E-invoicing via PEPPOL will become mandatory in Belgium in a B2B context from 2026. It is already mandatory for invoicing to the government today. Be prepared and don't wait until 2026 and start sending and receiving e-invoices via PEPPOL today.
What is PEPPOL?
Peppol is a network for exchanging documents in structured electronic format over a secure network.
To exchange documents, senders and recipients must be connected to a Peppol Access Point, such as DigiConnect.
Messages can then be exchanged with other companies that are connected to any Access Point.
Companies on the Peppol network receive a unique identification number with which they can find each other via a central address book.
Compare it with a mobile phone network. If you subscribe to Orange you get a unique mobile phone number and you can call anyone who is affiliated with any provider. Not only to Orange, but also to others who have a subscription with Proximus, BASE,...
Structured format
Messages exchanged via Peppol must meet certain standards, using UBL. To send, you must therefore be able to create an invoice in UBL format. Most accounting packages can export invoices to UBL/XML format, after which you can upload them in bulk on DigiConnect. However, if you do not (yet) have an accounting package that can generate invoices in UBL format. No problem. Via DigiConnect you can create an invoice using simple input fields on the screen, which is then drawn up in UBL format and sent via Peppol.
Receiving e-invoices
You can view and download the e-invoices that are sent to your company via Peppol on DigiConnect or export them to your accounting or ERP package. However, UBL is a technical format that is readable by a computer, but not easy to read by humans. That is why DigiConnect creates a "Human Readable PDF" version for every UBL file received. You can then use the UBL invoice to automatically enter the invoice in your accounting package and use the Human readable PDF during the approval process. Or if you do not (yet) have an accounting package that can automatically import UBL invoices, you can use the Human Readable PDF to manually enter the invoice. You can then at least receive e-invoices via Peppol and thus meet the upcoming obligations.