2025 Accounting Act e-invoicing legislation goes to Parliament
Estonia’s government has approved e-invoicing rule changes to the Accounting Act Amendment Act. This seeks to introduce optional mandatory e-invoicing from January 2025. This is available to taxpayers registered as e-invoicing recipients in the Estonian e-business register.
Parties may agreed on the machine-readable format. Otherwise the default EU EN16931 e-invoice standard applies.
The changes will now be reviewed and approved by Parliament.
This would give resident B2B customers the option to insist on e-invoices from their suppliers. This would include revising the definition of ‘machine-processable invoice’ or e-invoice to the EU’s EN 16931 structured e-invoice format. At present, businesses may use an Estonian standard or the EU’s. The Estonian Information Technology and Telecommunication Union has proposed moving to the EN 16931 single format for B2B transactions, too.
In Estonia, the Accounting Act regulates basic accounting functions for all registered business entities.
B2G e-invoicing since 2017
Estonia imposed e-invoicing for B2G transactions in March 2017. It applies either the Estonian UBL, UN/CEFACT CII or the European standard on e-invoicing. There is no central government platform for e-invoice exchange; instead, parties can exchange directly or via commercial intermediaries. Many parties use a Peppol network.
Economic operators must have an accounting software or ERP in place to generate e-invoices or can alternatively outsource the generation of e-invoices to different software providers.
Estonia’s plans may be revised in light of the EU’s own VAT in the Digital Age reforms. This includes a Digital Reporting Requirement pillar with intra-community e-invoicing reforms likely for 2030 or later.