France's e-invoicing reform went live on 1 September 2026. Every business in France, whatever its size, must now be able to receive e-invoices, and large and mid-sized companies must also issue them (DGFiP). Both run through approved platforms (DGFiP). Germany's next stage starts on 1 January 2027, when businesses with prior-year turnover above €800,000 must begin issuing structured e-invoices (Handwerksblatt).
These are tax rules, but they land in accounts payable as much as in billing. In each mandate covered here, the duty to receive e-invoices starts before or alongside the duty to issue them, so a buyer's procure-to-pay system has to handle structured data regardless of its own billing readiness.
What counts as an e-invoice
An e-invoice under these mandates is a structured data file that software can process without a person reading it. Under German rules, a PDF sent by email is an "other invoice", not an e-invoice, while formats such as XRechnung and ZUGFeRD can qualify (IHK). The common reference point is EN 16931, the European standard for the core data an invoice must carry, which both Germany and Belgium build on.
For accounts payable, the supplier's VAT number, line items and purchase order reference arrive as fields, not as an image to capture. The work shifts from extracting data to validating and matching it.
Why governments want it
The backdrop is lost VAT. The European Commission puts the EU's VAT compliance gap at €128 billion in 2023, or 9.5% of total VAT liability. Structured invoices give tax authorities transaction-level data instead of periodic summaries.
The VAT in the Digital Age (ViDA) package, adopted on 11 March 2025, lets member states mandate domestic e-invoicing without first seeking EU authorisation. It also moves intra-EU B2B transactions to e-invoicing with digital reporting from 1 July 2030 (Directive (EU) 2025/516). Germany's finance ministry describes its own mandate as preparation for a later transaction-level reporting system.
How the main models differ
Clearance. Invoices pass through a government platform before they reach the buyer. Italy has required B2B e-invoicing through its Sistema di Interscambio since January 2019 (European Commission). Poland's KSeF is also a central government system, mandatory for large taxpayers since 1 February 2026 and for most other VAT-registered businesses since 1 April 2026 (EY).
Network exchange. Invoices travel between businesses, and the tax authority reviews records afterwards. Belgium made structured B2B e-invoicing mandatory on 1 January 2026, with the Peppol network as the default channel (PwC Belgium). On Peppol, each business connects through a certified access point provider, so buyer and supplier need not use the same vendor.
Platforms with reporting. France combines elements of both. Each business picks an approved platform, or plateforme agréée. Platforms exchange invoices with one another and pass transaction and payment data to the tax administration (DGFiP).
What to evaluate when buying
Native inbound handling. The first question is whether the procure-to-pay system takes structured files straight into the invoice workflow. A system that renders the file as an image and re-captures it discards the main benefit.
Country certification. In France the provider must appear on the government's published list of approved platforms. In Belgium the default is a Peppol connection. Buyers should also ask whether the source-to-pay vendor holds these connections itself or resells a partner's, and who updates them when a specification changes.
Routing identifiers. Invoices route by registry identifiers, such as Peppol participant IDs or entries in France's central directory. Those identifiers belong in supplier and legal-entity master data. When they are wrong, invoices reach the wrong entity or the receiving platform rejects them.
Matching rules. Structured line data makes automated matching against purchase orders and receipts more practical, but only when suppliers populate the PO reference.
The 2030 layer. Intra-EU digital reporting arrives in 2030. Vendors should be able to say how their product will support it alongside national mandates.
What commonly goes wrong
Treating it as a billing project. Receiving obligations reached AP early: Germany on 1 January 2025 (BMF), Belgium on 1 January 2026 (Economie Wallonie), and France on 1 September 2026 for every in-scope business.
Reading penalty relief as a delay. Poland's finance ministry announced on 16 September 2026 that it plans to extend its penalty-free period for KSeF errors to the end of 2027. The obligation to use KSeF does not move (Grant Thornton Poland; Sovos). France's start-up guidance likewise states that the legal timetable is maintained.
Approving the picture instead of the data. Hybrid formats carry a readable PDF and a structured file in one document, and the two can disagree. Germany's craft-trades federation, ZDH, said businesses in its survey had received invoices whose structured data did not match the attached PDF (Handwerksblatt). An approver who checks only the PDF view is not checking the e-invoice itself.
Assuming small trading partners are ready. In the same ZDH survey, about two-thirds of responding craft businesses reported difficulty receiving e-invoices. By June 2026 the federation was asking for Germany's 2027 issuing date to move to 2028 (ZDH). We found no enacted postponement as of mid-October 2026.
