Germany

National Context

The State Treaty on IT establishing the IT Planning Council lays the groundwork for cooperation on the use of information technology in federal and state public administration (Article 91c of the Basic Law, State Treaty on IT).

The IT Planning Council is the central body responsible for National IT cooperation. The amendment gave the Federal Government exclusive authority to pass legislation concerning a core network for federal and state public administration.

As part of the implementation of the Directive 2014/55/EU on electronic invoicing in public procurement in Germany, the National IT Planning Council made the following decisions:

  • in June 2017, it was mandated for public authorities to receive and process XRechnung invoices. The XRechnung is a Core Invoice User Specification (CIUS) of the European Norm (EN) 16931 on e-invoicing. The KoSIT (Coordination Office for IT Standards) was given the responsibility to maintain XRechnung
  • in June 2018 the Coordination Office for IT Standards (KoSIT) became the German Peppol Authority
  • in October 2018, the National IT Planning Council decided that every public authority must be reachable via Peppol if they offer a service for electronic invoices. It is determined by the dates of the European Directive 2014/55/EU.

About the use of Peppol

The following Peppol components are currently in use in Germany:

  • Transport Infrastructure (Access Points and SMP providers)
  • eInvoicing

It is planned to integrate the whole post-award purchasing process progressively.

Since the eInvoicing component is set up and running, the next post-award process that should be integrated is eOrdering.

Peppol Authority

KoSIT is the German Peppol Authority. It is located within the eGovernment division of the core administration of the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen and is a permanent organisation of the National IT Planning Council.

The main tasks of KoSIT are to assist the IT Planning Council in adopting IT interoperability and IT security standards and to manage joint federal and state-level eGovernment projects.

Use of Peppol in Germany

Reaching German public administrations via Peppol network requires compliance with the standard XRechnung or, in addition, for foreign countries, compliance with the standard Peppol BIS Billing. Further information about XRechnung can be found here: https://xeinkauf.de/xrechnung/

Addressing the German public administration requires the PeppolID and in addition the LeitwegID for internal routing. The LeitwegID is provided by the department receiving the invoice.

For information relating to testing, please see the document „Testing in the Peppol Network“ which can be found here: https://xeinkauf.de/dokumente/

KoSIT has defined specific requirements for SPs providing Access Point (AP) or Service Metadata Publisher (SMP) services in Germany. These are contained in the Peppol Authority Specific Requirements, which can be found in the Documentation at https://peppol.org/documentation/governance-documentation/peppol-authority-specific-requirements/

Current developments

Our intention is that all eProcurement components will be integrated via Peppol, including Pre-Award processes (eSourcing, eNotification/eTendering, eAwarding and eContract) as well as Post-Award processes (eCatalogue, eOrdering, eInvoicing, ePayment).

We still plan to make the use of the Peppol Directory and Message Level Response (MLR) mandatory.

Further information

Further information for sending and receiving electronic invoices can be found here: https://xeinkauf.de/faq/peppol/

To keep the German Service Provider Community informed and to discuss changes and developments, regular focus meetings and network meetings are organised by the German PA. We will send information about this by e-mail via our SP distribution list. If you are part of the German Service Provider Community and would like to be included in the SP distribution list, you can contact us via the email address given below.

Useful links

KoSIT home page: https://www.xeinkauf.de

National specifics in the Peppol Network: https://peppol.org/documentation/governance-documentation/peppol-authority-specific-requirements/

Peppol topics: https://xeinkauf.de/peppol/

XRechnung topics including specifications: https://xeinkauf.de/xrechnung/

Contact and support

Please email: peppol@finanzen.bremen.de

Koordinierungsstelle für IT-Standards (KoSIT) / German Peppol Authority

Freie Hansestadt Bremen

Senator für Finanzen

Am Tabakquartier 56

28197 Bremen

Page last updated: 8th April 2024