Netherlands e-invoicing mandate: B2B e-invoicing from 1 July 2030, digital reporting from 1 July 2031

What has the Dutch cabinet decided on B2B e-invoicing and digital reporting?

On 11 September 2026 the Dutch cabinet set out its decisions on electronic invoicing and digital reporting in a letter to the House of Representatives from the State Secretary for Finance, Eelco Eerenberg. The Netherlands will apply the EU’s ViDA e-invoicing and reporting obligations, which cover cross-border trade from 1 July 2030, to domestic B2B transactions as well.

The cabinet gives three reasons: strengthening the digital economy, reducing administrative burdens and better enforcement by the Belastingdienst. It describes domestic reporting as necessary to combat carousel fraud, which the letter says materialises in the domestic links of a chain after a cross-border transaction, and notes that France, Belgium, Germany, Poland and Italy are choosing reporting obligations of their own.

When does e-invoicing become mandatory in the Netherlands, and when does digital reporting start?

E-invoicing becomes mandatory on 1 July 2030 for domestic and intra-community B2B transactions. Digital reporting of intra-community transactions, including acquisitions, starts on the same date. Digital reporting of domestic transactions starts a year later, on 1 July 2031.

The cross-border obligations come from the ViDA directive and apply across the EU. The domestic ones are the Dutch choice. The directive also allows member states to leave intra-community acquisitions, the goods and services a Dutch business buys from suppliers in other member states, out of digital reporting; the Netherlands will include them.

What changes for invoices and VAT reporting under the Dutch mandate?

Electronic invoices become compulsory for B2B transactions, in the EN 16931 format, the European standard for electronic invoices. For cross-border transactions the letter also records that the period for issuing an invoice is shortened to 10 days after the goods are delivered or the service is performed.

Reporting moves from periodic totals to individual invoices. Today, businesses report certain cross-border transactions as aggregated totals per month or quarter. Under the new rules, invoice data is reported to the Belastingdienst at the moment the invoice is issued, which the letter calls near to realtime, one report per invoice. For domestic transactions, a selection of data fields from each e-invoice sent is reported, kept to the same limited set the European Commission has established for intra-community transactions.

Who is in scope of the Netherlands e-invoicing mandate, and who is exempt?

All businesses must send electronic invoices for B2B transactions from 1 July 2030. Two qualifications sit alongside that.

Businesses on the Dutch small business scheme, the kleineondernemersregeling or KOR, are outside the domestic obligations. The scheme applies up to an annual turnover of EUR 20,000. These businesses do not have to issue e-invoices or report digitally, and need only be able to receive an e-invoice from other businesses. Digital reporting for intra-community acquisitions can still apply. The annex notes that several hundred thousand businesses use the scheme, and that it is being evaluated, including whether the limit should be raised.

Businesses on the cash accounting scheme, the kasstelsel, are in scope. They account for VAT when they are paid rather than when they invoice, and the scheme applies to shopkeepers, hairdressers and hospitality businesses among others. The cabinet decided against creating a new exception for them, noting that they already have to issue invoices to other businesses.

Existing exceptions to the invoicing rules are kept, at least initially: businesses making only exempt supplies, such as schools and hospitals; the special invoicing rules for resellers, travel agents, excise goods and mineral oils, and public transport; the special rules for retailers and magazine publishers; the simplified invoice; and the absence of an invoicing obligation for internal supplies and supplies made free of charge. No separate threshold for micro-enterprises will be introduced.

Will the Netherlands require Peppol for B2B e-invoicing?

That has not been decided. Prescribing the Peppol network between businesses was the recommendation put to the ministries, and the letter records it, but states that the infrastructure for exchanging electronic invoices is not yet ready for decision-making and will be researched further in the period up to October 2026.

The letter notes that Peppol is already used compulsorily in the Netherlands for, mainly, invoicing from businesses to central government, and that the European Business Wallet is under development and is to be taken into account in the decision. The European Commission proposed a regulation establishing European Business Wallets in November 2025, as a harmonised way for companies and public bodies to identify themselves and exchange data across the EU; the Commission states that companies will not be obliged to use one.

Five core principles are to be worked out: interoperability, the relationship between e-invoicing and digital reporting, safe and reliable data exchange, competition, and safeguarding supervision and enforcement. The letter also gives the risk of prescribing nothing: e-invoices that are not interoperable, so that a business with one accounting system cannot send its e-invoice directly to a business with another, and less government grip on security.

What happens next, and when?

Three dated steps follow the letter. An internet consultation on a draft bill is intended to start this autumn. The bill is intended to be submitted to the House of Representatives before the summer recess of 2027. The aim is then to complete the parliamentary process before 1 July 2028, two years before entry into force, to allow careful preparation, including a test phase, for businesses and for the Belastingdienst.

Before that, two pieces of work report in October 2026: the research on the exchange infrastructure, and a separate study into administrative burdens for different groups of businesses. An SME test and a business effects test follow, and the draft bill goes to the Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens, the Dutch data protection authority, for advice. The House of Representatives has placed the letter with its Permanent Committee on Finance.

What will the Belastingdienst do with the reported data?

The letter names four purposes: service to businesses, by signalling errors such as an incorrect VAT rate before the VAT return is filed; possibly showing data already reported as supporting information when returns are completed; supervision, by checking the accuracy and completeness of returns; and investigation, in combating fraud and money laundering.

The cabinet intends a national retention period of ten years for the reported data, in line with the period for the EU’s VAT information exchange system, VIES. The reported dataset is limited to the subset used at European level, which has been approved by the European data protection supervisor. A Data Protection Impact Assessment will be carried out, and the cabinet states it will adjust the bill if the Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens finds it does not meet the tests of suitability, subsidiarity, proportionality and legal certainty.

What is settled, and what is still open?

Settled: the two obligations and their dates, EN 16931 as the only invoice standard, no separate threshold for micro-enterprises, the KOR exemption and the retained invoicing exceptions. Open: the network that will carry the invoices, how e-invoicing and digital reporting fit together, and the administrative burden the two will create.

Until the new obligations start, the annex notes that the Dutch VAT Act already allows businesses to invoice each other electronically by mutual agreement. Our Netherlands e-invoicing guide covers the public sector rules and the formats in use today.