What to watch
- 1 January 2027: Germany's issuing obligation begins for businesses above €800,000 prior-year turnover, and KSeF covers all Polish businesses, including the smallest taxpayers (Sovos; Grant Thornton Poland).
- 1 September 2027: small and medium-sized businesses and micro-businesses in France begin issuing e-invoices and reporting transaction and payment data (DGFiP).
- 1 July 2030: e-invoicing and digital reporting begin for intra-EU B2B transactions under ViDA (Directive (EU) 2025/516).
Dates and thresholds reflect the sources below as of 17 October 2026.
Sources
- DGFiP (impots.gouv.fr). "Facturation électronique et plateformes agréées." Accessed 17 October 2026. https://www.impots.gouv.fr/facturation-electronique-et-plateformes-agreees
- DGFiP (impots.gouv.fr). "Facturation électronique : guide pratique de démarrage au 1er septembre 2026." 2026. https://www.impots.gouv.fr/sites/default/files/media/1_metier/2_professionnel/EV/2_gestion/290_facturation_electronique/guide_pratique_facturation_electronique.pdf
- Bundesministerium der Finanzen. "FAQ zur Einführung der obligatorischen E-Rechnung." 2026 (updated March 2026). https://www.bundesfinanzministerium.de/Content/DE/FAQ/e-rechnung.html
- DGFiP (impots.gouv.fr). "À partir de quand suis-je concerné par la réforme de la facturation électronique ?" Updated 16 January 2026. https://www.impots.gouv.fr/professionnel/questions/partir-de-quand-suis-je-concerne-par-la-reforme-de-la-facturation
- IHK. "Erläuterungen zum BMF-Schreiben E-Rechnung (Oktober 2024)." 2024. https://ihk.de/blueprint/servlet/resource/blob/6286014/865bf37b7b06c452593f605d8cf96a7a/erlaeuterungen-zum-bmf-schreiben-e-rechnung-10-2024-data.pdf
- European Commission. "VAT Gap." 2025. https://taxation-customs.ec.europa.eu/taxation/vat/fight-against-vat-fraud/vat-gap_en
- Council of the European Union. "Council Directive (EU) 2025/516 of 11 March 2025 amending Directive 2006/112/EC as regards VAT rules for the digital age." 2025. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/dir/2025/516/oj/eng
- European Commission. "eInvoicing in Italy." Accessed 17 October 2026. https://ec.europa.eu/digital-building-blocks/sites/display/DIGITAL/eInvoicing%2Bin%2BItaly
- EY. "Poland signs into law mandatory national e-invoicing system." 2025. https://www.ey.com/en_gl/technical/tax-alerts/poland-signs-into-law-mandatory-national-e-invoicing-system
- Grant Thornton Poland. "KSeF: kary za błędy odroczone do końca 2027 r." 2026. https://grantthornton.pl/publikacja/ksef-kary-za-bledy-odroczone-do-konca-2027-r-co-ta-decyzja-oznacza-dla-zarzadow-i-dyrektorow-finansowych/
- Sovos. "Poland: Ministry of Finance extends KSeF penalty relief until end of 2027." 2026 (vendor source). https://sovos.com/regulatory-updates/vat/poland-ministry-of-finance-extends-ksef-penalty-relief-until-end-of-2027/
- PwC Belgium. "Royal Decree confirms Peppol as default option for electronic invoicing." Accessed 17 October 2026. https://news.pwc.be/royal-decree-confirms-peppol-as-default-option-for-electronic-invoicing
- Economie Wallonie. "Electronic invoicing compulsory in Belgium from 1 January 2026." Accessed 17 October 2026. https://economie.wallonie.be/en/home/actualites/actualites/facturation-electronique-obligatoire-en-belgique-a-partir-du-1er-janvier-2026.html
- Handwerksblatt. "Handwerk fordert Verschiebung der E-Rechnungspflicht." 1 July 2026. https://www.handwerksblatt.de/betriebsfuehrung/handwerk-fordert-verschiebung-der-e-rechnungspflicht-um-ein-jahr
- Zentralverband des Deutschen Handwerks. "ZDH kompakt: E-Rechnungspflicht." 26 June 2026. https://www.hwk-reutlingen.de/wp-content/uploads/zdh-kompakt-e-rechnungspflicht_20260626.pdf