e-Invoicing

2026-07-22

"In its 2022 Rolling Plan for ICT standardization the Commission states that electronic invoicing ""brings numerous benefits to all users (senders, recipients, service providers, tax authorities, etc). By automating the relevant business processes, e-invoicing leads to cost savings, increased efficiency, faster payments, and a reduced environmental impact especially if other business documents like order and dispatch advice are also available in electronic format. Its deployment is a strong tool in support of enterprise and financial policies as it makes enterprises more efficient and generates potentially significant savings for Member States' governments."" The Commission estimates that implementation of electronic invoicing in public procurement across the EU could generate savings up to € 2,3 billion/year and several orders of magnitude larger than the implementation costs. Directive 2014/55/EU on electronic invoicing in public procurement aims at facilitating the use of electronic invoices by economic operators when supplying goods, works and services to the public administration. Based on the legal framework set out in the directive, the European Commission requested CEN to develop a European standard containing the semantic model for electronic invoices. Moreover, a list with limited number of syntaxes which comply with the EN, and recommendations on transmission interoperability in order to facilitate the use of the standard were requested (Standardization Request M/528). CEN published the requested deliverables in autumn 2017. EN 16931-1 (the semantic model) appeared on October 17, 2017 in the Official Journal of the European Union. After finishing its first set of deliverables, among which EN 16931-1, CEN/TS 16931-2 and the related syntax bindings, a Taskforce was created to investigate the standardization needs for adoption and implementation of e-invoicing and to make a proposal for the follow-up of the work. Following the EC grant call, work is focused on the priorities of Continuous Tax Controls reporting using e-invoice, additional requirements needed to extend e-invoice to B2B and internationalisation of the norm."

Belgium

2025-10-01