Belgium – Country Profile

Belgium adheres to the European vision, that recognizes e-Invoicing and e-Procurement as a source of significant efficiency increase. According to the studies ordered by the Belgian Service for Administrative Simplification, converting the 1 billion invoices exchanged in Belgium each year into effective e-Invoices, is expected to generate savings of at least 3,5 billion per year. Consequently, the public sector takes many measures to stimulate generalization of e-Invoicing. The positioning of Business-to-Government (B2G) e-Invoicing is carefully designed to stimulate and support this generalization process.

The Belgian government identifies Peppol as the framework that enables the delivery of any procurement-related e-document from any sender to any receiver, in a suitable and affordable way. Peppol is not a private operator. It is not perceived as a concurrent to other existing solutions. It rather complements them, by offering a set of guidelines that can be easily implemented to create an open, interoperable ecosystem composed of correspondents, operators, editors and authorities, each of them filling in a specific role. It has the potential to enable the same level of performance and universality as the Postal systems in the real world, if it is properly understood and rolled out. Consequently, the roll out of Peppol in Belgium is a key-component of the Belgian e-Procurement generalization strategy. Since January 1st 2016, BOSA DTO (formerly Fedict) is the official Belgian PA. Since April 1st, 2016, the public sector recommends Peppol as the most convenient channel to receiving invoices.

For a more detailed presentation of the Belgian approach, including specific guidelines applying to Belgium, contacts at the Belgian Peppol Authority, practical information about operators and editors, tools and instruments offered by the Public sector, awareness material and many more, please visit the official page of the Belgian Peppol Authority.

This page discusses the following aspects:

• General presentation of the Belgian Peppol Authority (PA)
• Introduction to the Peppol framework
• General Information over Peppol in Belgium
• Access Points servicing Belgian customers
• Collaboration with (belgian) software Industry
• Mercurius
• smp.belgium.be
• Additional information about e-invoicing in Belgium and at european level