Belgium

Belgium is the first EU country to build a national B2B e-invoicing mandate directly on the Peppol network. There is no central clearance platform. Invoices travel from the supplier's Access Point to the buyer's Access Point in a standardised format, and the tax authority is not in the exchange itself.

This design keeps things simple for businesses that already trade over Peppol, and it lines up with the EU's ViDA direction. It also means every in-scope company needs a Peppol identity and a way to process structured invoices on both the sending and receiving side. The reform runs in two stages. E-invoicing came first, from 2026. Real-time e-reporting to the tax authority is planned for 2028, at which point invoice data will also be shared with the administration close to the time of the transaction.

The mandate covers VAT-registered businesses established in Belgium when they supply goods or services to other VAT-registered businesses in Belgium. Both sides of the transaction must be able to handle structured invoices, so receiving is just as important as sending.

Some groups are excluded or have adjusted obligations, for example businesses that make only VAT-exempt supplies and companies in bankruptcy or judicial reorganisation (verify the full list). Foreign businesses with only a Belgian VAT registration and no establishment are generally outside the B2B scope, but they should check their own position.

Invoices must be structured, machine-readable and compliant with the European standard EN 16931. Each business needs a Peppol participant ID, normally based on its company number (KBO/BCE), registered with an Access Point so that other businesses can find and reach it. PDF and paper invoices no longer count as valid invoices for in-scope transactions.

The tax authority can impose penalties for missing or non-compliant e-invoices, and these increase for repeated offences. A tolerance period applied in the first months of 2026 (verify the amounts and dates). Businesses should also make sure their archiving and VAT reporting processes work with structured invoice data.

The default format is Peppol BIS Billing 3.0, which is based on UBL. Other EN 16931- compliant formats may be used if both parties agree, but in practice Peppol BIS 3.0 is what the market has adopted. Exchange runs through the Peppol 4-corner model.

The supplier's ERP sends the invoice to its Access Point, which delivers it to the buyer's Access Point and then on to the buyer's ERP. The Belgian government also offers a free basic solution (Hermes) for very small businesses (verify its current scope)

HubBroker connects your ERP to the Peppol network so you can meet the Belgian mandate without changing systems. We map your invoice data to Peppol BIS Billing 3.0, check it against the validation rules before it is sent, and handle Peppol ID registration so your business can receive invoices from day one.

Inbound invoices arrive in your ERP as structured data, ready to post. When a supplier still sends PDFs, our IDP service extracts the data and turns it into structured invoices, so your accounts payable team can work with a single digital process. For groups operating in several countries, the same HubBroker connection also covers Peppol-based requirements elsewhere in Europe. Belgium becomes one part of a wider e-invoicing setup rather than a separate project.