Germany's e-invoicing mandate (E-Rechnung) explained

Germany's move to mandatory B2B e-invoicing, E-Rechnung, is often reported as a single 2025 switch. It is two: the obligation to receive a structured invoice and the obligation to issue one land on different dates.

Receiving came first

The rules come from the Wachstumschancengesetz, passed in 2024. Since 1 January 2025, every business established in Germany must be able to receive an e-invoice that complies with the European standard EN 16931. In practice this means a German business cannot refuse a properly formatted structured invoice on the grounds that it would rather have a PDF.

That milestone did not require anyone to start issuing structured invoices in 2025. A supplier could still send a PDF, provided the recipient agreed. The mandate at this stage is about the recipient's ability to accept the structured form, not the supplier's obligation to produce it.

Issuing phases in by size

The obligation to issue structured invoices arrives later and in two steps, keyed to turnover:

• 1 January 2027 — businesses with annual turnover above roughly €800,000 must issue structured e-invoices for domestic B2B transactions; paper and unstructured PDFs stop being valid for them.
• 1 January 2028 — the same obligation extends to all remaining businesses, regardless of size.

Thresholds and transitional allowances can be adjusted, so if your German issuing date is close to a boundary, confirm the current position with the Bundesministerium der Finanzen or your tax adviser rather than assuming last year's figure still holds.

No central platform, which is where Peppol comes in

Germany did not build a central government clearance system. There is no equivalent of Poland's KSeF or Italy's SdI that every invoice must pass through for validation; Germany runs a post-audit model, where structured invoices move directly between businesses and the tax authority inspects after the fact. The delivery channel is therefore yours to choose.

The accepted formats are all built on EN 16931. XRechnung is the national CIUS (a country-specific tightening of the European standard), and ZUGFeRD is the popular hybrid that carries a human-readable PDF and the structured XML in one file. Peppol BIS Billing 3.0 is a recognised way to transport these invoices, and with no mandated central pipe, Peppol's four-corner network gets a compliant document from you to a German recipient without any national plumbing.

What a Stripe user billing German businesses does

E-Rechnung does not change how you create an invoice. It changes the form it has to take and, from 2027–2028, the obligation to produce that form. The practical checklist:

1. Work out whether your German customers already expect structured invoices. Many larger buyers ask for XRechnung or a Peppol-delivered invoice well ahead of their own legal deadline, because their side of the receiving mandate is already live.
2. Check that your Stripe company profile is complete — legal name, VAT number, and registered address all feed into the structured document and are exactly the fields a validator checks.
3. Pick a delivery path and send a test invoice before your first real one.

Since Germany accepts Peppol delivery and imposes no national portal, Peppost can sit on top of a Stripe billing setup. It takes the invoices and credit notes you have already finalised in Stripe, generates the UBL under the Peppol BIS Billing 3.0 profile, attaches the original Stripe PDF as the human-readable rendering, and dispatches through a certified access point. The sending guide has the step-by-step.

Our country-by-country rundown shows how Germany's receive-then-issue approach compares with France's platform model and Belgium's straight Peppol mandate. If Peppol itself is still fuzzy, start with the plain-English guide to Peppol.