E-Invoicing in Germany
Germany has one of the most active e-invoicing mandates in the EU. B2B receiving went live January 2025 — your pipeline must accept EN 16931 invoices. Sending mandates roll out in two phases: >€800K revenue from January 2027, all businesses from January 2028. B2G has required XRechnung via the ZRE portal since 2020.
Mandate Status
| Phase | Status | Scope |
|---|---|---|
| B2G | Live (Nov 2020) | All federal suppliers |
| B2B receiving | Live (Jan 2025) | All German businesses |
| B2B sending | Jan 2027 | >€800K annual revenue |
| B2B sending | Jan 2028 | All businesses |
Technical Specifications
Implementation Notes
The B2B mandate has three sharp edges that affect pipeline design.
Receiving (live now). Your system must ingest both XRechnung (UBL and CII) and ZUGFeRD 2.x. ZUGFeRD embeds XML in PDF/A-3, so your parser needs to handle both standalone XML and PDF extraction. Many ERPs only support one path — this causes silent failures in production.
Sending phase 1 (Jan 2027, >€800K). The revenue threshold applies per entity, not per group. Multi-entity customers need per-entity compliance tracking. The Wachstumschancengesetz allows EDI continuity during the transition, but only if both parties agree — don't assume EDI exemption in your pipeline logic.
Format specifics that break pipelines. XRechnung CIUS adds rules beyond base EN 16931. The most common failure: BT-10 (Buyer Reference) is mandatory for B2G but handled differently in B2B. If your template uses the same field for both, you'll get rejections on one side. BT-49 (Payment Means Code) validation is strict — the top 5 German rejection errors are all payment-related.
Common Rejection Patterns
| # | Code | Description | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | DE-R-023-2 | Conflicting payment information. When payment code 30 or 58 (credit transfer) is used, card payment (BG-18) and direct d | Fix guide |
| 2 | DE-R-024-2 | Conflicting payment information. When payment code 48, 54, or 55 (payment card) is used, credit transfer (BG-17) and dir | Fix guide |
| 3 | DE-R-025-1 | If "Payment means type code" (BT-81) contains a code for direct debit (59), "DIRECT DEBIT" (BG-19) shall be provided. | Fix guide |
| 4 | DE-R-025-2 | If "Payment means type code" (BT-81) contains a code for direct debit (59), BG-17 and BG-18 shall not be provided. | Fix guide |
| 5 | DE-R-022 | Duplicate attachment filename. All attached documents in German invoices must have unique filenames (case-insensitive) i | Fix guide |
Invoice Navigator auto-remediates these at pipeline speed. See how →
View all Germany error codesRecent Updates
Germany B2B receiving mandate now in effect
As of January 1, 2025, all German businesses must be able to receive structured e-invoices in EN 16931 format for domestic B2B transactions.
Source: German Federal Ministry of Finance (BMF)Related Resources
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