E-Invoicing in DACH: What Changes 2025–2030

2025 marked the year e-invoicing became mandatory in Germany — first on the receiving side. By 2030, the EU follows with mandatory digital reporting for intra-community B2B transactions. In between sits a wave of staggered deadlines, six competing formats and a complicated DACH asymmetry: Germany leads, Austria follows in 2030, Switzerland has no mandate but is in practice already further along than many EU countries.

This guide gets to the point: what is an e-invoice in legal terms, which mandate kicks in when across DE, AT and CH, which formats do you actually need — and what must receiving software in 2026 be able to do. With concrete dates, a DACH timeline and an action plan that cleanly separates receiving from sending.

What an e-invoice really is

A legally compliant e-invoice is not a PDF sent by email. An e-invoice is a structured electronic document that is machine-processable and follows a normative syntax — typically the European norm EN 16931.

Germany's Federal Ministry of Finance defines it clearly: "An e-invoice is an invoice issued, transmitted and received in a structured electronic format that enables electronic processing." PDFs, JPEGs and scanned paper invoices do not meet this definition — they count as "other invoices" ("sonstige Rechnungen").

Three format families to distinguish

• Pure structured: XRechnung (DE), UBL/Peppol BIS, ebInterface (AT) — pure XML, no visual rendering. Machine-only.
• Hybrid: ZUGFeRD 2.0.1+ (profiles EN 16931, EXTENDED, XRECHNUNG), Factur-X (FR/international) — PDF with embedded XML. Humans see the PDF, software reads the XML.
• Other (legacy): PDF without XML, JPEG, paper — not an e-invoice in the new sense, no longer permitted under the German sending mandate.

Important: ZUGFeRD profiles MINIMUM and BASIC-WL do not meet the requirements. Anyone sending ZUGFeRD must issue at least profile EN 16931 (also called "BASIC" in the new standard).

DACH compliance timeline 2025–2030 at a glance

The three DACH countries move at different speeds. The overview below shows what kicks in when — and where you need to prepare today.

Three takeaways from this view:

1. Receiving is already mandatory in DE — anyone working in 2026 without automated XML processing is leaving structured invoices unread.
2. Sending is staged — SMEs up to 800,000 EUR prior-year revenue have a grace period in DE until end of 2027; everyone else from 2027.
3. Switzerland is a special case — no mandate, but QR-Bill dominates, eBill is growing, and German suppliers increasingly expect XRechnung receivers even from Swiss customers.

Germany: e-invoicing mandate 2025–2028

With the Wachstumschancengesetz (Growth Opportunities Act) Germany passed e-invoicing in 2024. It rolls out in two waves — receiving and sending separately.

Receiving mandate from 1 January 2025

Since the start of 2025, every domestic B2B company must be able to receive e-invoices — regardless of size. An email address that accepts XRechnung or ZUGFeRD files is enough. Companies without one risk that suppliers send invoices elsewhere or that structured XML files go unread.

Important: since 1 January 2025 there is no longer a right to demand a PDF instead of an e-invoice. The recipient's consent to electronic transmission of e-invoices is presumed by law.

Sending mandate — staged by company size

What does not fall under the mandate

• Small invoices (≤ 250 EUR gross)
• Travel tickets (§ 34 UStDV)
• B2C invoices to private individuals
• VAT-exempt turnover under § 4 No. 8–29 UStG (e.g. certain financial services)
• Invoices to foreign businesses (intra-EU or third country) — these later fall under VIDA

Austria: B2G mandate today, VIDA from 2030

Austria has no domestic B2B mandate at present. That will only change with the EU VIDA directive in 2030. Anyone with federal contracts has been familiar with e-invoicing for over a decade though.

B2G — mandatory since 2014

Goods and services to the federal government must be invoiced electronically since 2014. Accepted formats: ebInterface (Austrian standard, XML, developed by WKO) and Peppol BIS Billing 3.0 (EU standard). Transmission via the Unternehmensserviceportal (USP) or Peppol infrastructure.

States and municipalities are catching up gradually — some accept ebInterface, others use Peppol exclusively.

Domestic B2B — no mandate, but trend

For purely domestic B2B turnover there is no statutory e-invoicing mandate. The Austrian legislature has not planned its own mandate and is waiting for EU VIDA implementation.

In practice: a Vienna SME invoicing only Austrian private and SME customers has no pressure in 2026. Anyone with German business partners must, however, be able to receive XRechnung and ZUGFeRD on their inbound side — the German mandate has indirect effects.

