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Spotlight PEPPOL BIS Billing 3.0 The EU e-invoicing mandate is here — France Sept 2026, Belgium Jan 2026, Germany 2025.

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Standards

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The Netherlands, global PEPPOL pioneer

If PEPPOL exists today as a worldwide e-invoicing infrastructure, it is largely thanks to the Netherlands. From the Simplerinvoicing initiative in 2009 — which invented the 4-corner model — to the transfer of the OpenPEPPOL Authority to The Hague in 2024, the country has championed this standard more than any other Union member.

Simplerinvoicing 2009-2012 — the 4-corner genesis

Before Simplerinvoicing, European e-invoicing essentially relied on bilateral agreements and VANs (Value-Added Networks). Dutch authorities concluded in 2008 that the absence of interoperable infrastructure was the main brake on widespread adoption. The Simplerinvoicing project — launched in 2009 by the Ministerie van Economische Zaken, in partnership with ECP.nl (Platform voor de Informatiesamenleving), GS1 Nederland and Logius — laid the conceptual foundations of what would become PEPPOL.

Key innovations introduced by Simplerinvoicing:

  • The 4-corner model (4-CM): strict separation of Sender / AP-Sender / AP-Receiver / Receiver roles. Each Access Point only needs to know its immediate neighbours, not the entire network.
  • The Service Metadata Publisher (SMP): a decentralised registry enabling the AP-Sender to discover, via DNS-NAPTR lookup, the AP-Receiver's SMP.
  • Identification via ISO 6523 scheme + value: 0106 for KvK NL, 0088 for GLN, 9914 for AT VAT, etc.
  • AS2 then AS4 transport with XAdES signature, MDN/MLS acknowledgements.

Open source was at the heart of the project: all reference implementations (in Java, .NET and Python) were published under Apache 2.0 on the national forge github.com/SimplerInvoicing. These libraries became, after OpenPEPPOL AISBL launched in 2014, the foundation of the PEPPOL reference components (peppol-commons, phoss-smp, etc.).

text peppol-4-corner-model.txt 
┌─────────────┐                                  ┌─────────────┐
   │             │                                  │             │
   │   SENDER    │                                  │   RECEIVER  │
   │   (ERP NL)  │                                  │   (ERP DE)  │
   └──────┬──────┘                                  └──────▲──────┘
          │                                                │
          │ 1) UBL 2.1                              4) UBL │
          ▼                                                │
   ┌─────────────┐    2) AS4/PEPPOL    ┌─────────────┐    │
   │  Corner 1   │ ───────────────────>│  Corner 4   │────┘
   │   AP (NL)   │                     │   AP (DE)   │
   │   SMP sign  │ <─── 3) MDN ─────── │   receive   │
   └──────┬──────┘                     └──────▲──────┘
          │                                   │
          │     ┌──────────────────┐          │
          └────>│ SMP / SML PEPPOL │<─────────┘
                │ (lookup AP-DE    │
                │   for DE-VAT)    │
                └──────────────────┘

   Simplerinvoicing 2009-2012 invented this model.
   OpenPEPPOL standardised it in 2014.
   Today: 78 OpenPEPPOL Authorities worldwide.
text peppol-nl-timeline.txt 
2008-2009  | European Commission launches the PEPPOL tender (Pan-European Public
           | Procurement Online), CIP-ICT-PSP-2007-1.
           |
2009-2012  | Simplerinvoicing — initiative led by Ministerie van Economische Zaken
           | (NL) + ECP.nl + GS1 NL + Logius. Designs the 4-corner model
           | (Sender → AP1 → AP2 → Receiver). Open-source reference
           | implementations released.
           |
2014       | Logius (DDI agency of Ministerie BZK) becomes officially the
           | national PEPPOL operator. First production AP run by Logius in
           | the Apeldoorn datacenter.
           |
2014       | OpenPEPPOL AISBL association founded in Brussels. NL is a co-founder
           | (DG Forum + DG SMP + DG ML) with FR, DE, BE, NO, SE, DK.
           |
2017       | 18 April 2017 — Implementing Regulation (EU) 2017/1870 transposed.
           | NL activates central B2G mandate (Aanbestedingswet 2012 art. 4.21).
           |
2018-2020  | Migration Simplerinvoicing → PEPPOL BIS Billing 3.0 (EN 16931
           | alignment). Logius retires the older national specifications.
           |
2022-2023  | B2G volume ~99% goes through PEPPOL. NL becomes the world reference.
           |
1 Jan 2024 | OpenPEPPOL Authority moves its secretariat from Brussels to
           | The Hague. Hosted by Ministerie van Economische Zaken (EZK).
           | Dutch executive direction. 4 employees + 12 national mandates.
           |
2025-2028  | ViDA — anticipating intra-EU e-reporting via PEPPOL. NL technically
           | ready, awaiting finalisation of the Council Implementing
           | Regulation for domestic articulation.

