> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://fitek-learning.fitek.com/llms.txt). Markdown versions of documentation pages are available by appending `.md` to page URLs; this page is available as [Markdown](https://fitek-learning.fitek.com/hidden-content/e-invoicing.md). # E-invoicing If you've noticed e-invoicing popping up everywhere lately - a notice from your accountant, a new requirement from a supplier, a headline about a country "going mandatory" - you're not imagining it. This is one of the biggest changes to how businesses handle invoices in decades, and it's happening across Europe right now, country by country. This page gives you the big picture: what e-invoicing actually is, why it exists, who's driving it, where things stand today, and where it's all heading. For the technical detail on specific systems, this page routes you to the dedicated [PEPPOL](/hidden-content/popular-peppol.md) and [KSeF](/hidden-content/popular-ksef.md) pages rather than repeating them here. *** ## So what actually counts as an "e-invoice"? **Short answer: not a PDF.** A PDF, or a scanned paper invoice attached to an email, is just a picture of an invoice - a person, or an OCR tool pretending to be one, still has to read it and re-key the data somewhere else. A true e-invoice is **structured data**: * Amounts, dates, parties, line items and tax details travel as fields a computer can read directly. * It's built in formats like **UBL** or **CII XML**, not free text or images. * Nothing gets retyped and nothing gets misread. * A tax authority's system can read it just as easily as your own accounting system can. That last point - tax authorities reading it directly - is the whole reason this is suddenly such a big deal. *** ## Why is this happening, and why now? **Short answer: it's about closing the VAT gap, not convenience.** For a long time, e-invoicing was a nice-to-have - it saved manual work, but paper and PDF invoices were still legally fine almost everywhere. That's changing fast. Governments lose a large amount of VAT revenue every year to the **VAT gap** - the difference between the VAT that should theoretically be collected and what actually reaches the treasury. * Some of that gap is honest error. * A lot of it is fraud: invoices that are altered, duplicated, or simply invented - easy to get away with when only the two trading parties ever see the invoice. Structured e-invoices close that gap because they can be validated automatically and, in many newer systems, reported to (or even cleared by) the tax authority as they're issued. **The practical result:** e-invoicing is moving from optional-but-convenient to mandatory-by-law, country by country, across Europe. *** ## So who's actually driving this? Two layers are pushing this forward at once, and it's worth keeping them separate in your head. **Layer 1 - the EU, setting the long-term direction.** * On **11 March 2025**, the EU formally adopted [ViDA (VAT in the Digital Age)](https://taxation-customs.ec.europa.eu/taxation/vat/vat-digital-age-vida_en), a package of VAT and tax reforms. * The legal text - [Directive (EU) 2025/516](https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A32025L0516) - was published in the EU Official Journal on **25 March 2025**. * ViDA sets a common destination for e-invoicing across all member states (dates below). **Layer 2 - individual national tax authorities, moving on their own timelines.** * Many member states aren't waiting for the EU-wide deadlines. * Each is introducing its own domestic mandate, in most cases years earlier. * Each has its own start date, its own scope, and sometimes its own technical model. That's why the landscape right now looks like a patchwork rather than one single rollout - because it is one. *** ## So is this actually happening already? **Yes - in several countries, right now.** As of **25 September 2026**, here's a snapshot of what's already in force or about to be. This is not a complete list of every country with a mandate - it's illustrative of how fast, and how differently, this is moving: * **Belgium** - mandatory since **1 January 2026**. All VAT-registered Belgian businesses must exchange B2B invoices via the Peppol network (Peppol BIS 3.0 standard). Belgium was the first EU country to mandate Peppol this broadly, and now has over **1 million businesses** using it. * **Poland** - **KSeF** became mandatory in phases: **1 February 2026** for large taxpayers, **1 April 2026** for most other businesses. KSeF is Poland's own centralized government clearance platform, run on the [official KSeF portal](https://ksef.podatki.gov.pl) - not Peppol-based. Full detail is on the dedicated [KSeF page](/hidden-content/popular-ksef.md). * **Slovakia** - mandatory domestic B2B/B2G structured e-invoicing from **1 January 2027**. Built on a **Peppol-based "5-corner model"** - notably different from Poland's fully separate KSeF platform, since Slovakia is extending the existing Peppol network rather than building something new from scratch. A **voluntary transition period is already running**, since **1 January 2026**, for businesses that want to prepare early. See the dedicated [Slovakia e-invoicing page](/hidden-content/popular-slovakia-e-invoicing.md), or the European Commission's [eInvoicing in Slovakia overview](https://ec.europa.eu/digital-building-blocks/sites/spaces/DIGITAL/pages/467108899/eInvoicing+in+Slovakia). * **Greece** - a domestic e-invoicing mandate is in force from **March 2026**. * **France** - mandatory e-invoice **receiving** applies to all businesses from **1 September 2026**. Issuing is phased in separately: large and mid-sized companies from **September 2026**, small and medium businesses from **September 2027**. * **Germany** - phasing in mandatory e-invoicing across **2027–2028**. A few of these are already live as you're reading this; others are close. **The honest way to read this list: it keeps growing.** Whatever your own country's status is today, and whatever your trading partners' countries require, check directly rather than assuming last year's rules still apply - new countries and new phases are added to this picture regularly. *** ## Where is this all heading? **This isn't a temporary compliance wave that settles back down - it's the direction everything in Europe is moving**, on a timeline the EU has already set: * **1 July 2030** - under ViDA, cross-border B2B e-invoicing becomes mandatory across the **entire EU**, regardless of what any individual country has or hasn't done domestically before then. * **1 January 2035** - national e-invoicing systems (Poland's KSeF and Slovakia's Peppol-based model among them) are required to be interoperable with a common EU digital reporting standard. In other words: today's patchwork of different national systems, timelines and formats is expected to gradually converge into one coherent EU-wide picture over the next decade. Getting comfortable with e-invoicing now isn't just about meeting this year's deadline in one country - it's about being ready for where the entire continent is going. *** ## What are the two main technical models? As you read about different countries' mandates, you'll keep running into two broad approaches. The detail on each one lives on its own dedicated page - here's just enough to make the rest of this topic make sense. **Decentralized network model -** [**Peppol**](https://peppol.org)**.