Today it is fixed: The European Commission has referred the European standard for electronic invoices to contracting authorities in the Official Journal. The official text can be found under this link. Thus, the formal implementation period for the semantic data model of EN16931-1: 2017 and the corresponding syntax list CEN / TS16931-2 has begun.
On 18 April 2019, Article 11 of Directive 2014/55 / EU gets into force
What does that mean? As from 18 April 2019, all central contracting authorities covered by the Directive must be able to receive and process electronic invoices throughout the EU. Decentralized contracting authorities may be granted additional 12 months of implementation, depending on the Member State concerned.
Do I need to send electronic invoices from this date? This depends. The Directive itself initially obliges only the recipients of electronic invoices to refuse to accept them if they receive one of the two syntaxes of the syntax list and the requirements of the electronic data model have been implemented. However, some Member States, including Germany and France, have tightened their legislation. They also include the obligation to send electronic invoices.
Deviating implementation period in Germany: 27 November 2018
The Federal Government’s e-bill regulation goes a step further: It maintains the original implementation period, which was provided for in the directive. Central public contracting authorities of the federal level must be able to receive and process electronic invoices on 27 November 2018. Decentralized contracting authorities of the federal level have until 27 November 2019 to make their systems ready.
In addition, the E-Invoicing Regulation also obliges the sender to send invoices from € 1,000 electronically. However, the consignors are given another year to do so. The deadline is 27 November 2020.