B2B e-invoicing by country, for coffee roasters

Short answer. Find your country in the table below, then ask one question of whoever makes your invoices: does it send and receive structured e-invoices to the European standard, over the network my country uses, and from when? In Belgium, Croatia, Italy and Romania the answer already has to be yes. In France every VAT-registered business must be able to receive one from 1 September 2026, whether or not it has to send yet. Nothing about your prices, your cutoff or your delivery notes changes, and the café still gets a PDF to read. It is just no longer the invoice.

Checked on 16 September 2026 against the tax authorities of Belgium, Croatia, France, Spain and Germany, the European Commission's eInvoicing country pages and its VAT in the Digital Age pages, and UK government publications. Dates move. Confirm yours with your accountant or your national tax authority before you act. This page is not tax or legal advice.

Which countries require a structured e-invoice, and from when

This table covers the countries with confirmed dates. Where a country has announced an intention but not settled a start date, it is not here.

Italy removed its last turnover-based exemption in January 2024, so the flat-rate regimes that were once outside SdI are now in it. Belgium's FPS Finance did not penalise good-faith failures in the first three months of 2026, a period that has now passed. Greece's second phase has a transition period running to the end of 2026. Spain's separate B2B e-invoice mandate, under the Crea y Crece law, is expected after Verifactu but has no fixed date: the ministerial order that starts the clock has not been published. Under the EU timetable, member states running their own systems have until 1 January 2035 to align them with the EU model.

Two things about the shape of that list. First, until 2025 a member state needed the Council's permission to force its own businesses onto e-invoicing, which is why the mandates arrived one at a time and slowly. Directive (EU) 2025/516, the VAT in the Digital Age package, was adopted on 11 March 2025 and entered into force on 14 April 2025, and it lets a member state impose a domestic mandate without asking. The queue you see forming is the result.

Second, absence from the table is not a promise. The Netherlands has no B2B mandate and, on the European Commission's own country page, no immediate plans for one. Ireland, Austria, Sweden, Denmark and others have consultations or draft bills but no settled domestic start date. Slovenia has a draft law whose start date has already moved more than once. If you roast in one of those countries you have time, not exemption.

What a structured e-invoice actually is

A structured e-invoice is a data file, not a document. German VAT law puts it plainly: an electronic invoice is one "issued, transmitted and received in a structured electronic format which allows electronic processing", and anything sent in another electronic format or on paper is merely an "other invoice". The Croatian tax administration is blunter still, in its guide to the new system: an eRačun "is not a PDF and cannot be sent by email".

Three pieces make it up.

• EN 16931, the European standard for what an invoice must contain and what each field means. It is the semantic model that Directive 2014/55/EU pointed public bodies at in 2014, and it is now the model the national B2B mandates build on. Germany's law names it by reference; Romania's RO_CIUS format is built from it.
• A syntax, almost always XML, in one of two families: UBL or CII. Your software writes one of these. You will never look at it, and it is not meant to be looked at.
• A network to carry it. Belgium's federal e-invoicing service describes Peppol as a decentralised network that "can be compared to a telecommunications network": your software connects to an access point, the café's software connects to one, and the file passes between them. Other countries centralise it instead — every Italian invoice passes through SdI, every Polish one through KSeF, every Romanian one through e-Factura, and every Greek one is validated through myDATA and comes back with a unique MARK identifier and a QR code.

A PDF fails at the first step. A person can read it; software cannot reliably take the net amount, the VAT rate and the line items out of it, which is the whole point of the exercise for the tax authority and for the café's bookkeeper. Belgium's guidance says so in one line: sending a PDF invoice by email or through a platform is no longer enough.

None of which means the PDF disappears. Somebody at the café still has to look at what they are paying for, and a structured invoice is typically presented as a readable rendering on screen or as an attached PDF copy. Some formats are hybrid: the XML sits inside the PDF, so one file serves the machine and the person. Keep sending the café something it can read. Just stop treating that file as the invoice.

What this means for selling to a café in another country

Domestic mandates cover domestic sales, and for now that is the rule to work from. Germany's VAT Act requires the structured invoice only where the supplier and the customer are both established in Germany. The Croatian tax administration says the same from the other side: the obligation to exchange eRačun covers all domestic transactions between Croatian taxpayers, while paper invoices, or another acceptable form, may still be exchanged on the EU market and beyond.

So a Belgian roastery delivering to a café in the Netherlands is not caught by the Belgian rule on that invoice. A Croatian roastery sending pallets to Austria is not caught by the Croatian one. The domestic obligation follows the domestic transaction.

There are two things to watch.

• Registration, not establishment, is what catches you. Romania's mandate covers non-established businesses that are registered for VAT in Romania. If you have crossed a distance-selling threshold or registered somewhere for another reason, read that country's rule as if you were local.
• 1 July 2030. From that date the VAT in the Digital Age directive brings e-invoicing and digital reporting to intra-EU business-to-business supplies, and member states with their own systems have until 1 January 2035 to align them with the EU model. Belgium's own service says it flatly: from 2030 the obligation applies to invoicing between EU member states too. That is far enough away to ignore and close enough that it is worth choosing invoicing software with it in mind.

What happens if you carry on emailing a PDF

The fines are real but modest, and they are not the reason to act. France sets €50 per invoice that should have been issued electronically and was not, capped at €15,000 a year. For failing to receive through an approved platform, the French tax administration issues a formal notice giving three months, then €500, then €1,000 for each further three-month period the failure continues. Belgium's FPS Finance said in December 2025 that it would show tolerance during the first three months of 2026 and not penalise offences specific to the new obligation, provided the business could show it had taken timely and reasonable steps, and that there would be no general postponement. Poland's rollout runs as a grace period through 2026 with penalties starting on 1 January 2027.

The practical risk is smaller and more immediate than any of that. It is a café whose bookkeeper cannot book your invoice, and a payment that waits while somebody works out why. In a country that has switched, the café's accounting is looking for a structured file with your VAT number on it. If nothing arrives, your net 30 quietly becomes net 50.

A checklist for this month

Half an hour, most of it spent waiting for a reply from a software supplier.

1. Find your date. One row of the table above. Write it on the wall. If your country is not in the table, set a reminder to check again in six months.
2. Ask your invoicing or accounting software four questions. Does it issue invoices to EN 16931? Does it send and receive over the network my country uses — Peppol, KSeF, SdI, e-Factura, myDATA, an approved French platform? Is that included in what I already pay, or is it extra? From which release? Get the answer in writing, in an email you can find again.
3. Check whether a small-business exemption applies to you. The German €250 rule, the Croatian deferral for taxpayers outside the VAT system, the Polish micro-business date. None of these are exemptions from the system, only from the first date.
4. Collect each café's VAT number. You need it on the invoice anyway. Where your country uses Peppol, ask for the café's Peppol identifier too, or for the name of the service provider it uses. Do this once, over a month, as you speak to accounts — not in a panic the week before your date.
5. Ask each café how it wants to receive the readable copy. Most will say email, as now. Say that nothing else about ordering or delivery is changing, because the first thing a café owner hears in "new invoicing system" is "new prices".
6. Sort out the archive. The archiving rules do not change when the format does: you keep invoices for the same period you always did, in a form you can produce on request. Belgium's guidance makes the point that the obligation is an opportunity to think about where they are actually stored. If your invoices have lived in a mail folder, that is not a plan.

What does not change

Almost everything, which is worth saying because the word "mandate" makes roasters expect an upheaval.

• Your price sheet, your volume breaks and your scheduled price changes. See the wholesale price list template if yours needs a tidy.
• Your order cutoff, your lead time and your roast schedule. An e-invoice is issued after the coffee goes out, exactly as the paper one was.
• Your delivery note. A delivery note is not an invoice and is not affected.
• Your payment terms and how the money arrives. Net 30 by transfer stays net 30 by transfer; see what card fees cost on wholesale if you are weighing card against transfer or direct debit.
• What you send the café to read. It still gets a document with your name on it, the coffees, the kilos and the total.
• Your terms and conditions, except that if they specify how invoices are delivered, that clause is worth a read.

Questions roasters ask

Is a PDF invoice still legal in the EU?

For domestic sales between businesses it depends on the country. In Belgium, Croatia, Italy and Romania an emailed PDF is no longer the legal invoice, and France, Greece, Poland, Germany, Slovakia, Spain and Latvia each have a date. Everywhere else, and for sales to consumers, a PDF is still fine if the customer accepts it. Sending a PDF copy alongside a structured invoice remains normal and useful, because a person still has to read the thing.

Do I need Peppol to send e-invoices to my cafés?

Only where your country uses it. Belgium and Croatia exchange invoices over the Peppol network. Italy uses the tax authority's own exchange system, SdI; Poland uses KSeF; Romania uses RO e-Factura; Greece validates through myDATA; France routes everything through platforms it has approved. In practice you do not choose a network, you choose invoicing software that is already connected to whichever one your country runs.

Does the café have to do anything, or is this only my problem?

The café has to be able to receive. Belgium required every VAT-registered business to be able to receive a structured invoice from 1 January 2026, even a business that only sells to consumers. Croatia went further and required businesses that are not VAT-registered to be able to receive from the same date. Ask each café for its VAT number, and for its Peppol identifier where your country uses Peppol.

I am a small roastery under the VAT threshold. Am I exempt?

Sometimes, and only in your own country's terms. Croatia let taxpayers outside the VAT system receive only during 2026 and start issuing on 1 January 2027, and gives them a free application called MIKROeRAČUN. Germany never requires a structured invoice for an invoice totalling €250 or less. Belgium ties the obligation to holding a valid VAT number. Check your own rule rather than assuming small means exempt.

Can Order Book issue the e-invoice for me?

No. Order Book does not issue invoices and is not an e-invoicing provider. The legal invoice is issued by your own invoicing or accounting software, which is where the connection to Peppol, KSeF, SdI, e-Factura or myDATA lives. You attach the PDF to the order in Order Book so the café is emailed it and can read it on its order page.

When does this start to affect selling to a café in another EU country?

1 July 2030, under the VAT in the Digital Age directive, Directive (EU) 2025/516, which entered into force on 14 April 2025. Until then the national mandates cover domestic business-to-business sales, so an invoice to a café in another member state is generally outside them. The exception is being VAT-registered in the buyer's country: Romania's mandate, for instance, covers businesses that are not established there but are registered for VAT there.

Where Order Book fits

Order Book does not issue invoices and is not an e-invoicing provider. It does not connect to Peppol, SdI, KSeF, e-Factura or myDATA, and it never becomes the thing your tax authority is looking at. The legal invoice is issued by the roastery, in its own invoicing or accounting software, exactly as it is today — and where a country requires a structured e-invoice, that is the software that has to produce one.

What Order Book holds is the commercial record around it. The PDF you attach to an order is emailed to the café and sits on that café's order page, which is the copy the human reader opens: a structured invoice satisfies the tax authority and answers nobody's question about which bags arrived on Tuesday. Every order carries a delivery note, and orders export as a CSV for your accountant, so the month reconciles against whatever your invoicing software issued. Payments are recorded against each client with a running balance, so you can see what is still owed without opening the accounting package.

The two things worth checking while you are in there are the ones a format change tends to expose: whether your wholesale terms and conditions say anything about how invoices are delivered, and whether the way you get paid still makes sense, which is the arithmetic in what card fees cost on wholesale.

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