Peppol Self-Billing

What is self-billing?

Self-billing is a process where the buyer issues and sends an invoice on behalf of the supplier through the Peppol network. The invoice refers to goods or services that the buyer has received and is responsible for documenting.

In Peppol, this process is defined in the Peppol BIS Self-Billing 3.0 specification, which ensures interoperability and VAT compliance across participating countries. Self-billed invoices must contain the same required data elements as standard invoices, including buyer and supplier identifiers, tax details, and references to the underlying commercial transaction.

Before self-billing can be used, the supplier and buyer must have a prior agreement that explicitly authorises the buyer to issue invoices on the supplier’s behalf, as required by VAT and e-invoicing legislation. This agreement is handled outside Maventa between the parties themselves.

Key distinction

Legally and according to Peppol standards, the buyer creates the invoice on behalf of the supplier, and the supplier is the recipient. The supplier remains the legal seller, and VAT liability stays with the supplier.

From an accounting perspective:

The supplier records the self-billing invoice as an incoming invoice, treating it as a sales record.
The buyer is responsible for issuing the invoice in their system. Since the buyer already generated the invoice, the supplier does not issue another invoice for the same transaction.

Integrators should make sure this distinction is clear in the accounting system so there is no confusion about responsibilities.

Country support

Self-billing via Maventa is available in all countries where Maventa supports Peppol invoice receiving, except Norway.

Sending self-billing invoices

The buyer creates a compliant Peppol BIS Self-Billing document with the correct profiles and type codes, and sends it like any other invoice via the REST API. Maventa automatically identifies the document as a self-billing invoice or credit note and delivers it to the supplier via Peppol — provided the supplier is registered to receive self-billing documents. If the supplier is not registered, the invoice will fail, as no fallback routing is available for self-billing documents.

Maventa reads routing data from the XML for self-billing invoices. Any routing information provided in the API metadata (such as recipient_eia or recipient_operator) is ignored.

The self-billing document must include the following identifiers in the XML. The CustomizationID and ProfileID are the same for both invoices and credit notes — only the document type code and root element differ:

<cbc:CustomizationID>urn:cen.eu:en16931:2017#compliant#urn:fdc:peppol.eu:2017:poacc:selfbilling:3.0</cbc:CustomizationID>

<cbc:ProfileID>urn:fdc:peppol.eu:2017:poacc:selfbilling:01:1.0</cbc:ProfileID>

Self-billing invoice

The root element is <Invoice> with type code 389:

<cbc:InvoiceTypeCode>389</cbc:InvoiceTypeCode>

Receiving self-billing invoices

To receive self-billing documents, a company must explicitly register dedicated Peppol self-billing profiles via the API — one for self-billing invoices and one for self-billing credit notes. These are separate registrations from the standard INVOICE_AND_CREDIT_NOTE profile. There is no UI available for self-billing profile registrations.

Self-billing is supported only in the Peppol BIS format. No conversion to other formats is available, meaning the receiving ERP must be capable of downloading and handling Peppol BIS invoices.

Register self-billing profiles

Call POST /v1/company/profiles with the following parameters:

profile: SELF_BILLING_INVOICE (for receiving self-billing invoices) or SELF_BILLING_CREDIT_NOTE (for receiving self-billing credit notes)
network: PEPPOL

Once the profiles are created, use GET /v1/company/profiles to verify that they are active for the PEPPOL network. This separate registration is necessary because not all ERPs support self-billing by default.

Downloading and processing self-billing invoices

Downloading self-billing invoices works the same way as downloading any other received invoice — use the standard invoice receiving flow.

After downloading, the receiving system must identify the document as a self-billing document by checking the CustomizationID and document type code in the XML. Both types use the self-billing customization ID (urn:cen.eu:en16931:2017#compliant#urn:fdc:peppol.eu:2017:poacc:selfbilling:3.0):

Self-billing invoice: InvoiceTypeCode = 389
Self-billing credit note: CreditNoteTypeCode = 261

Based on these identifiers, the receiving system should handle the document as a sales record rather than a purchase record.

Summary

Self-billing via Peppol allows buyers to issue compliant electronic invoices on behalf of suppliers. It requires:

A prior commercial agreement between buyer and supplier.
Proper Peppol BIS Self-Billing 3.0 XML with correct type codes and identifiers.
Supplier registration for SELF_BILLING_INVOICE and/or SELF_BILLING_CREDIT_NOTE Peppol profiles.