Peppol BIS Billing 3.0 explained (without the jargon)

Every EU e-invoicing mandate seems to mention Peppol BIS Billing 3.0. It sounds technical, but the idea is simple: it's the agreed format for an electronic invoice on the Peppol network, so any sender and any receiver understand each other.

Three layers, from standard to file

It helps to see the stack:

1. EN 16931 — the European semantic standard: the list of fields an invoice

must carry and what they mean (seller, buyer, VAT breakdown, totals…). See EN 16931 explained.

1. UBL 2.1 — the syntax: how those fields are written as XML tags.
2. Peppol BIS Billing 3.0 — a CIUS ("Core Invoice Usage Specification"):

EN 16931 expressed in UBL, plus Peppol's own business rules and the network's addressing. It's what actually travels.

So "send a Peppol BIS 3.0 invoice" = "send an EN 16931 invoice, written in UBL, following Peppol's rules, over the Peppol network."

What's inside a BIS 3.0 invoice

• Parties — supplier and buyer, each with name, address, VAT number and a

Peppol identifier (e.g. Belgian enterprise number under scheme 0208).

• Document data — invoice number, issue date, currency, references.
• Lines — description, quantity, unit price, line amount, VAT category.
• VAT breakdown — taxable amount and VAT amount per rate/category (BG-23).
• Totals — line total, tax-exclusive, tax-inclusive, payable amount.
• Payment means — IBAN/BIC and payment reference.

Business rules: why invoices get rejected

BIS 3.0 ships with validation rules (BR- and PEPPOL-). Examples:

• Totals must add up (line sums = document totals).
• A reverse-charge line must carry the right VAT category and a note.
• A Belgian enterprise number must be 10 digits with no country prefix.

If a rule fails, the recipient's Access Point can reject the invoice. This is why good software validates before sending.

Credit notes and other documents

BIS 3.0 has matching profiles for credit notes — you never "delete" a sent invoice; you issue a credit note. See Peppol credit notes.

Country flavours (CIUS)

Some countries layer their own CIUS on top — e.g. France's cius:1.0 with extra mandatory statements. The core is still EN 16931/UBL, so a compliant tool adapts per destination without you learning each variant.

Where Eurobillr fits

Eurobillr builds valid Peppol BIS Billing 3.0 automatically — correct VAT breakdown, totals that reconcile, proper identifiers — and validates against the rules before it sends, with a preview of the exact XML. You author the invoice; the format is handled.

Next: how to send a Peppol invoice or UBL vs CII vs Factur-X for how the formats differ.