On 17 September, Onguard and Storecove sat down for a joint session on the e-invoicing mandates reshaping how European businesses get paid. The takeaway: this isn’t a future problem anymore. France’s mandate went live on 1 September. Germany, Poland, Spain and Slovakia are next, with the EU’s ViDA directive setting a 2030 ceiling for the rest.
E-invoicing compliance: It’s not about where you’re headquartered
The mandates apply if you invoice customers or suppliers in these countries, regardless of where your own business sits. A lot of international finance teams still think of this as “someone else’s compliance problem.” It isn’t.
Where things stand today with e-invoicing compliance
Already live:
- Italy (since 2019), Romania (2024), Germany receiving (2025)
- Belgium: full sending & receiving, Peppol BIS 3.0 (Jan 2026)
- Poland: KSeF phased in through 2026
- Spain: Verifactu certified invoicing software (2026)
- France: receiving mandatory for all VAT-liable businesses, sending mandatory for large enterprises and ETIs (1 September 2026)
Coming soon:
- Germany: sending mandatory above €800k turnover (Jan 2027), then all companies (Jan 2028)
- France: SMEs and micro-enterprises must send (Sept 2027)
- Spain: Crea y Crece rollout through 2027–2028
- UK: mandatory e-invoicing for VAT invoices (2029)
- EU-wide digital reporting under ViDA (2030)
France is a useful case study in what “live” actually means: non-compliant platform usage costs €500/quarter (rising to €1,000), unstructured invoices cost €15 each, and e-reporting violations run €250 each with annual caps. Small per-invoice numbers, but they add up fast at volume.
What actually changes under these mandates
The common thread across countries is CTC = continuous transaction controls. Governments want visibility into B2B transactions in near real time, not just at audit time. That means invoices increasingly have to move through approved networks (like Peppol) and structured formats (UBL, CII, Factur-X, X-Rechnung), not a PDF in an email.
E-invoicing sending and receiving, in practice
On the sending side, invoices flow from your ERP through a compliant API connection, out to exchange networks, tax authorities, and buyers, with everything archived in its original format for audit purposes. Receiving works in reverse: incoming invoices are validated against the same networks and formats, and the data ends up back in your financial system. Onguard’s e-invoicing solution, built on a Peppol connection with infrastructure partner Storecove, handles both directions across 30+ countries.
Where e-invoicing compliance is headed next
Right now, status information on a sent or received invoice is visible in the system. The next step, actively in development, is connecting that status more directly into collections workflows, so a rejection or dispute surfaces to your team sooner.
The bottom line
Whichever country’s deadline is closest to yours, waiting isn’t a strategy. Want to know exactly what applies to your business and by when? Find more details here. Want to talk in person? Get in touch with our team to talk through your specific situation.
