All about mandatory e-invoicing in Belgium

Last modified on 2023-05-31 in Countries

E-invoicing, also known as electronic invoicing, is the process of sending and receiving invoices electronically instead of using traditional paper-based methods. Throughout Europe and the rest of the world, mandatory electronic invoicing has gained significant traction in recent years due to its efficiency and cost-saving benefits.

Belgium is making significant progress towards the adoption of e-invoicing, with the Belgian Ministry of Finance requiring mandatory B2B e-invoicing from July 2024. To ensure smooth implementation, businesses are encouraged to start planning their adoption of electronic invoicing sooner rather than later.

Latest news

In the summer of 2023, it is suspected that the Belgian tax authorities will be releasing new requirements on possible mandatory e-reporting and any updates to the e-invoicing standard. E-invoices in Belgium are currently mandated for government suppliers along with the Flanders and Brussels-Capital regions mandating e-invoices to public bodies.

Legislation timeline

B2G timeline:

• November 2022: Mandatory e-invoicing for public contracts over €215,000 must be issued

• May 2023: Required e-invoices for public contracts greater than or equal to €30,000 must be issued

• November 2023: Required e-invoices for public contracts below €30,000

  • Those with less than €3,000 are exempt from B2G e-invoicing

B2B timeline:

• 1 July 2024: Mandatory B2B e-invoicing and e-reporting for large taxpayers in Belgium with an annual turnover of above €9 million

  • all taxpayers must be able to receive e-invoices at this time

• 1 January 2025: Mandatory for mid-size taxpayers with an annual turnover of between €7 million and €9 million

• 1 July 2025: Mandatory for all entities

Mandatory B2G e-invoicing in Belgium

Business-to-government (B2G) e-invoicing became mandatory for public procurement on January 1, 2017. This requirement was established in compliance with the introduction of e-invoicing European Directive 2014/55/EU, which aimed to promote the use of electronic invoicing in public procurement across the European Union.

Similar to other EU member states, the Belgian tax authority implemented this directive into its national legislation to increase transparency and decrease its VAT gap. These requirements include the use of standardized electronic formats and adherence to the European Standard on Electronic Invoicing (EN 16931) for syntax and semantic data models. In this case, they chose to create a platform called Mercurius via the Peppol Network.

Mercurius platform and Peppol

In Belgium, businesses can connect to the Belgian Peppol network and send electronic invoices to public administrations using the Peppol interoperability model. The Mercurius platform acts as an interface that allows government entities to receive and process e-invoices from suppliers. Suppliers can submit their invoices to the platform, which then delivers them to the appropriate government entity or routes them directly to the Peppol Access Point (AP) of the specific public entity.

This model ensures seamless communication and standardized data exchange between businesses and government entities. Specifically, the reception of invoices by public administrations is facilitated through this e-invoicing platform, which serves as a gateway for government entities or through direct integration with the Peppol service of the respective public entity.

Benefits

• Streamline the invoicing process for businesses by providing a structured e-invoicing format and a secure method for sending invoices to public administrations

• Ensure compatibility with the receiving systems used by government entities

• Eliminate manual data entry of invoice data

• Reduce the risk of errors or delays associated with traditional paper-based invoicing

• Improve efficiency of the invoice reception process for government entities, allowing for faster processing and payment cycles.

Mercurius can also convert transmitted documents from machine-readable (XML) to human-readable (PDF) format, depending on the respective capabilities of the business parties. This function is designed to encourage businesses to move to structured electronic documents, avoid penalizing smaller entities, leverage the impact of volumes on adoption, and maximize inclusiveness.

Belgian e-invoicing

2 ways to receive structured electronic documents

1. Peppol

Companies connected to a Belgian Peppol Access Point can rely on their service provider to handle the necessary mapping of incoming documents, ensuring compatibility with the receiver's ERP system.

Unfortunately, not all service providers offer a compliant connection to the Peppol AP. Thus, it is important to choose a provider that offers a reliable API connection such as DDD Invoices.

For the foreseeable future, B2G invoices will use the Peppol model while B2B e-invoicing in the B2B sector will use the platform Hermes.

2. Hermes

Hermes is a platform that converts Peppol BIS documents into easily readable XML-PDF format and delivers them through email. Through this, Belgium intends to widen the scope of businesses that e-invoice from around 20,000 organizations to 12 million.

Utilizing the Hermes platform still involves manual effort from the receiver to process the invoice. This makes it less efficient than the first method, but it can make it easier for companies without the resources to adopt e-invoicing.

E-invoice specifications

• Peppol ID - you can request this from your Peppol Access Point Provider

• Enterprise number - obtain it from the Belgian Crossroad Bank of Enterprises (CBE)

  • This is not required, but it's highly recommended to guarantee proper transmission

E-reporting

Belgium wants to get as close to real-time reporting as possible in order to maximize the transparency of the system, therefore, they will utilize a Continuous Transactions Control for electronic invoicing and reporting invoices.

Through this, it is aligning with the European Union's VAT in Digital Age (ViDA) project proposals to foster interoperability and facilitate information exchange among member countries.

Therefore, it is predicted that new standards for e-reporting will entail:

• The scope of the Annual Sales Listing (ASL) will expand

• Businesses will need to submit their transactions within 24 hours of the invoice issuance

• Sales as well as purchases will need to be reported

How DDD Invoices can help

Belgium utilizes Peppol which is integrated with the Mercurius and Hermes e-invoicing systems. Businesses can connect to Peppol through certified Peppol Access Points such as DDD Invoices.

DDD Invoices simplifies e-invoicing for B2B transactions by providing an e-invoicing solution that integrates into their existing software. This allows companies to automate the invoicing process and eliminate the need for manual data entry.

We stay up to date with local tax regulations so you don’t have to. Comply with obligatory B2B e-invoicing with ease through a single API and if we do not currently serve a territory where you require e-invoicing, let us know, and we can develop it in 2-3 weeks. This way, we can ensure your VAT compliance at all times, wherever you do business.

FAQ about electronic invoices in Belgium