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Spotlight PEPPOL BIS Billing 3.0 The EU e-invoicing mandate is here — France Sept 2026, Belgium Jan 2026, Germany 2025.

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Foundations

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Standards

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Flagship messages

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Tools

Germany — Wachstumschancengesetz and XRechnung

Germany is entering a progressive 2025-2028 phase in which the structured electronic invoice becomes the norm for domestic B2B, with no centralised portal: post-audit model, bilateral or PEPPOL transmission at the partners' choice.

Regulatory timeline

  • E-Rechnungsverordnung (E-RechV) of 13 October 2017. Transposes EU Directive 2014/55 on e-invoicing in federal public procurement.
  • 27 November 2020. General B2G obligation for suppliers to the federal government. XRechnung becomes the reference benchmark, with ZUGFeRD 2.1.1 accepted where PDF/A-3 still matters.
  • Wachstumschancengesetz (Growth Opportunities Act) of 27 March 2024 (BGBl. I, p. 108). Creates the domestic B2B obligation and sets the 2025-2028 timeline. Article 14 UStG (VAT Act) is overhauled.
  • BMF circular of 15 October 2024. Administrative guidance from the Ministry of Finance clarifying the technical requirements, the definition of a structured electronic invoice under §14 UStG, and explicit recipient consent during the transitional phase.
  • 1 January 2025. Receipt obligation kicks in for every German enterprise. Paper and non-EN 16931 PDF invoices remain accepted with explicit consent until 2026.
  • 1 January 2027. B2B issuance obligation for enterprises with annual turnover above €800,000.
  • 1 January 2028. B2B issuance obligation for every enterprise (end of the last transitional exemption).
  • XRechnung standard. Maintained by KoSIT (Koordinierungsstelle für IT-Standards), with successive versions 1.x, 2.x and 3.x (3.0 published November 2023, six-monthly revisions).

Deep dives — 10 dedicated pages

Ten dedicated pages drill into every dimension of German e-invoicing — the 2025-2028 Wachstumschancengesetz reform, the technical specs (XRechnung, ZUGFeRD, Leitweg-ID, FeRD, DRSC), and the real-world B2B usage in retail (REWE/Edeka/Aldi/Lidl) and automotive (BMW/Mercedes/Audi/VW/Bosch).

2025-2028 reform

Technical specs

Real-world B2B usage

  • EDIFACT retail Germany · REWE, Edeka, Aldi Nord/Süd, Lidl, Kaufland, Metro, dm-drogerie, Rossmann. GS1 Germany EANCOM 2002, ~2.5 billion messages/year.
  • EDIFACT automotive Germany · BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Audi/VW, Porsche, Bosch, Continental, ZF. VDA 4905/4906/4913 standards, OFTP2 over ENX, ~800 million messages/year.
  • VAT regimes — UStG · Standardbesteuerung (19%/7%/0%), Kleinunternehmer §19, Differenzbesteuerung §25a margin scheme, Reverse-Charge §13b (14 categories). §14 (4) mandatory clauses.

Technical schema

Germany accepts three technical targets:

  • XRechnung 3.x — German CIUS on top of EN 16931. Accepted syntaxes: UBL 2.1 or UN/CEFACT CII. Mandatory profile for the public sector, recommended for B2B.
  • ZUGFeRD 2.x / Factur-X. Hybrid PDF/A-3 + embedded CII XML, useful when the recipient still consumes the visual PDF.
  • Generic EN 16931 — any document compliant with the European semantic model is acceptable for §14 UStG, which keeps the door open to non-German UBL and CII as long as BR-* rules are met.

XRechnung 3.x adds several German rules (BR-DE-XX), notably mandating at least one address reference (Leitweg-ID, BT-10 Buyer reference), an explicit payment means, and strict ISO 8601 date encoding. Minimal XRechnung 3.x example in UBL:

