E-Invoicing 2026 in DACH: Which Bookkeeping Tools Actually Handle It

The rule that has already started#

Germany introduced a mandatory B2B e-invoicing framework on 1 January 2025. Most freelancers still treat it as a future problem. It is not. Since January 2025, every German business, including Kleinunternehmer, has been legally required to be able to receive invoices in the EN 16931 structured electronic format. The issuing side phases in through 2028.

This post maps the actual rules, verifies what each major German bookkeeping tool handles (and at what price in April 2026), and separates the AI features that save real time from the ones that are mostly marketing.

Sources for every claim are listed at the end. This is not tax advice. Specific questions belong with a Steuerberater.

What "e-invoice" means legally#

An e-invoice in the German sense is not a PDF. It is an invoice in a structured electronic format that conforms to the European standard EN 16931. The format is machine-readable XML. A PDF with a logo on top is no longer a legal e-invoice, no matter how polished it looks.

Two formats are accepted:

XRechnung: pure XML, no visual component. The standard format for invoices to public-sector customers (B2G), also valid for B2B.

ZUGFeRD 2.x: a hybrid — a PDF/A-3 file with an embedded XML payload. Humans read the PDF, machines read the XML. Both must match. Critical detail: the ZUGFeRD profiles MINIMUM and BASIC-WL do not meet the §14 UStG requirement. Use ZUGFeRD EN 16931 profile or higher. This is where many starter-tier tools quietly fail. See the sevDesk overview of ZUGFeRD vs XRechnung and the Scopevisio comparison.

The timeline, concretely#

Verified against the BMF FAQ and the transition schedule at eu-rechnung.de:

Since 1 January 2025: every German business (including Kleinunternehmer) must be technically able to receive e-invoices. An email inbox is legally sufficient.
2025 and 2026: you may still send paper or PDF invoices, but only with the recipient's agreement.
From 1 January 2027: paper or PDF only for vendors with prior-year revenue at or below 800,000 euros.
From 1 January 2028: full issuing obligation for all inland B2B invoices.

The Kleinunternehmer exemption, introduced through §34a UStDV and the Annual Tax Act 2024, exempts small businesses from the issuing requirement indefinitely but not from the receiving requirement. Source: sevDesk on Kleinunternehmer e-invoicing and ETL rules for Kleinunternehmer.

B2C is out of scope. Invoices to end consumers are not and will not be subject to this rule.

The receiving minimum: an email inbox#

A widespread myth is that you need Peppol or a paid tool to legally receive e-invoices. You do not. The Bundestag confirmed in writing that a standard email inbox meets the legal receiving requirement. What you cannot do is refuse to accept an e-invoice.

The practical issue is the other side: an XRechnung XML file is unreadable without a viewer. Free options:

Ultramarin Viewer: Windows, offline, free. Built on the official KoSIT visualization.
erechnungsvalidator.service-bw.de: online validator run by Baden-Württemberg.
erechnungs-validator.de and validator.belegpostfach.de: online validators.

A solo freelancer with three supplier invoices a month can get by with email plus Ultramarin. Anyone with more volume will want a bookkeeping tool that pulls and visualizes e-invoices automatically.

Peppol is not mandatory#

Peppol is a transport network for structured business documents. It is not a format. For German B2B freelancers, Peppol is not mandatory — email works. Peppol matters mainly for public-sector billing in some states and for businesses that already use it by customer request. The Accountable explainer on Peppol for freelancers and the official German Peppol page are the best starting points.

The tools that actually handle this (April 2026)#

Prices and features verified on the vendor pricing pages in April 2026. The comparison focuses on what matters for a DACH solo freelancer or small team: e-invoice receive, e-invoice send, real AI features.

Lexware Office (formerly lexoffice)#

Price: S 7.90 EUR/month (receive only), M 12.90 EUR/month (receive + send XRechnung and ZUGFeRD), L 21.90 EUR (full bookkeeping), XL 32.90 EUR. Source: Lexware pricing.
E-invoicing: full support for creating XRechnung and ZUGFeRD from tier M up. Receiving is in every tier, including S. Details on the Lexware e-invoice help page.
AI: mobile-app OCR for receipt capture (photo → extracted data + booking suggestion). Lexware does not prominently brand this as AI, but technically it is OCR + ML classification. No dedicated chatbot assistant as of April 2026.

sevDesk#

Price: Rechnung 11.90 EUR/month (or 4.45 on 24-month billing), Buchhaltung 25.90 (or 9.95 annual), Buchhaltung Pro 34.90 (or 13.95). Source: sevDesk pricing.
E-invoicing: full XRechnung and ZUGFeRD send and receive in the paid tiers. sevDesk e-invoice software page details the integration.
AI: "Sevi" is an in-app AI assistant that the vendor markets as a 24/7 help tool. Real output is narrower than the marketing — reliable on navigating the app, limited on actual bookkeeping questions. The substantive AI feature is OCR-based receipt capture plus automatic categorization from the Buchhaltung tier up, which is genuinely useful.
Peppol: available for sending, but not clearly documented for receiving by default.