Logius PEPPOL operator since 2014

When the OpenPEPPOL AISBL association was founded in Brussels in September 2012, the Netherlands was one of the three founding countries (with Norway and Italy). In 2014, Logius — digital agency of the Ministerie van Binnenlandse Zaken en Koninkrijksrelaties (BZK) — was officially designated as the national PEPPOL Authority and operator of SML-NL.

This role covers three missions:

  • Service Metadata Locator NL: Logius operates its own SMP smp.peppol.logius.nl which references all Dutch public recipients (central government, sub-central, semi-public).
  • Access Point accreditation: any commercial AP wishing to serve a Dutch public recipient must obtain Logius accreditation (~40 accredited APs in 2026).
  • National CIUS maintenance: Logius co-leads with OpenPEPPOL the maintenance of Simplerinvoicing CIUS NL (see dedicated page).

~99% of B2G via PEPPOL

Per the 2024 Logius annual report, ~99% of B2G invoices exchanged with central Dutch government go through the PEPPOL network. The remaining ~1% are marginal edge cases: invoices below 5 000 € (universal B2G threshold), inter-agency internal invoices exchanged in proprietary CSV, or exceptional cases (COVID 2020-2021 emergencies, e.g.).

OpenPEPPOL Authority in The Hague since 2024

On 1 January 2024, the OpenPEPPOL AISBL secretariat officially relocated from Brussels (Rue Belliard) to The Hague, in the offices of the Ministerie van Economische Zaken. This decision, voted by the OpenPEPPOL General Assembly in June 2023 (34 in favour, 7 abstentions), acknowledges:

  • The historical role of the Netherlands in the standard's genesis.
  • Logius's operational expertise (already hosting since 2018 the production servers of the PEPPOL EU SML).
  • The need for stable governmental oversight after several Belgian collaborators departed in 2022-2023.

Composition of the OpenPEPPOL secretariat in The Hague (May 2026):

  • 1 Managing Director (Dutch)
  • 1 Standards Coordinator
  • 1 Compliance & Membership Officer
  • 1 Communications & Events Manager
  • +12 national mandates represented (PEPPOL Authorities)

NL governance within OpenPEPPOL

The Netherlands is historically over-represented in OpenPEPPOL governance, reflecting its operational weight:

  • DG Forum (Domain Working Group): NL co-chair for Billing & Procurement BIS.
  • DG SMP / SML: Logius operates production components as a tier-1 service provider.
  • DG eDelivery: NL actively contributes to the AS4 PEPPOL profile (alongside the Belgians and Finns).
  • Compliance Working Group: Logius leads conformance testing for new commercial APs.

Voluntary B2B usage (35% of large enterprises)

Unlike France or Germany, the Netherlands has no domestic B2B mandate yet as of 2026. The Belastingdienst (tax administration) is waiting for ViDA implementation to articulate its own scheme. Despite this, voluntary B2B usage is widespread:

  • TNO / Logius 2024 study: 35% of companies > 250 employees already use PEPPOL for their outbound B2B invoices.
  • Leading sectors: business services (62%), transport and logistics (58%), construction (51%), healthcare (47%).
  • Lagging sectors: agriculture (12%), independent retail (18%), personal services (15%).
  • Main driver: zero per-invoice cost once AP is set up (vs. 0.25-0.80 € per paper invoice or traditional EDI).

This voluntary adoption creates a paradoxical situation: the Netherlands has less need for a B2B mandate than other countries, since the standard is already massively present without legal constraint.