Belgium Mandate Grace Period Ends
Belgium’s 3-month grace period for non-compliance has officially ended.
As of 1st April, fines will apply for non-compliant invoices. The penalties are:
- 1st breach: €1,500
- 2nd breach: €3,000
- 3rd and subsequent breaches: €5,000
Belgium went live with its Peppol-based B2B e-invoicing 4 corner mandate on 1st January 2026. The 5th e-reporting corner comes in 2028.
The grace period provided a “soft landing” rather than a deferral, allowing businesses that weren’t fully ready, but could demonstrate genuine efforts to comply, to avoid penalties.
This changed as of the 1st April. This means:
- Belgian VAT-registered businesses must be registered on Peppol
- Invoices must be issued as structured XML (Peppol BIS 3.0 / UBL 2.1)
- Peppol is the default network, unless businesses use alternative transmission channels (like EDI). These legacy connections must comply with the European Norm and exist under bi-lateral agreements between Service Providers
- Every in-scope business must be Peppol-capable
Ramp-up has been rapid, with 93.3% of Belgian companies (1,1200,000 out of 1.2 million businesses) now connected to Peppol*.
Belgium helped SMEs adopt e-invoicing through a 120% tax deduction on implementation costs.
* https://lnkd.in/eHn6pUt5