Guide

PEPPOL Network

The pan-European network for secure and standardized electronic business documents. Your gateway to cross-border e-invoicing.

What is PEPPOL?

PEPPOL (Pan-European Public Procurement OnLine) is a secure network for electronic transmission of business documents. PEPPOL is a multilateral e-invoicing network with hundreds of certified service providers across 40+ countries, supporting both B2B and B2G transactions. The OpenPEPPOL service-provider directory lists current members.

Growing Network

Adoption continues to expand across public and private sectors in 40+ countries. See the OpenPEPPOL members directory for the current participant landscape.

Network Features

Use these points as the practical checks for this section.

Secure document transmission
Uniform business standards
Cross-border interoperability
Certified Access Points
Automatic delivery receipts
EU directive compliance

Benefits of Using PEPPOL

Cost

Removes paper-based invoice processing and reconciliation overhead. OpenPEPPOL members publish case studies on the openpeppol.org members directory.

Speed

AS4 transport delivers structured invoices to the recipient's access point typically within seconds.

Trust

Each access point is certified by a national PEPPOL Authority and uses signed AS4 messages for non-repudiable delivery.

Compliance

PEPPOL BIS Billing 3.0 implements EN 16931 and is the routing layer for many EU national mandates (ES Crea y Crece, BE B2B 2026, FR PPF, NL Digipoort B2G).

PEPPOL Connection in 6 Steps

Follow this sequence as the practical checklist for this section.

Choose a PEPPOL Access Point (AP) provider from the OpenPEPPOL service-provider directory.
Register your participant identifier (e.g. 9930:DE123456789 for German VAT-ID, EAS scheme 9930 per ISO 6523).
Your AP publishes your participant identifier and supported document types to the SMP (Service Metadata Publisher) and SML (Service Metadata Locator).
Implement EN 16931-conformant UBL invoices (typically Peppol BIS Billing 3.0, customizationID urn:cen.eu:en16931:2017#compliant#urn:fdc:peppol.eu:2017:poacc:billing:3.0).
Test outbound delivery against the OpenPEPPOL test directory before going live.
Monitor receipts (MLR — Message Level Response) and invoice responses (IR — Invoice Response per EN 16931-1).

Direct connection vs access point

Use an access point

Most teams connect through a certified provider for SMP registration, AS4 messaging, and operational monitoring.

Direct participation

Larger enterprises may run their own AP infrastructure; you still need certified software and ongoing compliance testing.

PEPPOL Business Processes

BIS 3.0 Billing (BIS)

Standard invoicing Usage: Most common application

BIS 3.0 Ordering (BIS)

Electronic orders Usage: Procurement processes

BIS 3.0 Catalogue (BIS)

Product catalogues Usage: E-commerce integration

BIS 3.0 Despatch Advice (BIS)

Shipping notifications Usage: Logistics processes

Certified Access Point Providers

OpenPEPPOL Service Provider Directory

OpenPEPPOL

EU. Certified

Resources & Links

OpenPEPPOL Website