Stop Staring at the Patch of Blue Sky: The Future of E-Invoicing

When I was young, I spent many holidays hiking through the Swiss Alps with my family. Even in August, there was a chance of heavy rain, hail and even snow at higher altitudes. As we often hiked from hotel to mountain cabin to hotel, skipping a day was not an option.  

I remember how, after days of heavy rain, my mum would very enthusiastically point out a small patch of blue sky, hoping it would be a sign of better weather to come.

Today, I see a clear parallel with the future of e-invoicing compliance.  

Every new country mandate is a rainy hike that cannot be skipped. And everybody is looking up for a sign that things will get better. For many, VAT in the Digital Age (ViDA) is the patch of blue sky: a sign that e-invoicing will become harmonized and easier to manage.  

But anyone who has spent time in the mountains knows that one patch of blue tells you very little. What matters is the weather system behind it.  

ViDA won't make e-invoicing easy. It will make it normal.

And "normal" has a precise meaning.

Under ViDA, structured electronic invoicing will become central to intra-EU B2B transactions from July 2030. An e-invoice isn't simply a PDF sent by email. It's structured data that systems can process automatically, with the European standard EN 16931 at its core: a common set of business terms expressed in formats such as UBL or CII. And that core is getting stronger.

The original EN 16931 was developed for invoicing public authorities. Countries that extended it into B2B transactions filled the gaps with their own requirements and extensions. The 2026 revision, bound to UBL 2.5, brings more of that B2B reality into the core. Spain illustrates both sides. Its new specification is built on the 2026 core and UBL 2.5 from day one, which is good news. But it still adds 29 Spanish business terms on top. The need, or the wish, for national flavour hasn't gone away.  

Same core, different weather. Even when countries share the EN 16931 core, their models diverge. Spain is developing a hybrid approach: businesses exchange invoices through private platforms, while invoice information is also made available through the tax authority's public solution. Slovakia builds on Peppol with a five-corner model, adding the tax authority as the fifth corner. Germany regulates no transmission layer at all: any EN 16931-compliant invoice, in UBL or CII, by any route. Three mandates, one semantic heart, three different architectures to connect to.

The future of e-invoicing goes beyond VAT compliance

The electronic invoice is outgrowing itself.

There are clear signs that the e-invoice will play a much deeper role.  

Once structured data flows from ERP to ERP, and from ERP to the tax authority, it is too valuable to carry VAT alone.

Consider where things are heading:

• E-procurement. UBL 2.5 adds delivery notes, invoice and procurement status messages and work reports. The 2026 EN 16931 can reference delivery notes at line level. The invoice becomes one step in a connected order-to-pay flow, not a standalone document.

• Freight transport information. Under the eFTI Regulation, authorities will have to accept transport information electronically from certified platforms. UBL 2.5 adds documents for waste movement and waste notification.

• ESG. UBL 2.5 introduces structures for emissions, energy consumption, circularity profiles, and environmental certificates on the item. Add the Digital Product Passport, and the invoice line starts to look like a carrier of sustainability data.

• Payments. ViDA adds bank details to the reported data, and UBL 2.5 adds payment status and payment rail references. Spain already requires buyers to report payment and rejection of each invoice.

The question is no longer just what an invoice must contain for VAT.  

It is what else it will be asked to carry.

What does this mean for your e-invoicing strategy?

For companies, it comes down to this: transaction data is becoming increasingly visible.

The systems that hold your transactions (ERP, billing, procurement, logistics, treasury and payments) need to be built so that their data can be extracted easily and understood by someone else.  

Not a field called "REF2" that only your finance team can interpret, but data mapped to a shared meaning, with EN 16931 as the starting point.

They also need data governance that assumes you are being watched constantly. When invoice data reaches the tax authority as the invoice is issued, and buyers report rejection and payment, there is no quiet period to tidy things up before the VAT return. Master data errors and incorrect VAT code can become visible much earlier than they would under traditional reporting processes. Compliance stops being just a monthly event. It becomes a property of your data.

And this is why I believe businesses need to look beyond individual country mandates when planning their e-invoicing strategy. It’s not just about being ready for the next deadline. It’s about building a foundation that can support what comes afterwards.  

In my previous article, Why It May Be Time to Revisit Your E-Invoicing Strategy, I explored why companies should take another look at their current approach. The growing role of structured transaction data makes that question even more relevant.

Back on the mountain: Preparing for what’s next

Some of the toughest days in the Alps were not the ones with hail or snow.  

They were the days we climbed 1,500 meters through dense forest with heavy backpacks, without really knowing how far we’d come or how long it would take to reach the rolling alpine pastures above the treeline.

That is where we are with e-invoicing.  

We’ve started the climb.  

ViDA makes e-invoicing normal. The core is getting stronger, national models remain varied, and the invoice is starting to carry far more than VAT. There are no signs that things will get easier soon, and there’s still no clear view of the top.

So, stop looking up for the patch of blue sky. Look at the path in front of you and take the next step: one country, one data stream, one improvement at a time, on a foundation that can carry whatever comes next.

The treeline is out there. We just can't see it yet.

Join the discussion at Coffee with Loek

Where are you on the climb?

Join me at the next Coffee with Loek and tell me where you are on your e-invoicing journey. Let’s discuss the challenges ahead and how businesses can prepare for whatever comes next.

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