Regulatory updates - Belgium

The list of compliant service providers aims to assist Belgian organizations in searching for solutions, helping them to adhere to the upcoming obligation.

The approval of Pagero on the list recognizes adherence to legislative standards and requirements.

Read more about the recognition here.

The Belgian Ministry of Finance’s dedicated page clarifies the scope of the taxpayers required to comply, while also clarifying technological aspects that will impact how the invoices are transmitted and received.

The Peppol Framework is the preferred technology for facilitating the issuance and reception of invoices. They further notify taxpayers that if they wish to comply with the use of Peppol they must acquire a certified service provider.

Furthermore, understanding the costs that taxpayers will incur by adjusting their processes to comply with the new requirements, the Belgian Ministry has offered the following tax incentives:

• From 1 January 2025, a 20% increase in the investment deduction for digital investments; and
• In taxable periods from 2024 to 2027, SMEs and entrepreneurs using subscriptions may apply cost deductions of 120% for invoicing-related technology and packages.

To further assist taxpayers with any questions, an FAQ page regarding e-invoicing has also been published and promoted.

Belgium has received Parliamentary approval to implement obligatory electronic invoicing on a national level. The approved bill amends the long-standing Value-Added Tax Code and Income Tax Code of 1992 and introduces the new e-invoicing requirements.

As electronic invoicing has long been obligatory in the public sector, taxpayers in the private sector should now prepare to issue and receive e-invoices beginning 1 January 2026. To extend these requirements to businesses, Belgium plans to continue using the Peppol framework as it does in the public sector.

The draft bill and the choice of continued use of the Peppol framework effectively display Belgium’s announced intention to align the new obligations and requirements with those expressed in the ViDA proposal.

The draft law has now passed another hurdle of the legislative process and all that remains is a final approval from the Belgian Chamber of Representatives and receive derogation from the European Commission to introduce B2B e-invoicing from 1 January 2026. Belgium applied for derogation back in October last year and is pending a decision.

Most taxpayers registered for VAT in Belgium will be in the scope of the mandate with few exceptions. The following taxpayers are not in the scope of the mandate:

• Taxpayers under the special flat rate regime;
• bankrupt taxpayers;
• and those who exclusively carry out VAT-exempt transactions.

Taxable persons registered for Belgian VAT but who are not established in Belgium must also be able to receive structured e-invoices from their Belgian suppliers in those transactions they are required to communicate their Belgian VAT number to their supplier.

Peppol, which is already used for B2G transactions, is the mandated e-invoicing framework for the B2B mandate. The draft law also outlines supporting tax measures to support taxpayers with the transition.

As previously reported by Pagero, Belgium is introducing legislation that will make e-invoicing in the business sector mandatory starting 1 January 2026.

The current proposal has now been approved by the Council of Ministers. The next steps of the draft law are to be signed by the King and then submitted to the House of Representatives.

Stay tuned with Pagero for the latest news about e-invoicing developments in Belgium.

The Belgian Council of Ministers has released new timelines for implementing countrywide e-invoicing obligation. The previous timelines, set to begin in July 2024, are no longer valid.

Timeline

The updated timelines are set to begin in January 2026 without a gradual roll-out. This means that when the mandate comes into force, all affected taxpayers will have to issue, exchange and receive invoices electronically.

Model

Initially, Belgium will only implement the Interoperability model, meaning that while all invoices must be exchanged electronically, there will be no real-time communication with the tax administration (DRR). Eventually, we foresee the model being upgraded to the Decentralized CTC and Exchange model (DCTCE) with the central platform collecting invoice data subsets according to ViDA specifications.

Technical framework

Belgium plans to make the Peppol framework, which is widely used for B2G e-invoicing, the default standard that all taxpayers must support. Upon mutual agreement, the parties can agree on other framework(s) or standard(s), provided compliance with the European Norm.

To facilitate the transition, Belgium offers all businesses e-invoice reception capabilities via a solution called “Hermes”. This is a basic solution that can receive Peppol BIS invoices over the Peppol Network and convert these into PDF distributed further to the business by e-mail. Besides being very basic, Hermes will be discontinued in few years. All businesses are therefore encouraged to start looking for a preferred service provider (to issue and exchange e-invoices) today.

On 2 June 2023, the Council of Ministers approved a draft Royal Decree that considers changes to the period of entry into force for mandatory e-invoicing in public procurement contracts.

The period of the entry into force of the obligation for economic operators to send their invoices electronically under public procurement contracts with an estimated value of less than 30,000 EUR and more than 3,000 EUR is extended from 18 to 22 months. As per this extension, the e-Invoice mandate will enter into force from 1 March 2024.

The Federal contracting authorities will also impose an e-invoicing mandate for transactions less than 3,000 EUR from 1 March 2024.

The approved draft of the Royal Decree will be submitted to the Council of State for consideration.

The reforms, with the many objectives to address regarding the Belgian economy, make clear that the Ministry of Finance wishes to implement a countrywide obligation for electronic invoicing and reporting invoice data in a phased approach. To our knowledge and looking toward the future, this would be the approach:

• July 2024: every taxpayer needs to be able to receive an e-invoice;
• July 2024: issuance of e-invoices for large taxpayers;
• January 2025: issuance of e-invoices for medium-sized taxpayers;
• July 2025: issuance of e-invoices for the rest of the taxpayers.

This initial assessment may be subject to change, but the sentiment remains that Belgium intends to widen the obligation of e-invoicing in the jurisdiction. Furthermore, it is still presumed that the new requirements will be based on the Peppol standard, which Belgian government officials highly endorse.

Stay tuned with Pagero to follow the further upcoming developments in the country.

The Royal Decree of 9 March 2022 establishes new requirements for e-invoicing in Belgium in the public sector. E-invoicing obligations were previously introduced in the Flemish and Brussels regions in 2017 and 2020, respectively; as well, the Walloon region announced a preference for e-invoicing. The new legislation expands the scope of existing e-invoicing requirements nationwide.

The approach to implementing the new requirements will be based on the following contract values:

• November 2022: Public contracts and concessions with a minimum estimated value of EUR 215 000
• May 2023: Public contracts and concessions with a minimum estimated value of EUR 30 000
• November 2023: Public contracts and concessions with an estimated value of EUR 30 000 or below

Contract values below EUR 3000 are exempt from the e-invoicing obligation.

Read the full announcement from the Belgian government here.

In this way, the government, among others, aims to reduce the VAT gap, which in 2018 was about 10,4% or 3.6 billion euros.

No exact timelines nor specifications have been announced by Mr Van Peteghem. One can, however, anticipate that the new requirements will base upon the Peppol standard, which has been earlier endorsed by the government officials on multiple occasions, including by the Prime Minister of Belgium, Mr De Croo.

This step taken by the Belgian government should not come as a surprise. As Pagero has previously reported, now all B2G e-invoicing in Belgium must be done via the Peppol Network, and all taxpayers in the country have been registered onto the Hermes platform.

Stay tuned with Pagero to know the further upcoming developments in the country.