FastBill#

Price (annual billing): Solo 9 EUR/month, Plus 14, Pro 27 (3 users), Premium 53 (5 users). Source: FastBill pricing.
E-invoicing: XRechnung and ZUGFeRD in every tier including Solo. Automatic data extraction on incoming ZUGFeRD is standard. Support article on creating e-invoices.
AI: automated data extraction from incoming invoices. No prominent chatbot.

Billomat#

Price (annual): Professional 19 EUR/month, Business 29, Enterprise 99 (5 users). Source: Billomat pricing.
E-invoicing: XRechnung and ZUGFeRD supported.
AI: no prominent AI features as of April 2026.

Kontist#

Price: Free, Start 11 EUR/month, Plus 25. Source: Kontist pricing.
E-invoicing: Kontist is primarily a business account with integrated bookkeeping features. PDF export is certain. Whether fully EN 16931-compliant XRechnung or ZUGFeRD is available for outbound invoices in the standard product is not clearly documented as of April 2026. Check before relying on Kontist as your sole e-invoicing issuer.
AI: the real-time tax reserve calculation is the standout feature. It is deterministic logic, not an LLM, but it is genuinely useful for solo freelancers who otherwise overspend their gross income.

DATEV Unternehmen Online + DATEV E-Rechnungsplattform#

This is the sleeper tip for anyone working with a Steuerberater who runs DATEV.

DATEV Unternehmen Online: around 11.28 EUR/month. Source: DATEV Preisliste 2026.
DATEV E-Rechnungsplattform: free until 30 June 2026 for send and receive. From 1 July 2026: receive stays free regardless of transport path; issuing costs 5 EUR per calendar year flat; sending out of third-party systems is 0.50 EUR per outbound invoice. Source: DATEV announcement.

Free receiving indefinitely is unmatched among German tools at this level.

BuchhaltungsButler#

Price: from 24.95 EUR/month on annual billing. Source: BuchhaltungsButler pricing.
AI: OCR + automatic matching of invoices to payments. Vendor claims up to 95 percent automation rate; that is a marketing figure, not independently benchmarked, but the tool is genuinely strong on automation for mid-volume operations.
DATEV integration: direct, a common pick for freelancers whose Steuerberater uses DATEV.

Candis#

Price: from 389 EUR/month. Source: DATEV Marketplace Candis entry and trusted.de Candis review.
Enterprise-focused. Not for solo freelancers. Worth mentioning only if you cross the threshold of many dozens of incoming invoices per month.

GetMyInvoices#

Not a bookkeeping tool but an invoice aggregator — it pulls receipts automatically from 10,000+ vendor portals (Amazon, Telekom, hosting, PayPal) and exports them to sevDesk, Lexware Office, DATEV, or BuchhaltungsButler. Source: GetMyInvoices features. Genuine time saver for people with many SaaS subscriptions. Pricing needs to be checked directly on the vendor site, as their public pricing page was not reliably reachable during research.

AI features: substance vs. marketing#

Honest breakdown of what "AI" actually delivers in German bookkeeping tools right now:

Real value:

Photo-to-data OCR with booking suggestion (mature, saves minutes per receipt).
Automatic matching of incoming payments to outstanding invoices (mature, reliable at scale).
Automatic data extraction from incoming ZUGFeRD or XRechnung (mature).
Automatic XRechnung/ZUGFeRD XML generation on send (this is not really AI, it is deterministic mapping, but tools often bundle it under AI marketing).

Often marketing-heavy:

Chat-style "AI assistants" built into bookkeeping apps. Output quality varies widely, transparency is poor, and they rarely replace a concrete support doc or a five-minute call to a Steuerberater.

Deterministic but useful:

Real-time tax reserve calculation (Kontist). No LLM, but substance.

