If you do business with the Dutch government you might already be required to use e-invoicing.
Discover below what the options are for sending e-invoices and get started in a few easy steps.
At the moment, public and contracting authorities must be able to receive e-invoices. Sending is not mandatory yet, except if this was specified in a tender between the two parties.
There is no obligation yet for business-to-business. It is, however, very likely that this will change in the near future.
The European Commission is stimulating Peppol as a unified European Norm for e-invoicing. The Netherlands has already introduced measures to support e-orders and status messages in Peppol which means it is likely that they will continue to do so.
There are several ways to send an e-invoice to the Dutch government or to a private company. Choose your option below.
There are 3 options to legally send e-invoices to the Dutch government:
Simplerinvoicing was the previous network of e-invoicing suppliers and software providers initiated by the Dutch government. It has been discontinued and replaced by Peppol since 2020.
The safety and reliability of Peppol service providers is being maintained by the independent institution the Nederlandse Peppolautoriteit (NPa). Discover all service providers who have been certified by the NPa.
Electronic invoicing is not yet mandatory for B2B in the Netherlands. It is, however, very likely that e-invoicing will be required for all Dutch companies in the near future.
There are already a lot of benefits to switchting to e-invoicing right now. It is safer, faster and cheaper than paper invoices.
If you want to send invoices to a company in the Netherlands, you can use Peppol. It works for any type of business, from freelancers to large multinationals. It only takes a few minutes to register on a certified Peppol Access point and send your first e-invoice.
If you want to send invoices via Peppol you only have to register on an official Peppol Access Point.
Follow the steps below to register on the Billit Access Point and send your first invoice.
Peppol is a secure and closed network with many advantages:
The identity of everyone affiliated with the network is verified, so you can be sure that the invoices you receive are genuine, and you avoid invoice fraud.
The invoices you send through the network are completely digital, so you can process them automatically in your invoicing software.
E-invoices in the UBL standard are automatically read correctly. This prevents human error during processing.
Linking to your bank account means that outgoing and incoming invoices are automatically matched and you get a better overview of your company's financial situation.
Peppol is fast: your recipient will receive your invoice within 10 minutes of sending it. Combined with automatic processing, this will save a lot of time.
Peppol is an open network for securely sending and receiving business documents such as invoices. It is designed to simplify the purchase-to-pay process between governments and suppliers. Peppol was developed by the European commission but is on its way to become a global standard.
There are many kinds of identifiers for sending invoices via Peppol. Find out the difference between each option below.
| Type | Description | Example |
|---|---|---|
| KVK number | An 8-digit enterprise number for companies. It works as a unique ID and allows other entrepreneurs to safely look up information about companies they do business with. You are required to mention this ID on your invoices. | 12345678 |
| VAT (indentification) number or VAT-id number | A unique identification number for entrepreneurs liable to VAT. It should be included on each invoice to customers. A Dutch VAT number starts with NL, followed by 9 digits, a B and 2 more digits. | NL123456789B01 |
| OIN number (Organisation Identification Number) | OIN is a unique identifier for public entities. Dutch companies either have a KVK or an OIN number. The number is used to identify and authorize companies. An OIN number should be included on all invoices. | 00000001822477348000 |
| GLN | Stands for Global Location Number. It is used by companies to identify their locations, such as legal entities, functions and physical or digital locations. You can request a GLN number with GS1. | 5488888010598 |
| DUNS | D-U-N-S stands for Data Universal Numbering System and is a 9-digit code to identify a company or business entity. It is a unique number worldwide. | 123456789 |
If you don't have either a VAT or KVK number you can use a GLN or DUNS number.
Every business has automatically been awarded a DUNS number. If you don't know that number for your company or your customer's, you can look it up in this database.
You can also request a GLN number with your local GS1 organization. Contact them for more info.
Your VAT number will be automatically selected as the primary identifier.
If you want to prioritize a different number such as KVK or OIN, you first have to add those numbers to your customer file.
As soon as you have more than one identifier added, you will see an extra e-invoicing tab appear in the customer file. Click it to see a list of identifiers for that customer. Select the bullet for the number you want to set as priority and confirm.
