Since 1 January 2026, VAT-registered businesses in Belgium have had to send and receive domestic B2B invoices as structured electronic invoices over the Peppol network. A PDF attached to an email no longer counts as a valid invoice between Belgian businesses. If you invoice Belgian companies, or you are one, here is what that means in practice.
What Peppol is
Peppol is an international network for exchanging business documents. Instead of sending email, each business connects to an access point provider, and invoices travel between access points in a standard XML format called Peppol BIS Billing 3.0, which is based on the European standard EN 16931. Think of it as a postal system for invoices where every envelope is machine-readable.
Your accounting software probably already offers Peppol sending. The Belgian government also made a free basic tool available for small businesses that invoice rarely.
What happened to the PDF
The PDF did not vanish, it was demoted. A Peppol invoice is XML, but it can carry a PDF rendering as an attachment so that people can see a familiar layout. The legal invoice is the XML. If the attached PDF and the XML disagree, the XML wins.
PDFs are still normal for:
- Invoices to consumers (B2C), which are not covered by the mandate.
- Supporting documents: delivery notes, timesheets, signed quotes. These can be attached to the Peppol invoice.
- Your own internal approval workflow before payment.
A simple compliance checklist
- Register on Peppol through your accounting software or an access point provider. Your Peppol ID is usually based on your enterprise number.
- Check your customers are reachable. The Peppol directory shows whether a company can receive invoices.
- Clean master data. VAT numbers, enterprise numbers and addresses must be exact. Validation rejects what a human would have shrugged at.
- Decide where received invoices land. Many teams still want a PDF view for approval. Configure your software to render one, and keep the XML as the record.
- Update your archive policy. Store the structured invoice, not just a printout.
Approving invoices with a PDF copy
Many small teams approve invoices by stamping or initialling a PDF. That is still fine as an internal control, as long as you treat the PDF as a copy. A browser editor like Docento.app can add an "approved" stamp, a date and initials to the rendered PDF without uploading it. The posted invoice in your accounting system stays the structured one. Our guide on purchase orders and approval documents covers how to lay out that approval trail.
Cross-border invoices
The Belgian rule applies to domestic transactions between Belgian VAT-registered businesses. Invoices to customers in other countries follow the destination country's rules, which are converging fast: France started in September 2026, Poland's KSeF went live in February 2026, and Germany's issuing requirement begins in 2027. The EU's ViDA package then brings real-time digital reporting for intra-EU trade in 2030.
Takeaway
For Belgian businesses, the invoice is now data first and document second. Get connected to Peppol, keep the PDF as a convenient view rather than the record, and you will be ready for the rest of Europe as it follows. For the hybrid alternative used in France and Germany, see Factur-X explained.