VIDA effect from 2030

With the EU VIDA directive, e-invoicing becomes mandatory from 1 July 2030 for intra-community B2B deliveries — including Austria. Format: EN 16931 (so XRechnung, ZUGFeRD, ebInterface, UBL). Additionally a Digital Reporting Requirement (DRR) takes effect: transaction data must be reported electronically to the tax authority within 10 days.

Domestic B2B mandate is not part of the current VIDA package — that remains a national decision for each member state. Several EU countries (France, Poland, Belgium, Italy) are introducing national mandates in 2026/27. Austria might follow.

Switzerland: QR-Bill as standard, eBill on the rise

Switzerland is not in the EU and has no VIDA obligation. Yet in practice it is further along than many EU countries in 2026 — through two pragmatic standards.

QR-Bill — sending standard since 2022

Since 1 October 2022, only QR-Bills may be issued — old-style payment slips are invalid. The QR-Bill knows three reference types:

• QRR (QR Reference): 27-digit number, replaces the old ESR reference, primarily for internal banking allocation
• SCOR (Creditor Reference, ISO 11649): internationally standardised reference, for cross-border payments
• NON (no reference): for small amounts or pure consumer invoices

Important: from 21 November 2025, QR-Bills must use structured address fields — free-text fields will be rejected by banks from end of September 2026. Anyone with old templates in their ERP must complete the migration now.

eBill — the digital channel

eBill (operated by SIX) is the digital alternative: invoices are delivered straight into the recipient's e-banking, must be approved with one click and paid automatically. Volume grows in double digits per year.

eBill is not a mandate but a channel. Receiving eBill from suppliers means having structured data — comparable to XRechnung. Anyone with customers who prefer eBill should be able to offer the format.

B2G — electronic since 2016

Goods and services to the Swiss federal government above CHF 5,000 must be invoiced electronically. Accepted: XML/UBL via the conextrade platform or the state eBill connection.

What Swiss companies should do today

• Ensure QR-Bill sending (every document, no exceptions)
• Verify structured address fields by 21.11.2025 — otherwise bank rejection
• For German suppliers: prepare to receive XRechnung/ZUGFeRD
• Evaluate the eBill channel — especially for invoicing consumers and large customers

EU VIDA: what comes in 2030

The EU package "VAT in the Digital Age" (VIDA) was adopted in March 2025 and has been in effect since April 2025. The waves relevant to e-invoicing:

Phase 1 (since April 2025): member states may introduce national mandates

Member states can impose mandatory e-invoicing without EU approval since April 2025. This paved the way for German, French, Polish and Belgian mandates.

Phase 2 (from 1 July 2030): mandate for intra-community B2B transactions

From 1 July 2030, e-invoicing is mandatory for intra-community B2B turnover. Format: EN 16931. In addition the Digital Reporting Requirements (DRR) kick in: transaction data must be reported electronically to national tax authorities within 10 days.

Member states have until 30 June 2030 to transpose VIDA e-invoicing and DRR into national law.

What VIDA means in practice

• EN 16931 becomes the common denominator — XRechnung, ZUGFeRD, ebInterface, UBL/Peppol BIS are all EN-compliant.
• The summary statement (Zusammenfassende Meldung) is replaced by near-real-time transaction reporting.
• A missing DRR can endanger the recipient's input VAT deduction — compliance becomes a liquidity question.
• Anyone investing in an EN-compliant platform in 2026 covers the 2030 mandate without a second rebuild.

Format overview: XRechnung, ZUGFeRD, Peppol, Factur-X, ebInterface, QR-Bill

Six formats dominate the DACH region. Anyone wanting to receive all of them needs a platform that routes every format into the same pipeline — no silos per format.

What you actually need

Most DACH companies need to receive three formats today: XRechnung, ZUGFeRD and QR-Bill. For EU-wide procurement add Peppol BIS and Factur-X. ebInterface joins as soon as Austrian federal or state contracts exist.

The sending stack depends on customer base: QR-Bill for Swiss customers, XRechnung or ZUGFeRD for German customers, Peppol for EU customers. Anyone not building proprietary sending infrastructure uses a Peppol Access Point or an ERP-native sending function.

What to do right now

Instead of an abstract roadmap: a practical action plan, separated by receiving and sending, by SME and enterprise.

Receiving — applies to all DE B2B companies today

1. Set up an inbox: dedicated email address (e.g. invoice@company.de) that accepts structured e-invoices.
2. Set up format detection: automatically identify and route XRechnung (.xml), ZUGFeRD (.pdf with embedded XML) and Factur-X (.pdf).
3. XML validation: validate required fields against EN 16931 (BT numbers). Reject malformed documents automatically.
4. Archiving: original XML, audit-proof, GoBD-compliant, at least 10 years.
5. ERP handoff: XML data as a complete posting record into the ERP — not as a PDF that gets re-keyed manually.

