Belgian e-invoicing mandate

Not all digital invoices are e-invoices. A genuine e-invoice is an invoice that is issued, received and processed electronically. It is digital from its creation in the financial system by the issuer until it is received, processed and archived by the recipient. Learn more in our blog.

Companies having business partners in the public sector in Belgium should prepare to enable e-invoicing and e-reporting capability as soon as possible since it will be mandatory for all businesses by November 2023. Furthermore, an intention to mandate the B2B sector is currently being discussed and is highly anticipated on the market.

Currently, the obligation to issue e-invoices to public bodies only applies at the regional government level, including Flanders and the Brussels-Capital Region. The new mandate will be introduced countrywide and will be implemented in a phased approach, with e-invoicing required based on the value of the individual government contracts. For more information, please see the timeline above.

Mercurius is the platform used by government entities in Belgium to receive and process invoices. Hermes is a temporary platform that enables B2B e-invoices to be converted into PDF. Both are connected to Peppol, to enable exchange of e-invoices between governmental and private trading partners in Belgium. With both platforms, the e-invoices and credit notes must be in the Peppol BIS 3.0 format and exchanged via the Peppol Network.

An Invoice Response Message provides businesses level responses. Essentially, it is issued by the recipient of an invoice (or buyer) to the sender of the invoice (or supplier/seller) to notify whether the recipient accepts or rejects the invoice from a business point of view. If the invoice is rejected, the response will include the reason for the rejection.