XRechnung: the German e-invoice standard, mandatory for invoicing German government bodies.
XRechnung is the German implementation (CIUS) of the European standard EN 16931 and the mandatory standard for e-invoices to German government bodies. It is the German equivalent of NLCIUS in the Netherlands.
XRechnung adds German business rules on top of Peppol BIS Billing V3. The standard is managed by KoSIT (Koordinierungsstelle für IT-Standards), a department of the German federal government.
Like NLCIUS, XRechnung is available in two syntaxes: UBL and CII. In practice, the UBL variant is the most widely used on the Peppol network.
UBL Invoice:
urn:oasis:names:specification:ubl:schema:xsd:Invoice-2::Invoice##urn:cen.eu:en16931:2017#compliant#urn:xeinkauf.de:kosit:xrechnung_3.0::2.1
An important feature of XRechnung is the Leitweg-ID, a unique identifier that indicates to which government office the invoice should be routed. The Leitweg-ID is included as BuyerReference in the invoice and is mandatory when invoicing German government bodies.
The structure is: {coarse}-{fine}-{check} (e.g. 991-12345-67). The first digits identify the federal state or government organisation, the middle group the specific office.
XRechnung has additional validation rules on top of BIS Billing V3:
eConnect fully supports XRechnung. When you send an invoice to a German receiver that expects XRechnung, the PSB automatically transforms your invoice to the correct format. Conversely, received XRechnung invoices are automatically processed and made available in the platform.
Note: since 1 January 2025, all businesses in Germany are required to be able to receive structured e-invoices. A plain PDF is no longer accepted as a valid invoice format. If you send invoices to German customers, use XRechnung or ZUGFeRD/Factur-X. eConnect automatically transforms your invoice to the correct format.
Yes. The Leitweg-ID is mandatory as BuyerReference when invoicing German government bodies. Without this identifier, the invoice will be rejected. The Leitweg-ID is provided by the government entity and identifies the specific receiving office.
Yes. When you send an invoice to a German receiver that expects XRechnung, the PSB automatically transforms your NLCIUS or BIS Billing V3 invoice to the correct XRechnung format. You do not need to create an XRechnung yourself.
Yes. Since 1 January 2025, all businesses in Germany are required to be able to receive structured e-invoices. A plain PDF is no longer accepted as a valid invoice format. XRechnung and ZUGFeRD/Factur-X are the two accepted formats.
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