Belgium Expands the B2G Electronic Invoice to All Its Suppliers

The Belgian government has approved the Royal Decree of March 9 regarding the implementation of electronic invoicing with public administrations published in the Belgian Official Gazette on March 31, 2022.

The goal of the decree is to expand the obligation to issue electronic invoices to all the suppliers of public institutions in the country. The obligation will be expanded gradually based on the size of public contracts. 

This obligation already exists for suppliers of the centralized entities of multiple regions (Brussels, Flanders, Wallonia). It will now be extended to the suppliers of public entities in all the regions. 

Belgium becomes another country in Europe like Italy and France that have decided to extend the mandatory use of the electronic invoice to public administration suppliers as mandated by European Directive 2014/55.

Dates for issuing electronic invoices

• 1 November 2022: Electronic invoices for all public contracts equal to or greater than the European threshold (214,000€ for products and services) must be issued six months after the publication of the decree in the Belgian official gazette, and on the first day of each month. 
• 1 May 2023: Electronic invoices for all public contracts equal to or greater than 30,000€ must be issued 12 months after the publication of the decree in the Belgian official gazette, and on the first day of each month. 
• 1 March 2024: electronic Invoices for all public contracts of less than 30,000€ must be issued 18 months after the publication of the decree in the Belgian official gazette, and on the first day of each month. 

Contracts worth less than 3,000 € are exempt, but each level of government can decide to not apply the exemption or demand a different compliance date. 

Characteristics of the electronic invoice in Belgium

Belgium will implement the electronic invoice for B2B transactions. The goal lis to fight tax fraud which resulted in a 10.8% income gap for the Belgian government, around 3.6 billion Euros. 

The federal government has considered the implementation of the B2B electronic invoice in its 2022 investment budget. Neither the system nor the timeline has been published, but it is known it will be gradually and chronologically adopted.

Electronic invoices in Belgium are currently sent to public administrations following the PEPPOL interoperability model. The reception of invoices is conducted through the Mercurius platform which gives access to all the governments or directly to the PEPPOL access point of the public entity. 

EDICOM has an international compliance solution that opens the door to over 70 public administrations: EDICOM Global e-Invoicing Platform.