The VAT in the Digital Age (ViDA) directive is often reduced to a single date: 1 July 2030. For a CFO or a CIO, that is too narrow a reading. The package contains three workstreams on different timelines, and one of them (the single VAT registration) touches your ERP’s VAT configuration as early as 2028. This article gives the EU-wide picture, the dates to remember, the configuration areas affected and a four-step roadmap.
A note on scope: we do not cover the French 2026-2027 reform here (PDP platforms, directory, national e-reporting). That is the subject of our guide to e-invoicing in France. For the Dutch angle on ViDA, see the 2030 Peppol B2B mandate in the Netherlands.
Dates checked on 28 October 2026 against the European Commission’s ViDA page and EUR-Lex. EU legal texts prevail; national calendars may change.
ViDA at a Glance: Three Pillars
The ViDA package consists of three acts published in the Official Journal of the EU on 25 March 2025, after Council adoption on 11 March 2025: Directive (EU) 2025/516, Regulation (EU) 2025/517 and Implementing Regulation (EU) 2025/518 (European Commission). They rest on three pillars:
- Digital reporting requirements (DRR) based on e-invoicing. Cross-border intra-EU B2B transactions move to a structured electronic invoice and a transaction-level data report to the tax authority in near real time.
- Platform economy. Short-term accommodation and passenger road transport platforms become liable for VAT when the underlying supplier does not charge it (the “deemed supplier” regime).
- Single VAT registration (SVR). An extension of the One-Stop Shop (OSS) so that a business can meet its cross-border VAT obligations from a single Member State.
For an ERP vendor or integrator, pillar 1 is the heaviest in development effort, pillar 3 is the most immediate in configuration, and pillar 2 only directly affects companies that operate or sell through such platforms.
Timeline: The Dates to Remember
| Date | Milestone | Pillar |
|---|---|---|
| 11 March 2025 | Council adopts the package | All |
| 25 March 2025 | Publication in the Official Journal of the EU | All |
| 14 April 2025 | Entry into force. Member States can mandate domestic e-invoicing without prior derogation | Pillar 1 |
| 1 January 2027 | Minor clarifications affecting OSS and IOSS users | Pillar 3 |
| 1 July 2028 | Deemed supplier regime for platforms; start of single registration measures | Pillars 2 and 3 |
| 1 July 2030 | Digital reporting and e-invoicing obligations for intra-EU cross-border B2B | Pillar 1 |
| 1 January 2035 | Deadline for aligning national digital reporting systems | Pillar 1 |
Source: European Commission, ViDA, accessed 28 October 2026.
Two points deserve emphasis. First, 1 July 2030 only covers intra-EU transactions: domestic obligations remain a Member State competence, and countries have until 1 January 2035 to align their systems. Second, the technical implementing acts (common reporting message, changes to the VIES system) are still to be published as part of the implementation strategy the Commission presented on 24 September 2025. Not every format specification is final yet.
Pillar 1: E-Invoicing and Intra-EU Reporting
What the Text Says
The directive requires electronic invoices to be issued in a structured format that allows automated processing, compliant with the European standard EN 16931 and one of the syntaxes on the associated list under Directive 2014/55/EU (EUR-Lex). For intra-EU transactions subject to the reverse charge, the invoice must be issued no later than 10 days after the chargeable event (same source). The supplier reports the transaction data through its Member State, and the customer reports the mirror data through its own.
EN 16931, Peppol and PDPs: Do Not Confuse Them
Three notions often get mixed up in steering committees:
- EN 16931 is a semantic data model and a list of syntaxes (UBL, CII). It is the substantive constraint behind ViDA.
- Peppol is an interoperable transmission network. ViDA does not make it the single mandatory channel; it has become the reference network in several Member States (see our analysis of Peppol and European interoperability).
- PDPs (partner dematerialisation platforms) are a French status. An ERP built for France will not meet them in other countries, which have their own approved intermediaries or public platforms.
The first issue for the ERP is therefore the quality of the data format: if the document it produces complies with EN 16931, it can travel over whichever channel each country requires.
Country by Country: Only What Is Official
At the verification date, the only firm, common elements are those of the EU text above. Domestic national calendars (France, Belgium, Poland, Germany and others) stem from separate national legislation and may change; we do not merge them into a single table, to avoid asserting dates the legislator has not confirmed. To track the status by country, see our October 2026 review of national transpositions and our guide to mandatory e-invoicing in Europe, and cross-check both against the websites of the relevant tax authorities.
What Pillar 1 Changes in Order-to-Cash
For a mid-sized company selling goods and services in several Member States, the invoice stops being a mere accounting document: it becomes the vehicle of a tax return. Three practical consequences for the ERP:
- The invoice must be right at the source. A wrong VAT code, customer identifier or place of supply can no longer be fixed at month end in the return: it travels with the transaction to the tax authority. Consistency checks (VIES, VAT number, delivery country) must move upstream, to sales order entry.
- The 10-day deadline becomes a KPI. The issue deadline after the chargeable event means you need to monitor deliveries and services not yet invoiced. Month-end batch invoicing or delays caused by commercial disputes should be flagged by a dedicated report.
- The purchasing side is affected. The customer also reports mirror data through its own Member State. Receiving structured supplier invoices, matching them to purchase orders and posting them automatically therefore falls within the project scope, not just invoice issuing.
Pillar 2: Platforms, a Targeted Impact
The deemed supplier regime for short-term accommodation and passenger road transport applies from 1 July 2028 (European Commission). If your group does not operate a platform of this kind, this pillar does not change your ERP. If it does, the platform must be able to calculate and remit VAT on its providers’ services, which requires reliable provider data (VAT status, country) and specific handling in the tax engine. Travel, mobility and accommodation groups should treat this as a standalone workstream.
