EU ViDA Digital Reporting Requirements e-invoicing July 2030 update

July 2030: ViDA Pillar 1, EU B2B Intra-community e-reporting to govt; and structured e-invoicing between businesses

Dedicated workshops; development implementing regulations & explanatory notes; Peppol pilot; EN16931 adaptation; common messaging harmonisation; Central VIES launch

The EU ViDA reforms came into effect on 14^th April 2025. Pillar 1, Digital Reporting Requirements, introduces 1 July  2030 e-invoicing between businesses and digital e-reporting to tax administrations for B2B intra-community supplies.  Key dates now:

• Member states no longer require domestic e-invoicing derogation permission from VAT Directive, and can require customers to receive structured e-invoices.
• Sept 2025: EN16931 modernisation for B2B e-invoicing proposal
• Spring 2026: European Commission to adopt EU e-invoice common messaging proposal
• Autumn 2026: Explanatory Notes to DDR
• 2027:
  • ongoing ViDA Peppol pilot with tax authorities, service providers and taxpayers
  • Start of the IT project phase of the central VIES (see below) for accepting digital reporting intra-community transactions
  • Autumn 2027: Implementing Act
• July 2030: Launch
• July 2032: phasing out legacy VIES system July 2032

Work progresses following April 2025 Fiscalis DRR workshop

At a workshop in Vienna on 9 April 2025, a Fiscalis project group convened to explore critical outstanding questions on e-invoicing and related VAT issues. The group, comprised of EU tax officials and experts, is tasked with developing further explanatory notes to ensure consistent interpretation of evolving VAT rules, particularly in light ViDA. Among the complex topics discussed was:

• Definition of e-invoices, including how attachments are treated and the integration of hybrid or embedded standards like ZUGFerD and Factur-X. Participants debated the implications of new VAT Directive Articles 218 and 232, which formally replace paper invoices with electronic ones, raising questions on legal equivalence and practical implementation.
• Which country’s rules apply to e-invoicing—whether it is the supplier’s or buyer’s legislation that governs. Related issues involve the treatment of cross-border services, multiple transactions on single invoices, exempt supplies, and reverse charge scenarios.
• Date of issuance, managing late or corrective e-invoices, and handling cash accounting.
• Validation and customer refusal transmission and reception issues, and what rules apply when invoices cross borders.
• Self-billing, invoice numbering, and disclosures for cash versus credit transactions, as well as how to link e-invoices to supporting documents, manage foreign currencies, translations, and rounding.
• Triangulation, VAT group treatments, and the complexities of digital reporting to tax administrations—sparked significant debate. Participants flagged difficulties defining what constitutes a “transaction” for reporting, the competent authority for compliance, and how to handle reporting by customers, especially when no invoice exists.

The meeting concluded that many issues predate ViDA and stem from long-standing legislative ambiguities, such as on chargeable events or VAT group rules. A more uniform application across Member States is clearly needed. The European standard for e-invoicing will shape available options, yet more work is essential, particularly around validation, transmission, and corrections.

The group agreed explanatory notes will be crucial, with the potential for VAT Committee guidelines or even an Implementing Regulation to secure harmonised application. Topics needing deeper exploration post-Vienna include self-invoicing, triangular transactions, own goods transfers, payments on account, summary invoices, and transitional rules, ensuring SMEs and special supplies like new means of transport are appropriately addressed.

July 2030 Pillar 1: Digital Reporting Requirements and e-invoicing

Digital Reporting includes July 2030 plans to introduce near-real time digital reporting and e-invoicing on intra-community goods and services supplies. Member states will then have to harmonise any domestic e-invoicing or digital transaction reporting with the new regime by 2035.

