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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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Foundations

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Standards

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Flagship messages

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Tools

XRechnung — the e-invoice of the German public sector

XRechnung is the German national profile of EN 16931 — a CIUS (Core Invoice Usage Specification). Since late 2020 it has been the mandatory format for invoicing the German federal administration. It does not define a new syntax: it is realised in CII or UBL, with extra German rules on top.

What is XRechnung?

EN 16931 fixes the common semantics of the European invoice. Each country may publish a CIUS: a restricted, clarified subset for its needs, never leaving the norm. XRechnung is the German CIUS. It restricts some fields, makes others mandatory (the Leitweg-ID in particular) and adds national BR-DE-* business rules on top of the European BR-* rules.

The Leitweg-ID: addressing the recipient

XRechnung's most visible specificity is the Leitweg-ID: a routing identifier that precisely designates the recipient public authority, carried in the BuyerReference field (BT-10). Without a valid Leitweg-ID, a B2G invoice is rejected by the receiving platforms. See the German detail: Leitweg-ID.

Two syntaxes: CII or UBL

An XRechnung invoice is either a CII XML or a UBL XML — the issuer's choice, both equally compliant. The profile is declared by the CustomizationID. Example in UBL:

xml xrechnung-ubl.xml 
<Invoice
    xmlns="urn:oasis:names:specification:ubl:schema:xsd:Invoice-2"
    xmlns:cbc="urn:oasis:names:specification:ubl:schema:xsd:CommonBasicComponents-2"
    xmlns:cac="urn:oasis:names:specification:ubl:schema:xsd:CommonAggregateComponents-2">

  <cbc:CustomizationID>urn:cen.eu:en16931:2017#compliant#urn:xoev-de:kosit:standard:xrechnung_3.0</cbc:CustomizationID>
  <cbc:ID>RE-2026-04127</cbc:ID>
  <cbc:IssueDate>2026-06-23</cbc:IssueDate>
  <cbc:InvoiceTypeCode>380</cbc:InvoiceTypeCode>
  <cbc:DocumentCurrencyCode>EUR</cbc:DocumentCurrencyCode>

  <!-- BT-10: the Leitweg-ID identifies the recipient authority -->
  <cbc:BuyerReference>04011000-1234512345-06</cbc:BuyerReference>

  <cac:AccountingSupplierParty>
    <cac:Party><cac:PartyName><cbc:Name>Digitalwerkstatt GmbH</cbc:Name></cac:PartyName></cac:Party>
  </cac:AccountingSupplierParty>
  <cac:AccountingCustomerParty>
    <cac:Party><cac:PartyName><cbc:Name>Bundesamt für Beschaffung</cbc:Name></cac:PartyName></cac:Party>
  </cac:AccountingCustomerParty>
</Invoice>

Validation: BR-DE rules and the KoSIT validator

Conformance is checked in two layers: the EN 16931 rules (BR-*) common to Europe, then the national BR-DE-* rules specific to XRechnung, all expressed in Schematron. KoSIT publishes a reference validator (scenarios + rule sets) that platforms embed.

Transmission: ZRE, OZG-RE, PEPPOL

  • ZRE — the central invoice-reception platform of the federal government.
  • OZG-RE — the reception platform under the OZG act (other federal bodies).
  • PEPPOL — an accepted delivery channel, XRechnung travelling as a PEPPOL BIS document.

XRechnung vs ZUGFeRD

  • XRechnung: pure XML (CII or UBL), built for automated B2G processing.
  • ZUGFeRD / Factur-X: a hybrid PDF/A-3 + embedded CII invoice, handy in B2B where a human also reads the PDF.
  • German B2B mandate: both are accepted (ZUGFeRD from the BASIC profile up), as both are EN 16931-compliant.

Further reading