Pillar 3: Single Registration and Multi-Country VAT Configuration
The single VAT registration extends the OSS scope to further supplies of goods, notably certain domestic B2C supplies made by a taxable person established in another Member State, and introduces a mandatory reverse charge for certain non-identified suppliers (EUR-Lex, Directive 2025/516, applicable from 1 July 2028).
What this means for a multi-entity ERP:
- Fewer local VAT numbers, but more place-of-consumption logic. Reporting is centralised, while taxation remains that of the consumer’s country. The VAT rules engine must therefore maintain each country’s rates and rules even without a local entity.
- Place-of-supply rules and schemes. Flows that move into the OSS scope must no longer feed local returns: a wrong tax mapping leads to duplicates or omissions.
- Reporting by country of consumption. You need to extract taxable bases and tax by Member State, in the format the portal expects.
The automated tax features of specialist solutions are covered in our French article on VAT automation with Avalara, Sovos and native modules.
Concrete ERP Impacts
Customer and Supplier Master Data
- Intra-community VAT number validated through VIES and stored with its validation date.
- Electronic addressing identifiers (for example a Peppol ID) where the destination country requires them.
- Tax status of the counterparty (taxable, non-taxable, non-established supplier), which drives the reverse-charge rule.
VAT Codes and Tax Engine
Review the VAT code table: one code per tax scenario (intra-EU supply, reverse-charged service, sale through the one-stop shop) rather than one code per rate. This split is what makes it possible to produce reporting data per transaction.
Formats, Transmission and Archiving
- Issuing in UBL or CII compliant with EN 16931, with mandatory fields populated at the source (not reconstructed at export).
- Invoice lifecycle status management (issued, transmitted, rejected, corrected) with traceability.
- Tax archiving of the original structured document, not just a readable PDF, according to each country’s retention periods.
Connectors
An ERP connected to a certified access point or an approved operator avoids building every channel in-house. You still need to assess the connector’s ability to handle several countries, automated error feedback and recovery after downtime. Our guide to choosing a PDP in France provides an evaluation grid that transfers well to other markets.
A 2026-2030 Roadmap in 4 Steps
Step 1, late 2026 to mid-2027: map. Inventory your intra-EU B2B flows by country, the entities in scope for the one-stop shop, the invoice formats you produce today and your volumes. Deliverable: a country x flow x obligation matrix.
Step 2, 2027: align with the vendor. Get the vendor’s written position on EN 16931, connectivity and delivery dates. Budget for tax engine changes. Deliverable: a dated development plan and a budget.
Step 3, 2028: handle pillar 3. 1 July 2028 is the first milestone that structurally affects configuration. Test extended OSS flows and reverse-charge rules in a sandbox before the deadline.
Step 4, 2029 to mid-2030: industrialise pillar 1. Acceptance testing of formats and the transmission channel as soon as the Commission’s implementing specifications are published, end-to-end tests on a sample of countries, training of accounts receivable and payable teams, go-live before 1 July 2030.
One rule of thumb: build a six-month margin into your internal milestones relative to the legal dates, because final specifications arrive late and vendors bunch their releases.
Questions to Ask Your ERP Vendor
- Is the invoice document natively EN 16931 (UBL and CII), with no external conversion?
- Which transmission channels are supported (Peppol, national operators), and which are included in the licence?
- How is per-transaction reporting data handled, and who transmits it: the ERP or a third-party connector?
- What is the planned release date for the changes needed for 1 July 2028, and then for 1 July 2030?
- Does the tax engine handle extended OSS and mandatory reverse charge without manual per-country configuration?
- How will the vendor track the Commission’s upcoming implementing acts, and at what cost to you?
- What archiving and traceability guarantees are provided for structured documents?
Risks and Areas of Uncertainty
- National options. Member States can mandate domestic e-invoicing with their own formats and rules; how national obligations and ViDA coexist remains to be worked out until 2035.
- Technical specifications not finalised. The exact format of the reporting message and the evolution of VIES depend on implementing acts still to come.
- Local calendars. National dates may change; build them into a roadmap only after confirmation by an official text from the country concerned.
- Vendor dependency. A vendor with no written position on ViDA in 2027 is a project risk to address then, not in 2029.
5 Classic Mistakes in a ViDA Project
1. Reducing ViDA to the 2030 date.
- Consequence: pillar 3 (single registration, 1 July 2028) arrives two years earlier and finds the VAT engine unprepared.
- Countermeasure: plan two distinct milestones, 2028 for VAT configuration and 2030 for invoicing and reporting.
2. Confusing the French reform with ViDA.
- Consequence: a PDP project that is compliant in France but covers neither intra-EU flows nor the formats expected in other countries.
- Countermeasure: treat the national reform as a subset and map intra-EU flows separately.
3. Treating a PDF as an e-invoice.
- Consequence: a readable but unstructured document does not meet the requirement for an EN 16931-compliant format; the data must be produced at the source.
- Countermeasure: require native UBL or CII generation from the vendor, not an output conversion.
4. Building in unconfirmed national calendars.
- Consequence: a roadmap built on trade-press dates that keep moving, with budgets committed too early or too late.
- Countermeasure: only fix a local date after reading the country’s official text, and date each verification.
5. Neglecting master data and the purchasing side.
- Consequence: unvalidated VAT numbers, missing addressing identifiers, structured supplier invoices not matched; errors now propagate all the way to the tax authority.
- Countermeasure: start cleaning counterparty master data in 2027 and include invoice receipt in the scope.
Going Further
Continue with our overview of mandatory e-invoicing in Europe for the 2027 regulatory calendar, or contact us to frame your ViDA roadmap with your ERP vendor.