Digital e-Reporting of intra-community transactions to tax authorities

• Introduction of Digital Reporting Requirements (DRR) for suppliers and their customers of header-level data of (Article 262):
  • intra-community: supplies; acquisitions; B2B services;
  • reverse charge when the supplier is not established; 
  • supplies of energy to a taxable dealer; and
  • triangulation.
• Countries with existing domestic transaction-based reporting before 1 January 2024 may retain them beyond July 2030. Regimes introduced since then must converge to the ViDA requirements by 1 July 2030.
• Each member state will be free to develop their own reporting protocols and technical specifications. This is an important point for businesses to consider operating across multiple jurisdictions since schema’s and connectivity protocols will differ.
• There have been a number of compromises to this proposal to reflect practical burdens:
  • The reporting deadline has been extended to ’10 days’ from ‘2 working days’ from issuance of the e-invoice. 
  • Member states may exempt customers of goods or services from also reporting the transaction if they can obtain assurances by other means (Article 262). If they do not, reporting by acquirers of their purchase invoices must be done within 5 days of e-invoice receipt.
  • In addition to the existing information required of recapitulative statement, additional information will be required including bank details to enable tax authorities to track payments. But there is no longer a requirement to note the payment date which was included in the original proposal.
• Withdrawal of ESL recapitulative reporting since is now supplanted by the new DRR regime, above.
• Domestic transaction reporting schemes will remain an option. Existing schemes, such as SAF-T on domestic reporting, may remain in place. 
• Central VIES – EC operated transaction database
  • A new ‘Central VIES’ central database will be overseen and maintained by the EC, and will include DDR transactions and ID info of taxpayers, including their VAT identification number. It will also have some integration into the Customs Surveillance system and the upcoming Central Electronic System of Payment CESOP information
  • It will also give transparency for customers to see what intra-EU transactions are being reported against their VAT numbers. This will help prevent them potentially being caught-up in VAT frauds unaware. This may be enabled by a common EC endpoint.
• The EC will report back to the Council by March 2033 an evaluation of the functioning of the DRR (including e-invoicing, below) regime.

Mandatory structured e-invoicing between businesses for DRR transactions

• Structured e-invoices based on Directive 2014/55/EU (Electronic invoicing in public procurement) will become mandatory for any DRR transaction (see list above). Other formats, including paper, may continue for other transactions e.g. domestic supplies. Hybrid formats such as Germany’s ZUGFeRD will be valid if they include the required data structure (Article 218).
• This will include a new definition of the EN16931 e-invoice standard (draft due July 2025) (Article 216).
• There is now inclusion of basic validation or technical requirements of e-invoices, termed ‘accreditation schemes’, where the tax authorities may check data structures via a platform.
• Such e-invoices must be issued by at least ten days after the chargeable event (2 days in the original proposal; today the deadline is 15 days after the reporting period end) (Article 222). There must be no requirement for acceptance by the customer (Article 232). In the case of payment on account, and e-invoice must be issued within 10 days of receipt of the payment. Self-billing has a deadline of 5 days after the supply. These requirement does not apply to any member states’ reporting regimes on domestic supplies.
• In a change to the original proposals, holding an e-invoice for eligible transactions will become a substantive condition to VAT deduction or reclaims.
• In a compromise proposed by France, taxpayers may engage with third-party e-invoicing service providers
•  E-invoices supplant paper invoices for legal purposes except in limited circumstances – new articles 218 and 232 of the VAT Directive. 
• The proposal to prohibit the use of summary invoices has been dropped under pressure from businesses. Instead, they may be used issued with the criteria (Article 223):
  • that the VAT on the invoice is chargeable in the same month; and
  • the summary invoice must be issued by the 10th of the following month;
  • a fraud-sensitive supply and the member state has exercised its option to prohibit their use.
• Any member states which have launched a domestic real-time reporting regime after 1 January 2024 must harmonise to the EU ViDA standard.

July 2032

• Phasing out of legacy VIES

January 2035 Pillar 1: Harmonisation of domestic and intra-community transaction reporting

• The proposal to require existing domestic e-invoice reporting regimes to harmonise to the ViDA e-invoicing standard has been changed to January 2035 (originally 2027). This separation from the main e-invoicing launch date of July 2030 reflects member states (e.g. Italy) concerns that tax authorities and taxpayers had invested extensively in the already launch/planned domestic regimes.
• This applies to member state regimes introduced prior to 1 January 2024.

Tax Engine and VAT reporting with CTC

VAT Calc’s tax engine, ‘VAT Calculator’, has been developed with the EU’s VAT in the Digital Age reforms in full focus, including Continuous Transactions Controls agility to live calculate and report invoice data. And since VAT Calculator is built on the same single platform as our VAT Filer product, there is full reconciliation on VAT return reporting.

EU VAT in the Digital Age reforms