xmlxrechnung-3-ubl.xml
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<Invoice xmlns="urn:oasis:names:specification:ubl:schema:xsd:Invoice-2"
         xmlns:cac="urn:oasis:names:specification:ubl:schema:xsd:CommonAggregateComponents-2"
         xmlns:cbc="urn:oasis:names:specification:ubl:schema:xsd:CommonBasicComponents-2">
  <cbc:CustomizationID>urn:cen.eu:en16931:2017#compliant#urn:xeinkauf.de:kosit:xrechnung_3.0</cbc:CustomizationID>
  <cbc:ProfileID>urn:fdc:peppol.eu:2017:poacc:billing:01:1.0</cbc:ProfileID>
  <cbc:ID>2026-DE-04217</cbc:ID>
  <cbc:IssueDate>2026-05-16</cbc:IssueDate>
  <cbc:DueDate>2026-06-15</cbc:DueDate>
  <cbc:InvoiceTypeCode>380</cbc:InvoiceTypeCode>
  <cbc:DocumentCurrencyCode>EUR</cbc:DocumentCurrencyCode>
  <cbc:BuyerReference>04011000-12345-78</cbc:BuyerReference>
  <cac:AccountingSupplierParty>
    <cac:Party>
      <cbc:EndpointID schemeID="0204">04011000-12345-78</cbc:EndpointID>
      <cac:PartyName><cbc:Name>Werkstatt Muenchen GmbH</cbc:Name></cac:PartyName>
      <cac:PostalAddress>
        <cbc:StreetName>Ludwigstrasse 12</cbc:StreetName>
        <cbc:CityName>Muenchen</cbc:CityName>
        <cbc:PostalZone>80539</cbc:PostalZone>
        <cac:Country><cbc:IdentificationCode>DE</cbc:IdentificationCode></cac:Country>
      </cac:PostalAddress>
    </cac:Party>
  </cac:AccountingSupplierParty>
  <cac:AccountingCustomerParty>
    <cac:Party>
      <cbc:EndpointID schemeID="0204">991-12345-78</cbc:EndpointID>
      <cac:PartyName><cbc:Name>Stadtverwaltung Berlin</cbc:Name></cac:PartyName>
    </cac:Party>
  </cac:AccountingCustomerParty>
</Invoice>

Submission flow

There is no centralised clearance portal in Germany. Invoices flow directly from sender to recipient, either bilaterally (email, private EDI, vendor portal) or through the PEPPOL eDelivery network. The public sector offers two receiver portals: ZRE (Zentrale Rechnungseingangsplattform) for the federal government and OZG-RE for the Länder. Tax controls are post-audit: authorities verify retroactively at VAT inspection time.

textgermany-flow.txt
┌────────────┐         ┌────────────┐         ┌────────────┐
│ DE Seller  │────────>│ PEPPOL AP  │────────>│ DE Buyer   │
│ (ERP)      │ AS4     │ or bilat.  │ AS4/    │ (ERP)      │
└────────────┘         │ HTTPS      │ HTTPS   └────────────┘
                       └────────────┘
   (Post-audit model: no upstream validation by the tax office.
    Tax reporting goes through the UStG and the B2G eRechnung route)

For B2G, the sender must populate the recipient's Leitweg-ID in the BuyerReference field (UBL BT-10). A missing or malformed reference is the number-one cause of rejections on the ZRE/OZG-RE portals.

Validation

Common pitfalls

  1. Leitweg-ID mandatory for B2G. The 19-character reference must be present in BT-10 (BuyerReference). An incorrect format, a missing hyphen, or a non-conforming length generates an immediate rejection at the ZRE/OZG-RE portal. For B2B, the Leitweg-ID is irrelevant; do not insert one by default.
  2. XRechnung vs ZUGFeRD vs EN 16931. The German CIUS profiles are stricter than the EN 16931 core. An invoice compliant with PEPPOL Billing 3.0 can still fail XRechnung 3.x (for example if BT-10 is absent or the payment code is non-conforming). Conversely, ZUGFeRD Basic is not EN 16931 compliant — only the EN 16931 profile (formerly Comfort) is.
  3. Explicit consent during the transitional phase. Until the end of 2026, paper or unstructured PDF invoices remain admissible with the recipient's consent. Any architecture that presumes systematic XRechnung receipt before 2027 risks blocking partners that are not yet equipped.
  4. No clearance, but separate tax reporting. The absence of a clearance portal does not exempt from standard VAT reporting (Umsatzsteuer-Voranmeldung). The 2025-2028 B2B mandate paves the way for the future digital reporting under the ViDA directive, which only applies from 1 July 2030.
  5. PDF still accepted if its CII payload is valid. ZUGFeRD/Factur-X remains compliant with the mandate because the embedded XML is structured — the easiest path for suppliers already used to PDF. The trap is assuming a bare PDF suffices, which it does not — only ZUGFeRD 2.x EN 16931 profile and XRechnung 3.x land within the legal perimeter.