Netherlands: Formats and rules

When does the obligation apply?

Country information
Scope	From	Status
Public clients	1 Jan 2019	in forceCentral government via Peppol
Companies (B2B)	—	no obligation

Mandatory: Peppol BIS for the central government since 2019.

No mandate; Peppol is the de facto standard, NLCIUS as the national CIUS.

Formats	Peppol BIS Billing 3.0 (UBL) · NLCIUS (UBL)
CIUS	Peppol BIS Billing 3.0
Routing identifier	Peppol ID, KVK number (schemeID 0106), OIN (0190)
Responsible body	Rijksoverheid / Logius

The NL rules from the Peppol Schematron (e.g. NL-R-003, NL-R-005) also run.

Status: 12.10.2026

When does the e-invoicing requirement apply in Netherlands?: The table above gives the dates for Netherlands: when receiving and when issuing become mandatory, for public bodies and for companies separately.
Does the requirement apply to small businesses too?: Usually yes. The obligation follows from trading between businesses, not from the size of the business. Smaller companies are often covered later, where a transition period applies — the dates above show where Netherlands stands.
Which formats are allowed in Netherlands?: The formats that satisfy EN 16931. Which ones apply in Netherlands, and which CIUS, is listed under formats and rules.
Can I check my invoice for Netherlands for free?: Yes. The validator checks free of charge and without sign-up against the rule sets that apply to Netherlands.

Free, without registration. The set of rules is selected from the specification identifier of the invoice.

Official rule sets up to date: EN 16931 1.3.17 · Peppol BIS 3.0.20 · XRechnung 3.0.2 (KoSIT 2.6.0). Last checked against the sources on 12.10.2026.