EU e-invoicing mandates by country: 2026 deadlines

Mandatory e-invoicing is arriving across the EU on staggered timelines, and the rules are not identical from one country to the next. Some run on the open Peppol network; others route every invoice through a government clearance platform first. If you bill business customers in more than one country through Stripe, you need to know which regime applies where, and when.

Three forces are pulling these national rules towards a common shape. The EU's VAT in the Digital Age package (ViDA, Council Directive (EU) 2025/516) sets a 2030 deadline for structured e-invoicing and digital reporting on intra-Community B2B supplies — a fixed point every member state is now building towards. The technical anchor is EN 16931, the European semantic standard for an electronic invoice, which most national formats profile rather than replace. And Peppol provides ready-made rails that several countries have simply adopted instead of inventing their own. The result is convergence on the substance, with real divergence on the plumbing.

Here is where the larger markets stand. Deadlines and thresholds still move, so treat the specifics as a starting point and confirm your own obligation with the relevant national tax authority.

Belgium

Since 1 January 2026, VAT-registered businesses established in Belgium must issue and receive structured B2B invoices over Peppol, using the Peppol BIS Billing 3.0 profile. A PDF by email no longer satisfies the requirement on its own. This is a clean Peppol mandate, which makes it one of the more straightforward regimes to comply with. The details are in our Belgium guide.

France

France's réforme de la facturation électronique runs through approved private platforms — the Plateforme Agréée (PA), previously called the PDP — rather than a single government portal, and it pairs e-invoicing with an e-reporting obligation for B2C and cross-border transactions. From September 2026 every business must be able to receive, and large and mid-sized firms must issue; the smallest businesses follow in September 2027. This is a national model, not pure Peppol, though Peppol can interoperate with it. See our France guide.

Germany

Germany's E-Rechnung rules are decentralised and phased. Since January 2025 every domestic B2B business must already be able to receive an EN 16931-compliant invoice; the obligation to issue one arrives in January 2027 for firms above roughly €800,000 turnover and in January 2028 for everyone else. Accepted formats include XRechnung and ZUGFeRD, and Peppol BIS Billing 3.0 is a recognised channel — there is no central clearance step. Full detail in our Germany guide.

Poland

Poland's KSeF is a centralised clearance system: an invoice is submitted as structured XML to the government platform, which validates it before it carries legal force. Large taxpayers (turnover above PLN 200 million) come into scope on 1 February 2026 and the remaining VAT-registered businesses on 1 April 2026, with a penalty grace period through the rest of the year. This is a national system, not Peppol. Our Poland guide covers what it means in practice.

Netherlands

The Netherlands is a Peppol heartland — a founding member with among the highest adoption in Europe — but its mandate is narrower than the buzz suggests. E-invoicing over Peppol has been mandatory for suppliers to central government (B2G) since 2017; there is still no domestic B2B mandate, though voluntary uptake is very high and ViDA will bring cross-border B2B into scope from 2030. More in our Netherlands guide.

Spain

Spain runs two tracks. VeriFactu governs certified invoicing software and its reporting to the tax agency, while the Crea y Crece law introduces the B2B e-invoicing mandate itself. The enabling ministerial order was still pending in mid-2026; the widely reported phasing brings companies above €8 million turnover in around October 2027 and everyone else roughly a year later. Invoices must follow EN 16931, exchanged via private platforms or the public SPFE solution. See our Spain guide.

Italy

Italy got there first. B2B e-invoicing through the Sistema di Interscambio (SdI) has been mandatory since 2019 and, since January 2024, applies to every VAT-registered entity with no thresholds or exemptions. Invoices use the FatturaPA XML format and pass through the SdI clearance platform — a national system rather than Peppol. If you are already selling into Italy, this is a settled obligation, not a future one.

What a Stripe user should do now

Stripe stays your system of record for invoices, customers, and payments. What it does not do is emit a compliant structured document or hand it to a network for delivery — and that gap is the same whichever country's rules apply to you. A few practical steps hold up everywhere:

1. Work out which of your customers sit under a live or imminent mandate, and whether their country runs on Peppol or a national clearance platform.
2. Get your own company details in Stripe right — legal name, VAT number, and registered address all flow straight into the structured invoice.
3. Send a test invoice over the relevant channel before your next real one, so the first live send is not also your first rehearsal.

For customers reachable on Peppol — Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, and many cross-border flows — Peppost adds the delivery layer directly on top of the invoices you already finalise in Stripe: it generates the UBL, attaches your Stripe PDF, checks the recipient is on the network before spending a credit, and dispatches through a certified access point. There is no subscription, and new accounts get a few free sends to try it, including in Stripe test mode. The getting-started guide walks through setup, and the FAQ covers the common questions. Where a country mandates its own national platform instead, confirm the exact route with its tax authority — but the work of producing a clean, standard-compliant invoice is the same either way.