The Belgium Council of Ministers has accepted the proposal – draft bill of the Minister of Finance regarding the introduction of the mandate for Electronic Invoicing when it comes to domestic transactions between locally established taxpayers.
The plan for expanding the e-invoicing mandate to business-to-business transactions has already been tried before without success. Based on the present momentum, the tide has changed, and now there is a much bigger chance that the delegated authorities will implement the project.
Timeline
Based on the preliminary documentation, the e-invoicing mandate could be introduced as early as January 1, 2026.
Present situation
Belgium enacted a Royal Decree in 2022, which stipulated that the economic operators must issue e-invoices to public authorities for particular types of transactions. The implementation of this mandate has been gradual.
The Belgian authorities at this moment are favorable of the PEPPOL network and see it as highly functional, which guarantees easier interoperability than others. It’s reasonable to think that B2B transactions will primarily be exchanged through this IT environment.
The first version of the draft bill has been submitted to the reading by the Council of State, the High Council for the Self-Employed and SMEs, Agrofont, and ITAA.
In the following months, significant updates can be expected from the authorities.
Impact
An important fact to mention at this point is that the draft version of the bill doesn’t mention a phased mandate introduction.
The present plan of the Council of Ministers is to introduce the obligation of electronic invoicing and possibly accompanying e-reporting for domestic businesses all at once, not through gradual implementation.
Aleksandar Delic
1stopVAT Indirect Tax Researcher (Global Content)