Receive e-invoices in Germany: open, check, and retain XRechnung and ZUGFeRD files

Last materially reviewed: 23 August 2026. Checked against the BMF FAQ as of March 2026, current administrative guidance, and the current statutory text.

This guide provides general information and is not legal, tax, or bookkeeping advice. Your retention and approval process must reflect the circumstances of your business.

• Who must be able to receive e-invoices
• Email, portals, interfaces, and other channels
• XRechnung, ZUGFeRD, and plain PDF
• The receiving and review workflow
• Errors, corrections, and fraud warning signs
• Eight-year retention and the archive boundary
• B2G, cross-border, consumer, and Kleinunternehmer cases
• Practical checklist
• Official sources
• Frequently asked questions

Since 1 January 2025, every business considered domestic under German VAT rules must be able to receive e-invoices. This includes companies, sole traders, freelancers, people running a business on the side, Kleinunternehmer, and businesses making only VAT-exempt supplies—for example, many doctors and residential landlords.

Receiving and issuing are separate questions. An exemption or transition rule that allows a business to issue paper or PDF does not generally remove its obligation to receive a qualifying e-invoice from a supplier. Being able to receive e-invoices also does not mean that every incoming invoice must already be electronic.

Germany’s VAT receiving rule concerns businesses considered domestic under German VAT rules. A business meets that definition when its registered office, management, or a participating permanent establishment is in Germany—or, if it has no registered office, when the entrepreneur’s residence or habitual abode is in Germany. A German VAT registration alone is not always sufficient.

Check the complete mandate timeline and statutory exceptions. Read the dedicated Kleinunternehmer guide.

Yes. For the German domestic B2B VAT rule, an ordinary email inbox is sufficient. Tax law does not require a dedicated invoice address, central government portal, Peppol connection, paid accounting package, or fully automated downstream processing merely to receive e-invoices.

The parties can instead agree on another transmission route, such as an interface, customer or supplier portal, shared storage location, or physical data medium. The delivery route is a contractual and operational matter, so confirm the address, portal, file format, size limit, and required references with suppliers.

A practical receiving setup

• Give suppliers a monitored address or agreed portal and define who checks it during absences.
• Test that legitimate XML and PDF attachments or portal notices are delivered while keeping malware scanning and quarantine controls in place.
• Make a viewer and validator available to the people who review invoices.
• Decide how the untouched original, review result, approval, and booking information move into your accounting and retention systems.

If a supplier is required to issue an e-invoice, the recipient has no general VAT-law right to refuse it and demand paper or PDF instead. For VAT purposes, the issuer can still meet its obligation if it issues the e-invoice and can prove a proper transmission attempt. The practical channel and any civil or contractual consequences remain separate questions.

All VAT-required invoice information must generally be present in the structured data. A reference to an unstructured attachment cannot otherwise supply a missing mandatory field. For final invoices under section 14(5) UStG, however, deductions for previously collected partial payments may be supplied in a referenced unstructured attachment. Attachments may also provide supplementary information.

XRechnung and ZUGFeRD are common examples, not an exhaustive list. Other EN 16931 formats and bilaterally agreed structured formats, including qualifying EDI, can also meet the rules when the required data can be extracted correctly and completely into a format that complies with, or is interoperable with, EN 16931.

A file extension or readable preview alone does not prove that the format is compliant. Open the structured component and use a technical validator when conformity matters.

Compare XRechnung and ZUGFeRD formats in detail.

E-Rechnungs-Studio’s viewer and validator are currently free to use without an account and have no monthly limit. They help you inspect a file but do not archive it.

The tax administration also provides a free ELSTER e-invoice viewer.

• Preserve the received file unchanged before you render it, convert a copy, extract data, or investigate a possible correction.
• Identify whether the file is an XRechnung, a ZUGFeRD file in a qualifying profile, another structured format, or only a plain PDF or image.
• Use a viewer to inspect the structured supplier, recipient, invoice, line-item, VAT, total, payment, and reference data.
• Run technical validation and distinguish blocking errors from warnings that need context.
• Compare the invoice with the order, contract, delivery, supplier master data, bank details, VAT treatment, and internal approval rules.
• Resolve discrepancies with the issuer, then transfer the original file, validation result, and approval record into your bookkeeping and retention processes.

Viewer, validator, and business review do different jobs

Section 14(3) UStG requires authenticity of origin, integrity of content, and readability. A reliable internal audit trail between the invoice and the supply can be established through an appropriate control process; a manual comparison with the order, contract, delivery, and payment obligation can form part of that trail. Technical validation alone does not replace it.

