If you invoice other businesses in Belgium, the way you send invoices has changed. Since January 2026, structured electronic invoicing between Belgian VAT-registered companies is mandatory, and it runs over a network called Peppol. Here is the plain version of what that means.
A PDF is not an e-invoice
A PDF sent by email is just a picture of an invoice. A real electronic invoice is structured data (the amounts, taxes and lines in a standard format) that the receiver's software can read and book automatically, with no retyping. That structured format is what the law now expects.
What Peppol is
Peppol is a secure international network for exchanging these structured documents. You send from your software to your access point, it travels over Peppol, and it arrives directly in your customer's accounting system. Think of it as registered mail for invoices, standardised across Europe rather than reinvented per country.
What it means for you
You no longer email invoice PDFs to other businesses. You send and receive structured invoices through software connected to Peppol. The upside is real: faster payment, fewer errors, no manual encoding, and an audit trail by default.
Who this applies to
The obligation covers business-to-business invoices between VAT-registered companies in Belgium. It does not change how you invoice private consumers: paper or PDF invoices to individuals stay exactly as they are. If your business only ever invoices consumers you are not directly affected by this requirement, but most B2B companies are, sooner or later, on either side of the transaction.
How we help
Odoo supports Peppol e-invoicing natively, and we set it up so sending and receiving compliant invoices is just part of your normal flow, with no separate portal to log into and no extra step for your team. Talk to us if you want to be sure you are ready.