e-invoicing in Germany

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Regional spotlight

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Overview of B2G, B2B and B2C e-invoicing in Germany.
Key formats, networks and channels you may need to support.
High-level regulatory and compliance considerations.

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Germany is introducing mandatory e-invoicing in phases. Starting from 1st of January 2025, all German companies have been required to be able to receive e-invoices. The obligation to send e-invoices will follow gradually: starting 1st of January 2027 for large and medium-sized companies, and from 1st of January 2028 for all companies, regardless of size.

German company account registration

When registering a new German company via the API, the VAT number must be used as the company identifier. At the moment, company registration requires the vendor to have KYC approval from Maventa. Contact Maventa support to get started.

Identifier	Description	Format	Validation
VAT number	German VAT identifier (Umsatzsteuer-Identifikationsnummer)	`DE123456789`	Structural validation via VIES

Sending in Germany

Supported delivery channels in Germany

For B2B and B2G, sending in Germany is currently supported in the following priority order: through Maventa’s internal network and through the Peppol network. Email and print delivery are also available as fallback options. Printing is currently handled through the Finnish production facility, with a local German print solution planned (timeline TBD).

For B2C, invoices are delivered via email and print only.

Sending format over Peppol

When an invoice is sent over the Peppol network, Maventa looks up the receiver’s registered capabilities in the SMP (Service Metadata Publisher) and selects an output format that the receiver accepts and that Maventa supports. If the invoice is not already in the required format, Maventa converts it automatically. You do not need to specify the target format yourself. This follows Maventa’s general Peppol format selection and conversion, with the country-specific behaviour below.

Which format is chosen depends on whether the exchange is domestic or cross-border:

Scenario	Format sent
Domestic — German sender to German receiver	XRechnung is preferred when the receiver has registered an XRechnung profile in the SMP. Maventa converts Peppol BIS Billing 3.0 to XRechnung automatically. Falls back to Peppol BIS Billing 3.0 if no XRechnung profile is registered.
Cross-border — sender outside Germany to German receiver (or German sender to a receiver abroad)	Peppol BIS Billing 3.0 is always used, even if the German receiver has also registered XRechnung profiles. XRechnung is not used in cross-border Peppol traffic.

This means that if a non-German sender delivers a Peppol BIS Billing 3.0 invoice into Maventa for a German receiver, it is forwarded as Peppol BIS Billing 3.0 — it is not converted to XRechnung. Automatic conversion to XRechnung only applies to domestic German (DE-to-DE) Peppol traffic. German receivers are required to accept Peppol BIS Billing 3.0 for cross-border invoicing, so no conversion is needed.

ZuGFeRD in email delivery

ZuGFeRD support for email delivery is in development and will be available before the end of Q4 2026.

When an invoice can’t be delivered as an e-invoice, for example because the receiver isn’t registered in the Peppol network, Maventa falls back to email delivery. If both the sender and the recipient are German companies, Maventa will then automatically generate a ZuGFeRD invoice and attach it to the email. This way the receiver still gets an invoice they can process automatically, even without an e-invoicing connection. Emails between a German and a non-German company don’t get a ZuGFeRD attachment.

ZuGFeRD isn’t accepted as an input format in the API. Send the invoice in a supported format, such as Peppol BIS Billing 3.0, and Maventa takes care of the conversion and generates the PDF that makes up the ZuGFeRD invoice.

If the receiver needs another XML format attached to the email instead, use the invoice XML as email attachment feature.

Receiving in Germany

In Germany, companies can receive invoices through different channels. If a company has activated e-invoice receiving, they can receive invoices via Maventa’s internal network. Additionally, if the company is registered with Peppol, Peppol receiving is available.

Address Type	Description	Example address	Activation Requirement
Peppol address	Official identifier for the Peppol network. Uses the VAT number with scheme `9930`.	9930:de811000000	Created when the company registers to receive from Peppol

Receiving ZuGFeRD invoices by email

ZuGFeRD receiving by email is in development and will be available before the end of Q4 2026.

German companies will get an email address for receiving ZuGFeRD invoices. They can share the address with their suppliers, or forward emails with ZuGFeRD attachments to it themselves. Maventa reads the ZuGFeRD file and adds it to the company’s Maventa account as a received invoice, ready to download in any supported format, just like other received invoices. The address is expected to be the same one the company uses for AutoScan.

To get the original ZuGFeRD file itself, call GET /v1/invoices/{id} with return_format=ORIGINAL_IMAGE. The response is the hybrid PDF exactly as it was received, including the embedded XML. To get the invoice data as structured XML instead, use another format code as the return_format.

Scanning

Scanning is available in Germany via the AutoScan solution.

For step-by-step instructions on enabling receiving, registering for Peppol, and setting up scanning, see the invoice receiving integration guide.

Accounts receivable services

Accounts receivable services for Germany are coming at a later date (timeline TBD).

Ropo’s reminder and collection service will be available for German companies, offering reminder and debt collection services through Ropo. The service allows you to transfer overdue invoices to Ropo for reminder handling and collection directly through the Maventa API. For more details on how the service works, see the Accounts receivable section in the Integration Guide.

Peppol SMP registration

When a German company registers to receive invoices via Peppol through Maventa, the following document types are registered in the SMP (Service Metadata Publisher). These registrations determine which document formats the company can receive over the Peppol network.

Peppol BIS Billing 3.0

The standard Peppol BIS Billing 3.0 profiles are registered for cross-border invoicing. Peppol BIS must be used when sending invoices to or from Germany across national borders.

Peppol BIS Billing 3.0 — Invoice

DocumentIdentifier urn:oasis:names:specification:ubl:schema:xsd:Invoice-2::Invoice##urn:cen.eu:en16931:2017#compliant#urn:fdc:peppol.eu:2017:poacc:billing:3.0::2.1