PRESS RELEASE
Minister Van Peteghem obliges digital invoicing between companies in fight against fraud and administrative burden
Finance Minister Vincent Van Peteghem has reached an agreement in the Council of Ministers on the mandatory introduction of digital invoicing (e-invoicing) between companies as of Jan. 1, 2026. The move to digital invoicing is important to reduce the VAT gap, the difference between what the government should receive in VAT revenue and what the government actually receives, and to focus on thorough administrative simplification. A generous transition period is provided to give everyone a chance to adjust to the new way of working.
“A fair tax system is one where everyone makes their fair and expected contribution. When we find that the government receives less VAT revenue than it should, this fundamental fairness is undermined. The move toward mandatory digital invoicing will not only narrow that VAT gap and ensure greater fairness, but also represent a major administrative simplification for our businesses.”
Vincent Van Peteghem, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, responsible for the Coordination of Fraud Prevention and the National Lottery
Reducing the VAT gap is important to ensure that everyone makes their fair contribution. The federal government has therefore included reducing the VAT gap in the coalition agreement. “Measures will be taken to reduce the VAT gap (…) to the level of our neighboring countries,” it reads. Minister Van Peteghem already took many steps in that regard. Thus, the renovation certificate was scrapped, a new VAT chain was developed and the IMF, at the request of the minister, made a study to quantify the size of the Belgian VAT gap.
Today, Minister Van Peteghem is taking another important step with the mandatory introduction of e-invoicing. This obligation already exists for invoices issued to the government, but Minister Van Peteghem is ensuring that structured electronic invoices will also become the norm in transactions between taxable companies from January 1, 2026.
For this step, too, the government has chosen the European PEPPOL network. By joining once, a company is automatically connected to all other participants in the network. This network is already used in many other member states as well. Taxpayers are of course offered the flexibility to choose another system by mutual agreement, provided that it also complies with the European standards on semantics and syntax.
Together with the FPS Finance, a broad information campaign will also be aimed at all stakeholders during the extensive transition period.
