E-invoicing in Switzerland: what applies from 2027 when you invoice Germany and the EU

No. Neither country has a general e-invoicing mandate between businesses. You can still send invoices on paper, as a PDF or as a structured e-invoice. Which form you use is something you agree with your customer.

Federal contracts are the exception. Since 1 January 2016, suppliers to the Swiss federal administration must invoice electronically once the contract value exceeds CHF 5,000. Smaller purchases may still be invoiced on paper.

Liechtenstein has no business-to-business mandate either. Public contracting authorities must accept e-invoices that comply with the European standard EN 16931 when a contract exceeds the thresholds of the Public Procurement Act. The national administration accepts XML or PDF by email. There is no central platform.

For Swiss VAT, an electronic invoice without a digital signature still entitles you to deduct input tax. You must then be able to prove its origin and integrity in other ways, for example with the delivery note, the booking and the payment.

Germany is phasing in mandatory e-invoicing between businesses in three steps.

An e-invoice is a data set, not a picture of an invoice. German law requires a structured format based on the European standard EN 16931 that can be processed automatically. A regular PDF counts as an "other invoice" there, even when it arrives by email.

The difference shows in your customer's accounting. A PDF has to be read by a person or recognised by software. An e-invoice delivers supplier, amounts, VAT and line items as fields that the ERP takes over directly.

Expect German customers to ask for structured invoices, even though the law does not oblige you. This is our assessment, not a statistic. The reason is simple: your customers are moving their accounts payable to e-invoices by 2028. Every PDF that still arrives after that means manual work for them.

Typical requests are a specific format, usually XRechnung or ZUGFeRD in the EN 16931 profile, the purchase order number in the designated field, and delivery to a fixed address or via Peppol. Your customer may make this part of the contract. You can then no longer simply send a PDF.

Other countries are following suit. In Belgium, structured e-invoices between businesses have been mandatory since 1 January 2026. In France, all businesses have had to receive e-invoices since 1 September 2026 and large companies must issue them. SMEs follow on 1 September 2027. These mandates are also aimed at businesses established in the respective country.

At EU level, the VAT in the Digital Age package was adopted in March 2025. From 1 July 2030, cross-border transactions between businesses within the EU will be subject to digital reporting based on e-invoices. In our understanding, a Swiss or Liechtenstein SME is only directly affected if it is registered for VAT in an EU member state and supplies other EU countries from there. Liechtenstein is part of the EEA, but for VAT purposes it belongs to the Swiss territory.

Start by checking what your ERP can already do. Many systems offer e-invoicing as a feature or add-on module. Microsoft documents XRechnung, ZUGFeRD and Peppol BIS 3.0 for the German version of Business Central. Abacus sends and recognises ZUGFeRD invoices through its E-Business module. For bexio and other systems, ask the vendor about the current status. Your ERP partner can tell you what your version and licence include.

If an add-on module is enough, it is a configuration task for your ERP partner, not a project.

A custom interface costs CHF 3,000 to 15,000 per connected system, depending on the system. If additional logic is needed, for example for several source systems, a single automation costs CHF 8,000 to 25,000. Read more in our guide "ERP integration: how much does it cost to connect your online shop and ERP?".

E-invoicing delivers the biggest benefit on the incoming side. When supplier invoices arrive as XRechnung or ZUGFeRD, nobody has to type in amounts any more. The data already comes as fields.

Swiss suppliers, however, often keep sending PDFs with a QR-bill, as there is no mandate here. You therefore need an intake that handles both: taking over structured data directly and reading PDFs with AI. The same steps follow:

E-invoicing is no reason to rush. These steps are usually not necessary today:

Your larger German customers must issue e-invoices themselves from January 2027 and are changing their processes. Go through these points over the coming weeks: