PEPPOL to handle e-invoicing transport for the German public sector

The timeline for implementation will be decided in October 2018, but the April decision already sets the direction for public sector e-invoicing in Germany in the years to come.

As of the implementation of the Directive 2014/55/EU on electronic invoicing in public procurement in Germany, it has been mandated for public authorities to receive and process XRechnung invoices, Core Invoice User Specification (CIUS) of the European Norm (EN) 16931 on e-invoicing. National authorities can accept other formats next to XRechnung.

What`s more, it was decided to establish one web service standard for public authorities to transport e-invoices (PEPPOL). The decision on timeline and conditions for using and joining the PEPPOL eDelivery Network for federal, regional and local authorities is planned to be made in October 2018. National authorities can accept other ways of transport of e-invoices.

As part of these decisions, the Coordination Office for IT Standards (KoSIT) was given the responsibility to maintain XRechnung and to become the German PEPPOL Authority.

Moving forward, the next steps will be to setup the German PEPPOL Authority and map the XRechnung CIUS into a German rule set in the PEPPOL BIS Billing 3.0 CIUS. In preparation for the planned October decision on setting the timeline and conditions for using and joining the PEPPOL eDelivery Network, KoSIT will involve German stakeholders in the process.