Sending — SMEs up to 800,000 EUR prior-year revenue

You may continue to send PDF or paper until the end of 2027. But: start testing in 2026, because the sending obligation kicks in on 1 January 2028 with no transition period.

1. Ask your ERP or invoicing software vendor: is there an XRechnung or ZUGFeRD module?
2. Pilot with two or three regular customers — who would welcome structured invoices?
3. Master-data hygiene: customer IDs, Leitweg-IDs (for B2G), VAT IDs up to date.

Sending — companies above 800,000 EUR prior-year revenue

You are obligated to send from 1.1.2027. That makes 2026 your implementation year.

1. Inventory: what document types do you send today? Where does the generator sit (ERP, billing tool, third-party system)?
2. Format strategy: XRechnung for machine-only customers, ZUGFeRD for mixed customers with visual needs.
3. Sending channel: email with structured XML attachment or Peppol Access Point. The latter is EU-wide compatible.
4. Q3 2026 pilot: one supplier segment, three months in parallel, then roll out.
5. Q4 2026 production: all B2B documents structured.

Swiss and Austrian companies

• CH: complete QR-Bill migration to structured address fields by 21.11.2025. Prepare to receive XRechnung/ZUGFeRD if German suppliers exist.
• AT: review B2G setup via USP-Peppol. Prepare to receive structured formats — VIDA arrives in 2030, but a German supplier can send XRechnung tomorrow.

Automate receiving — what software must do

There are currently three classes of e-invoicing software on the market: pure receiving tools, integrated AP platforms and ERP-native modules. What all should share:

1. Multi-format routing: a single inbox accepts every format (XRechnung, ZUGFeRD, Factur-X, Peppol, QR-Bill) and routes them into the same processing pipeline.
2. Structured XML processing: fields are read directly from XML, not via OCR from the PDF — otherwise rounding errors creep in where the visual rendering differs from the data.
3. EN 16931 validation: required fields, format rules, tax logic per EN 16931. Malformed documents are flagged clearly, not silently waved through.
4. Other-invoices pipeline: legacy documents (PDF, scan) must remain processable — one pipeline for structured and other, no break.
5. ERP handoff: structured posting records into the ERP, not just document storage. Otherwise double entry.
6. Audit-proof archiving: GoBD- and GeBüV-compliant, original XML immutable, audit trail per processing step.
7. Reporting: live view on inbound volume per format, rejection rate, validation errors. Otherwise the setup runs blind.

For a deeper view of AP software selection criteria, see our DACH guide to accounts payable automation. The technical background on structured data extraction is explained in our piece on Intelligent Document Processing (IDP).

How Dokumentas solves the receiving side

Dokumentas focuses on receiving and processing e-invoices — not on sending. What we do specifically:

• Native processing of all DACH formats: XRechnung, ZUGFeRD profile EN 16931+, Peppol BIS, Factur-X and QR-Bill in one pipeline.
• Direct XML read: fields come from the structured attachment, not from OCR. ZUGFeRD's embedded XML is extracted directly; pure XRechnung/UBL files skip OCR entirely.
• Other-invoices bridge: legacy documents (PDF, scan) flow through the same pipeline with template-free AI extraction. No format silo.
• EN 16931 validation: required fields and tax rules are checked. Documents with validation errors land in the review UI.
• ERP handoff: structured posting records into the ERP (SAP, Abacus, Sage, Microsoft Dynamics, DATEV, Infor) — idempotent, with full audit trail.
• Archiving: original XML and PDF are stored audit-proof in Swiss data centres (ISO 27001). GoBD- and GeBüV-compliant.

What Dokumentas does not do: sending e-invoices. We are not an eBill provider and not a Peppol Access Point. For the sending side we work with established providers, or the customer's ERP system handles it.

Real-world example from insurance: mailroom automation with classification — inbound mail (incl. e-invoices) is automatically detected, classified and routed to the right business areas, with a high touchless rate in production.

Conclusion

The e-invoicing mandate is no longer theoretical in 2026. In Germany receiving is mandatory since 2025, sending phases in 2027/28. Austria follows with VIDA in 2030; Switzerland has no mandate but is in practice well prepared through QR-Bill and eBill.

Investing in a receiving solution in 2026 covers three things at once: the German B2B mandate, the Swiss QR-Bill, the EU VIDA from 2030. What matters is not the most fashionable format, but a pipeline that routes every DACH format through the same processing logic — structured into the ERP, with audit trail, no per-format silo.

Happy to help on the receiving side — from format inventory to production platform. Book a demo or jump straight to the Invoice Agent.