The useful AI features are the quiet ones. The marketing-heavy features are the ones that get prominently labelled "AI".

Austria and Switzerland#

Germany is the active case. The two neighbors are different.

Austria: the Bund requires e-invoicing since 2014 via ebInterface through the USP platform. There is no general B2B e-invoicing mandate in Austria as of April 2026. The EU ViDA framework will impose e-invoicing on intra-community B2B invoices from 1 July 2030. Source: EY Austria e-invoicing overview, official B2G platform.

Switzerland: the QR-Rechnung mandate (since 30 September 2022) is not an EN 16931 e-invoice — it is a payment reference system. The Swiss federal administration accepts e-invoices in EN 16931 formats, but there is no general B2B mandate. Source: SIX Group on QR-bill.

Cross-border DACH: German issuing rules apply only to inland B2B. A German freelancer invoicing an Austrian customer is not caught by the German mandate but should still be prepared for the customer to request a structured invoice.

Typical traps#

PDF with a letterhead is no longer sufficient for B2B from 2028. The recipient can lose input-tax (Vorsteuer) deduction rights if they only get a PDF once the mandate fully kicks in. That is the real enforcement mechanism, not a direct fine.

No fines for not issuing — but yes for archive failures. There is no specific monetary penalty in the statute for failing to issue an e-invoice. Archive violations under §26a UStG can attract up to 5,000 euros. The Haufe analysis of the fine risk and Kittl & Partner on avoiding penalties cover this. Real enforcement via Betriebsprüfung is expected from 2028 onwards but is not widespread yet.

No digital signature required. Unlike old rules, EN 16931 e-invoices do not require a qualified electronic signature.

GoBD retention is 8 years, not 10. Since 1 January 2025, the Fourth Bureaucracy Relief Act (BEG IV) cut the retention period from 10 years to 8 years for invoices and booking documents. The d.velop retention overview covers this. Annual accounts and trading books stay at 10 years. The XML file must be archived in original form — not just the human-readable rendering.

B2G is not B2B. E-invoicing to public-sector customers has been mandatory since 27 November 2020. That is a separate regime from the B2B obligation that started in 2025. Freelancers who have never billed public-sector buyers are dealing with B2B for the first time.

ZUGFeRD profile trap. As noted above, the MINIMUM and BASIC-WL profiles do not meet §14 UStG. Starter tiers in some tools default to these profiles. Check the profile before assuming compliance.

Recommendations by profile#

Solo freelancer, under 20 invoices per month: email inbox + Ultramarin Viewer for receiving + DATEV E-Rechnungsplattform for structured receiving (free). For issuing (if not Kleinunternehmer), FastBill Solo at 9 EUR/month or Lexware Office M at 12.90 EUR/month.

Small business, 20 to 100 invoices per month: sevDesk Buchhaltung (9.95 EUR on 24-month billing) or Lexware Office L (21.90 EUR). Both handle send and receive cleanly. Add GetMyInvoices if you have many SaaS subscriptions feeding into your bookkeeping.

SMB working with a Steuerberater (DATEV): DATEV Unternehmen Online (11.28 EUR) + DATEV E-Rechnungsplattform is unbeatable on price through mid-2026 and very competitive afterwards. For heavier invoice volume, BuchhaltungsButler (from 24.95 EUR).

Enterprise with high receivable volume: Candis starts to make sense from roughly 100+ incoming invoices per month.

Bottom line#

The rule is live. The issuing side is still phasing in through 2028, but receiving capability has been mandatory for 16 months. For most solo freelancers in Germany, the practical setup is: an email inbox, a free viewer like Ultramarin, and either DATEV's free receive tier or a 9 to 13 EUR bookkeeping tool for outbound invoices.

The AI features that matter are the boring ones: OCR receipt capture, automatic matching, deterministic tax reserve calculation. The chat-style assistants are visible in marketing and invisible in value.

If you are not yet able to receive an XRechnung, you are already out of compliance. That is the most important thing to fix this week.

Reminder: This post maps the rules. Your specific situation — turnover, regime, cross-border mix, B2G exposure — belongs in a conversation with a Steuerberater.

Sources#

All verified April 2026.

Statutes and official documents

Industry guidance

Tool documentation and pricing

Free viewers and validators

Austria and Switzerland

Roland Hentschel

AI & Web Technology Expert

Web developer and AI enthusiast helping businesses navigate the rapidly evolving landscape of AI tools. Testing and comparing tools so you don't have to.