PEPPOL Directory

The PEPPOL Directory publicly lists network participants and their receiving capabilities.

Definition

The PEPPOL Directory is a public, searchable directory of the participants registered on the PEPPOL network. For each one it shows the PEPPOL identifier (for example a company number) and the document types it can receive (invoices, orders, despatch advices, etc.).

It acts as the network's white pages: before sending a document, you can check there that a recipient is registered and able to process it.

How it works

Each participant's capability information is published by its SMP (Service Metadata Publisher); the Directory aggregates part of it to offer a friendly search by name, country or identifier.

• Find a partner by name or company number.
• Check the documents and processes it supports.
• Support onboarding before a first exchange.

The fine-grained technical resolution (which Access Point, which address) is still handled by the SML / SMP pair, not by the Directory itself.

Good to know

A participant can be reachable on the network without being visible in the Directory: publication in the public directory is often optional and subject to consent. So the absence of an entity from the Directory does not necessarily mean it is unreachable.