On 11 September 2026, the Dutch cabinet officially decided to make electronic invoicing mandatory for all VAT-registered businesses in the Netherlands (Rijksoverheid.nl, 11 September 2026). B2B e-invoicing will become effective 1 July 2030, with digital reporting requirements following on 1 July 2031. Only businesses under the KOR small business scheme (turnover below €20,000 per year) are exempt.
From anticipation to formal decision
Since March 2026, the Netherlands had been actively working on this legislation. The Ministry of Finance submitted a comparative analysis of ViDA (VAT in the Digital Age) scenarios to Parliament — the option covering domestic B2B transactions was clearly preferred. Our analysis from June 2026 anticipated this direction and flagged a possible entry into force as early as 1 January 2030.
The formal decision of 11 September 2026 confirms the ViDA-B scope (extended to domestic B2B) and clarifies two important points compared to earlier projections:
- The e-invoicing deadline is set at 1 July 2030, not 1 January 2030 as some earlier sources indicated.
- Digital reporting follows in 2031, on a separate timeline, giving businesses an extra 12 months to adapt their reporting workflows.
The draft legislation will go to public consultation in autumn 2026, then be submitted to Parliament (Tweede Kamer) in summer 2027.
What this means for Dutch CIOs and CFOs
Four years to prepare — but Belgium’s example demands urgency. In Belgium, mandatory B2B e-invoicing via the Peppol network took effect on 1 January 2026. Of the 1,202,139 businesses affected, only 83% were registered on the Peppol network by 16 March 2026 — three months after the official effective date and just days before sanctions kicked in (€1,500 per non-compliant invoice). Compliance is not something that happens in a few weeks.
ERP is the critical dependency. E-invoicing compliance hinges on the ability of your business management system to issue and receive structured invoices over an interoperable network. Dutch ERP vendors — Exact Online, AFAS (already a Peppol-certified Service Provider for Belgium), Unit4 — have a clear head start. AFAS has explicitly stated that its Belgian Peppol infrastructure will serve as the foundation for the Dutch rollout. For businesses running international ERP platforms (SAP, Microsoft Dynamics, Odoo), Peppol integration will require a third-party Access Point or a certified connector — a project that should already be on the IT roadmap.
SMEs above the KOR threshold are not off the hook. The exemption for businesses below €20,000 annual turnover covers only a small segment of the Dutch economy. SMEs above that threshold — the vast majority of VAT-registered businesses — will need to comply. For those without ERP software that natively supports the European EN16931 standard, this means a migration or major upgrade to plan well in advance.
What to watch next
The public consultation scheduled for autumn 2026 will clarify sector-specific obligations, any intermediate thresholds, and the penalty regime. The draft bill to be submitted to Parliament in summer 2027 will provide the definitive legal framework — including penalties, modelled on the Belgian approach. The digital reporting requirement set for 1 July 2031 is the second wave: businesses that build solid structured-invoice workflows now (native structured data, not PDF conversions) will absorb this second step without a full IT overhaul.
For broader regulatory context, see our guide to mandatory Peppol e-invoicing in Belgium, our analysis of Belgian Peppol sanctions active since April 2026 and our ViDA roadmap for CIOs and CFOs.
