineteenth century.

Bouvier's adds the most substantive content, noting that an invoice "ought to contain a detailed statement, which should indicate the nature, quantity, quality, and prices of the things sold, deposited, etc." — an early articulation of what would become formalized content requirements in customs statutes.

Burrill's is notable for supplying the customs-law dimension explicitly, defining invoice in the import context as "a writing made on behalf of an importer, specifying the merchandise imported, and its true cost or value" — a definition shaped by revenue law rather than general sales law.

What the historical sources collectively omit: any treatment of service invoices, any discussion of invoice as a verb, and any recognition of domestic (non-shipment) billing contexts. These uses are entirely modern. Researchers relying on historical dictionary definitions for invoice should treat those definitions as accurate for their era but incomplete as a guide to current commercial practice.

The Bouvier's entry that appears in the source material contains an unrelated passage on investiture — an artifact of alphabetical proximity in the original volume. This should be disregarded.

Jurisdictional Note

In U.S. federal law, customs invoices are governed by statute and regulation and must meet content requirements that go beyond those of a standard commercial invoice. Many jurisdictions have adopted UCC Article 2 principles governing the role of invoices in sales transactions, but the UCC does not define invoice as a formal term of art. International transactions may implicate CISG provisions or letter-of-credit documentary requirements, where invoice specifications are often contractually or regulatory mandated.

INVOICEmain

Black's Law Dictionary • 1891

In commercial law. An ac- count of goods or merchandise sent by mer- chants to their correspondents at home or abroad, in which the marks of each package, with other particulars, are set forth. Marsh. Ins. 408; Dane, Abr. Index. A list or account of goods or merchandise sent or shipped by a merchant to his corre- spondent, factor, or consignee, containing the particular marks of each description of goods, the value, charges, and other particulars. Jac. Sea Laws, 302. A writing made on behalf of an importer, specifying the merchandise imported, and its true cost or value. And. Rev. Law, § 294.

INVOICEmain

Black's Law Dictionary (2nd Ed.) • 1910

In commercial law. An account of goods or merchandise sent by merchants to their correspondents at home or abroad, in which the marks of each package, with other particulars, are set forth. Marsh. Ins. 408; Dane, Abr. Index. See Merchants’ Exch. Co. v. Weisman, 182 Mich. 353, 93 N. W. 870; Southern Exp. Co. v. Hess, 53 Ala. 22; Cramer vy. Oppenstein, 16 Colo. 495, 27 Pac. 713. A list or account of goods or merchandise sent or shipped by a merchant to his correspondent, factor, or consignee, containing the particular marks of each description of goods, the value, charges, and other particulars. Jac. Sea Laws, 302. A writing made on behalf of an importer, specifying the merchandise imported, and its: true cost or value. And. Rev. Law, § 294. —Invoice book. A book in which invoices are copied.—Invoice price of goods means the rime cost. Le Roy v. United Ins. Co., 7 Tobie. (N. Y.) 343.

INVOICEmain

Anderson's Dictionary of Law • 1890

A document transmitted from the shipper to his factor or consignee, containing the particulars and prices of the goods shipped.3 Ipso facto. By the mere fact. Ipso jure. By the law itself. At common law, personalty can be transferred, or incumbered, without the use of a deed. A chattel mortgage (q. v.) is a bill of sale with an incorporated defeasance. A seal is not essential to a bill of sale. Applicable in every case where the thing sold, from its character or situation at the time, is incapable of actual delivery. A ship at sea may be transferred by delivery of a bill of sale, and the cargo, by indorsement and delivery of the bill of lading. Indorsement and delivery of a warehouse receipt is equivalent to delivery of the property itself. Such regulations are necessary for the purpose of commerce.4 As fictitious bills of sale are given to protect property from creditors, statutes have very generally been enacted to prevent frauds of that nature. To affect execution-creditors, registration may be essential. A rule of the maritime courts calls for a written bill of sale of a vessel. And the Revised Statutes direct that in the case of a sale of a registered vessel to a citizen of the United States, there shall be some writing in the nature of a bill of sale, and that this writing shall recite, at length, the certificate of registry; otherwise, the vessel is incapable of re-registry, and is not of the United States merchant marine. Compare AuCTION; CONVEYANCE, 2; GRANT, 2; PURCHASE; VEND. See generally AcCOUNT; AGENT; BARGAIN; CAVEAT, 11 Benjamin, Sales, § 911, cases. See also Exhaust Ventilating Co. v. Chicago, &c. R. Co., 69 Wis. 454 (1887), cases: 13 N. W. Rep. 599. 2 Nat. Bank of Commerce of Boston v. Merchants' Nat. Bank of Memphis, 91 U. S. 95-96 (1875), Strong, J. • Gibson v. Warden, 14 Wall. 247 (1871), cases, Swayne, Judge. Gibson v. Stevens, 8 How. 399-400 (1850), cases, Taney, C. J. See R. S. §§ 4170, 4192; Weston v. Penniman, 1 Mas. 817 (1817); Hozey v. Buchanan, 16 Pet. 215 (1842). On Emptor; CONCERN; CONTRACT; DECLARATION, 1: DEED, 2; DELIVERY, 1; DISPARAGEMENT, 2; DISPOSE, 2; DRUM MER: EASEMENT; EXECUTION, 3; FRAUD; LIEN; OFFER, 1; PAYMENT; PERFORMANCE; PERISHABLE; PLACE, Of de livery; POSSESSION; RECORD; RESCISSION; RETAIL; SAMPLE; STOPPAGE; TAX, 2; TRUST, 1; VALID; VALUE; VENDITIO; VOID; WARRANTY, 2. SALIC or SALIQUE LAW. The code of laws of the Salians, a German tribe who settled in ancient Gaul. One provision, which has excluded women from inheriting the crown in France and in a few other continental countries, was that males only should succeed to inheritances.¹

INVOICEn.

Websters Unabridged Dictionary (1913) • 1913

A written account of the particulars of merchandise shipped or sent to a purchaser, consignee, factor, etc., with the value or prices and charges annexed. Wharton. The lot or set of goods as shipped or received; as, the merchant receives a large invoice of goods.

INVOICEv.

Websters Unabridged Dictionary (1913) • 1913

To make a written list or account of, as goods to be sent to a consignee; to insert in a priced list; to write or enter in an invoice. Goods, wares, and merchandise imported from Norway, and invoiced in the current dollar of Norway. Madison.

invoiceverb

Wiktionary (English) • 2026

Wiktionary contributors • CC BY-SA 4.0 • via Kaikki
Extracted and formatted for display by Law Mind. Source link opens the current Wiktionary page and its contributor history; it is not a frozen copy of this extract.

To bill; to issue an invoice to. | To make an invoice for (goods or services).

invoicenoun

Wiktionary (English) • 2026

A bill; a commercial document issued by a seller to a buyer indicating the products, quantities and agreed prices for products or services that the seller has already provided the buyer with. An invoice indicates that, unless paid in advance, payment is due by the buyer to the seller, according to the agreed terms. | The lot or set of goods as shipped or received. | The price which a seller or dealer pays the manufacturer for goods to be sold. | A kind of receipt that serves as a tax document and sometimes also as a lottery ticket.

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