Learn more about validation errors and mandatory fields.

Important for incoming invoices: Use correction features only to diagnose or explain a problem. Do not edit your supplier’s invoice or treat an edited file as a corrected invoice. Ask the issuer to provide a proper correction and preserve both the received original and the correction where they are relevant to your records. Agreed self-billing (Gutschrift) is a separate process in which the recipient issues the invoice.

A validator can reveal three different layers: a format failure means the file is not an e-invoice; a business-rule finding may or may not affect VAT; and the invoice content can still be factually wrong even when technical validation passes. A missing buyer reference such as BT-10, for example, is not automatically a VAT defect.

Under the current BMF guidance, a recipient applying ordinary commercial care may rely on a suitable validator’s technical result for format and business rules. Keep the validation report; it does not replace factual, fraud, or tax review.

When the issuing requirement applies, a correction must generally also be issued as an e-invoice. If a transition rule or permanent exception permits an “other invoice”, the correction may use that permitted format instead.

Treat an unexpected bank-account change, unfamiliar sender domain, altered payment reference, or unusual urgency as a separate fraud signal. A technically valid invoice can still contain fraudulent or factually incorrect information, so verify suspicious changes using a trusted contact method.

The VAT retention period for invoices is generally eight years. It begins at the end of the calendar year in which the invoice was issued. At least the structured component of an e-invoice must remain intact, machine-readable, and in its original form throughout that period.

For ZUGFeRD, preserving the complete original hybrid file is the safest approach. A rendered PDF, screenshot, or printout can help a person review the invoice, but it does not replace the retained structured original. Tax-relevant attachments and a useful validation report may also belong with the record.

For VAT purposes alone, storing an e-invoice outside a GoBD-compliant system is not automatically a breach of section 14b UStG. That does not establish overall GoBD compliance. Tax, commercial, audit-trail, access, and data-protection duties can require additional controls or documents. Choose a retention system that fits those duties and obtain professional advice where necessary.

An email that only transports an attached invoice generally does not itself need to be retained. Keep the email unchanged if it is a commercial or business letter, a bookkeeping record, or contains tax-relevant information. Retaining it can also document the sender and time of receipt for the audit trail.

E-Rechnungs-Studio is a viewer, validator, and converter. It is not an invoice archive or bookkeeping system.

Invoices involving public authorities (B2G)

Public-procurement rules apply separately and can require a specific portal, network, format, Leitweg-ID, buyer reference, or additional fields. Leitweg-ID is normally a B2G routing identifier, not a general requirement for domestic B2B receiving. Follow the relevant authority’s instructions.

Peppol and other networks

Peppol can provide structured, automated delivery and may be useful or contractually required, but German VAT law does not generally require every domestic B2B recipient to join Peppol merely to be ready to receive e-invoices.

Foreign suppliers and customers

Germany’s domestic B2B mandate does not apply merely because one party has a German VAT number. Establishment, place-of-supply rules, foreign e-invoicing requirements, contractual requirements, and B2G rules may produce a different result, so assess cross-border cases separately.

Private recipients (B2C)

A private consumer is not required to establish a business e-invoice receiving process under the domestic B2B mandate. Electronic invoices to consumers are subject to separate consent requirements and VAT rules.

Kleinunternehmer and businesses with exempt supplies

There is no general receiving exemption for Kleinunternehmer or for businesses that make only VAT-exempt supplies. An exception from mandatory issuance does not remove the requirement to be able to receive e-invoices. See the complete Kleinunternehmer guide.

• Publish and monitor a reliable email address or agreed channel.
• Preserve each original file as received before processing it.
• Correctly distinguish XRechnung, ZUGFeRD files in qualifying profiles, and plain PDFs.
• Make the complete structured data readable with a viewer.
• Validate the technical format and keep useful review evidence.
• Check supplier, order, delivery, bank, tax, totals, and references against trusted records.
• Ask the issuer to correct errors; never overwrite the supplier’s original.
• Transfer the structured original and related records into appropriate bookkeeping and retention processes.
• Check separate portal, B2G, contractual, or cross-border rules.

• Federal Ministry of Finance: e-invoice FAQ (as of March 2026)
• Federal Ministry of Finance letter of 15 October 2025: current e-invoice administrative guidance
• Section 14 UStG: invoicing and structured-format rules
• Section 14b UStG: eight-year invoice retention
• Federal Ministry of Finance: GoBD, amended 14 July 2025
• Federal e-invoicing portal: Leitweg-ID FAQ