The Netherlands was one of the first countries in Europe to adopt e-invoicing via Peppol on a large scale. E-invoicing to the government is mandatory, and adoption in the private sector is growing rapidly. With the introduction of ViDA (VAT in the Digital Age), the landscape will continue to evolve in the coming years.

Invoicing Dutch government organisations is mandatory as an e-invoice via the Peppol network. Government invoices are routed through Digipoort, the central hub of the Dutch national government, to the receiving government body. Each government organisation has an OIN (Organisation Identification Number) as its unique Peppol identifier.

The mandatory standard for government invoices is NLCIUS, the Dutch implementation of the European standard EN 16931. The eConnect platform automatically generates NLCIUS-compliant invoices.

In the Dutch private sector, e-invoicing via Peppol is not legally mandatory, but adoption is growing steadily. More and more businesses are switching to structured e-invoices because it is faster, cheaper and more reliable than paper or PDF invoices.

Major Dutch software vendors (AFAS, Exact, Visma and Wolters Kluwer) jointly advocated for mandatory e-invoicing based on EN 16931 and Peppol in November 2024. The Netherlands is now heading towards mandatory B2B e-invoicing: EY advised the Ministry of Finance on a timeline with a target around 2030, and a public internet consultation on the draft legislation is confirmed for Q4 2026. The market is also clearly moving towards Peppol as the de facto standard for invoice exchange.

eConnect is a co-founder of Simplerinvoicing (now the NPa, the Netherlands Peppol Authority) and plays a central role in the Dutch Peppol ecosystem:

• Approximately 30% of all Dutch organisations on Peppol are registered through eConnect
• Around 40% of all Dutch Peppol transactions pass through eConnect
• eConnect is a board member of OpenPeppol and participates in working groups
• Since June 2024, eConnect is the Access Point provider for the Dutch national government (Digipoort/Logius)

The primary invoice standard in the Netherlands is NLCIUS (Netherlands Core Invoice Usage Specification), also known as SI-UBL 2.0. NLCIUS is a CIUS (country-specific implementation) of the European standard EN 16931 and adds Dutch business rules, such as support for the G-account in the construction sector.

In addition to NLCIUS, Peppol BIS Billing V3 (the European base profile) and SETU formats (for the staffing industry) are also widely used.

Note: the predecessor SI-UBL 1.2 was definitively phased out on 1 January 2024. Invoices in this format are rejected on the Peppol network.

When invoicing government recipients, schemeID 0190 (OIN) is mandatory. The NLCIUS validation rule BR-NL-BFR-2 checks this automatically.

The European ViDA regulation (VAT in the Digital Age) makes cross-border e-invoicing mandatory from 1 July 2030. For the Netherlands, this means:

• With every cross-border invoice, a summary (DRR) is automatically sent to the Tax Authority
• The current EC Sales List will be replaced by this real-time reporting
• Software that wants to be ViDA-compliant must be able to generate structured e-invoices based on EN 16931

Peppol thus becomes indirectly essential: it is the most efficient channel to comply with the ViDA reporting obligation. eConnect is ViDA-ready and offers to handle DRR reporting automatically alongside regular e-invoice transmission.

In January 2026, EY published a comprehensive report on ViDA implementation in the Netherlands, commissioned by the Ministry of Finance. The report recommends Peppol as mandatory infrastructure and proposes a timeline with mandatory B2B e-invoicing from 1 January 2030. The public consultation on the draft legislation is confirmed for Q4 2026.

Read the full analysis of the EY report

As the Dutch market leader in Peppol, eConnect offers everything you need:

• Automatic standard compliance: the platform generates NLCIUS-compliant invoices without you having to configure anything
• Digipoort routing: invoices to the government are automatically delivered via Digipoort
• ViDA-ready: as soon as the DRR obligation takes effect, the PSB handles the reporting automatically
• Free online validator: check your XML invoices against the current NLCIUS standard

Want to get started with e-invoicing via Peppol? Create an account and send your first invoice.

• Invoicing the Dutch government (OIN)
• What is Peppol and how does the network work?
• NLCIUS: the Dutch e-invoice standard
• ViDA: VAT in the Digital Age
• EY report ViDA: the Netherlands heads towards mandatory e-invoicing