What is Peppol? A plain-English guide for businesses
Peppol is the network that lets businesses exchange structured e-invoices across borders — no shared software, no PDF by email. Here's what it is, how it works, and why it matters from 2026.
What is Peppol? A plain-English guide for businesses
If you've been told your invoices need to go "over Peppol", here's the short version: Peppol is a network — a standardised way for one company's software to send a structured invoice straight into another company's software, anywhere in Europe, without either side agreeing on a format or a tool in advance.
Think of it like the mobile phone network. You don't care what handset the other person uses; you dial a number and it connects. Peppol does the same for invoices.
The "four-corner model"
Peppol works through four parties:
- You (the sender) create an invoice in your software.
- Your Access Point — a certified provider — puts it on the network.
- Their Access Point receives it.
- Your customer gets a structured invoice in their software.
You only ever deal with corner 2 (your Access Point). It finds the recipient and handles delivery. This is why you never need to know which software your customer runs.
What actually travels: structured data, not a PDF
A PDF is a picture of an invoice — a human reads it and retypes the numbers. A Peppol invoice is structured XML: the VAT, line items, totals and bank details are labelled fields the recipient's system imports automatically. That's the whole point — no manual entry, no rekeying errors, faster payment.
The format is Peppol BIS Billing 3.0, built on the European standard EN 16931.
How recipients are addressed
Every participant has a Peppol ID: a scheme code plus an identifier — for a Belgian company it's the enterprise number under scheme 0208; for a French company, the SIREN under scheme 0225. Your Access Point looks the recipient up in the Peppol directory (the SMP/SML) before sending.
Why it matters now
Peppol started with public-sector invoicing (B2G) and is now going B2B mandatory across the EU:
- Belgium — structured e-invoicing mandatory for domestic B2B from January
- See Peppol Belgium.
- France, Germany, Poland, Spain, Italy — each on its own timeline, several
building on or interoperating with Peppol.
If you sell to businesses in the EU, "can I send and receive over Peppol" is becoming a baseline requirement, not a nice-to-have.
What you need to start
□ A Peppol-capable invoicing tool (or an Access Point)
□ Your company registered as a Peppol participant (your Peppol ID)
□ Your customer's Peppol ID (your tool can look it up)
□ Invoices that carry the mandatory fields (VAT, IDs, totals)Where Eurobillr fits
Eurobillr is Peppol-ready out of the box: register your company as a participant, and every invoice can go out as a structured Peppol document and a PDF. It looks up recipients on the network, validates the mandatory fields before sending, and receives supplier invoices into an inbox — so you're covered for the 2026 mandates without bolting on a separate tool.
New to it? Start with Peppol explained for freelancers or how to send a Peppol invoice.