** * A peer-to-peer network of certified Access Points. * No government clearance step in the middle of sending an invoice. * Used, and increasingly mandated, across a growing number of countries - Belgium and Slovakia are the clearest recent examples (Slovakia's "5-corner model" extends this same network rather than replacing it). * Full detail: [PEPPOL page](/hidden-content/popular-peppol.md). **Centralized government clearance model - CTC (Continuous Transaction Controls).** * The invoice has to pass through a government platform before it's legally valid. * Poland's KSeF works this way, and partly modeled itself on earlier CTC systems in Italy, Spain, and Portugal. * Full detail: [KSeF page](/hidden-content/popular-ksef.md). Some countries use one model, some the other - and it's entirely possible to need both if you trade across several of them. *** ## So where does Fitek fit into all this? You don't need to track every country's format and deadline yourself, or integrate separately with every network - that's what Fitek is for. Fitek connects to these networks and formats so you don't have to build separate integrations for each one. **On the receiving side:** * Your suppliers can reach you through several channels - e-invoice networks such as Peppol or local operators like KSeF, email, SFTP, or direct API integration. * Fitek brings all of it into one place. * Structured e-invoices are mapped directly into your system exactly as your supplier sent them - nothing is digitized or reinterpreted. * PDF or image invoices sent by email or SFTP are run through OCR and data capture instead, with the original file always kept alongside the record so you can verify it. * Either way, invoices land in your invoice register ready for review, approval and export, and you can see the actual source/channel each invoice came in through directly on the invoice. **On the sending side:** * You keep creating invoices the way you already do - in Fitek, your ERP, or another system. * Fitek takes care of turning them into the format and channel your customer or their country requires, whether that's Peppol, KSeF, or another supported route. * Fitek delivers them and lets you track status (unsent, sent, import issues, delivery issues) from your invoice register. For the full detail on how invoices actually flow in and out, see the [purchase invoice intake documentation](/purchase-invoices/purchase-invoice-intake.md) and the [sales invoices getting started guide](/sales-invoices/getting-started.md). *** ## Common questions **Is this actually mandatory for me, or just a trend?** It depends entirely on your country, your customers, and who you trade with. Some mandates are already in force today (Belgium, and Poland's KSeF as of 2026); others - like Slovakia - arrive over the next year or two; the EU-wide cross-border mandate lands on 1 July 2030 regardless. Check your own country's rules and your trading partners' countries directly - don't assume you're exempt just because your country hasn't mandated it yet. **Why is this happening now, all at once?** It isn't really "at once" - it's a wave that's been building for years and is now cresting, driven by the EU's ViDA reforms (adopted March 2025) on one side, and individual countries deciding not to wait for the 2030 EU deadline on the other. **Is Peppol the same thing as e-invoicing?** No. Peppol is one network for exchanging e-invoices, and a widely used one, but it's not the only model - some countries run their own centralized government platforms instead (like Poland's KSeF). See the [PEPPOL page](/hidden-content/popular-peppol.md) and the [KSeF page](/hidden-content/popular-ksef.md) for how each actually works. **Is Slovakia's system the same as Poland's KSeF?** No. Slovakia is extending the existing Peppol network with a "5-corner model," while Poland built KSeF as a fully separate, centralized government platform from scratch. See the [Slovakia e-invoicing page](/hidden-content/popular-slovakia-e-invoicing.md) and the [KSeF page](/hidden-content/popular-ksef.md) for how each works. **What happens after 2030 if my country already has its own system?** Domestic mandates don't disappear - but by 1 January 2035, national systems are required to become interoperable with the common EU digital reporting standard, so the current patchwork is expected to converge over time rather than stay fragmented forever. **Do I need new software to deal with all this?** No. Fitek handles the conversion, validation and delivery across these networks and formats for you, and delivers invoices into your normal register. You keep working the way you already do. **What if my trading partner isn't ready yet?** Fitek can typically still process a regular PDF or paper invoice alongside your e-invoicing flows, so a partner who hasn't caught up yet doesn't block you from moving forward yourself. *** ## So what should you actually do next? 1. **Check your own exposure** - is e-invoicing already mandatory for you, based on your country, your customers, or the countries you trade with? If you're not sure, this is worth confirming directly rather than guessing. 2. **Read the page for your relevant network or system** - the [PEPPOL page](/hidden-content/popular-peppol.md) for the decentralized network model, the [KSeF page](/hidden-content/popular-ksef.md) for Poland's centralized platform, or the [Slovakia e-invoicing page](/hidden-content/popular-slovakia-e-invoicing.md) for Slovakia's Peppol-based model. 3. **See how invoices actually flow through Fitek** - the [purchase invoice intake documentation](/purchase-invoices/purchase-invoice-intake.md) and [sales invoices getting started guide](/sales-invoices/getting-started.md). 4. **Contact Fitek** - tell us which countries, formats and networks apply to you, and we'll help you get connected. --- # Agent Instructions This documentation is published with GitBook. GitBook is the documentation platform designed so that both humans and AI agents can read, navigate, and reason over technical content effectively. 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