Netherlands

The Netherlands has a strong digital invoicing culture and was an early adopter of Peppol. Central government has required e-invoicing from its suppliers for several years, and all public bodies must be able to receive e-invoices that meet the European standard. In B2B trade, e-invoicing is voluntary. Even so, many Dutch businesses use Peppol, either to meet customer requirements or to reduce manual processing.

The national Simplerinvoicing network and the Peppol network have merged in practice, so Dutch businesses can reach each other and their European partners over the same infrastructure. The government has studied introducing a B2B mandate, and the EU's ViDA package will make e-invoicing the norm for cross-border trade within the EU. Businesses that already work with Peppol are well placed for whatever comes next.

Suppliers to Dutch central government must send e-invoices, including foreign suppliers. Other public bodies, such as municipalities and provinces, must be able to receive einvoices, and many of them also ask suppliers to send them.

There is no legal obligation for businesses to issue e-invoices in B2B trade. In practice, many large Dutch buyers require structured invoices from their suppliers under their commercial terms.

Invoices to central government must be structured, comply with EN 16931 and follow the Dutch specification. They must include the buyer's reference details, such as the order number or the reference given by the public body. PDF invoices can be rejected. Suppliers need a Peppol connection or a service that can deliver Peppol invoices to Dutch public bodies. Each public body is identified by a Peppol ID, often based on its OIN number

The main formats are Peppol BIS Billing 3.0 and NLCIUS, the Dutch specification of EN 16931. Both are based on UBL. Older SI-UBL formats are still used on some legacy flows.

Invoices are exchanged over the Peppol network through certified Access Points. For central government, invoices can also be submitted through the government's Digipoort service

HubBroker connects your ERP to Peppol so you can invoice Dutch public and private buyers in Peppol BIS 3.0 or NLCIUS. We map your invoice data, add the required references, and validate every invoice before sending, so it is accepted the first time.

Inbound invoices from Dutch suppliers arrive in your ERP as structured data, ready to post. PDF invoices from suppliers that are not yet on Peppol are converted by HubBroker's IDP. Because the same Peppol connection serves Belgium, the Nordics and other European markets, the Netherlands becomes one part of a single European e-invoicing setup