What Is Peppol and Why Does It Matter for Irish Businesses?

Peppol (Pan-European Public Procurement On-Line) is an international network that enables businesses to exchange electronic invoices and procurement documents with government bodies and other organisations. In Ireland, public bodies must be able to receive electronic invoices (central government since April 2019, sub-central bodies since April 2020), though suppliers are not obliged to send them, and Revenue has announced a phased move to structured e-invoicing for VAT-registered businesses from 2028.

How Peppol works — the 4-corner model

Peppol uses a "4-corner model." You don't send invoices directly to the government — instead, your system connects to your Access Point (corner 2), which routes documents to the recipient's Access Point (corner 3), which delivers to the recipient's system (corner 4). OpenPeppol, the non-profit that governs the network, manages the central directory linking all participants.

This means you need an Access Point provider (a software or service company certified by OpenPeppol to connect to the network).

Your Peppol Participant ID

Every Peppol participant has a unique identifier. In Ireland, the standard format is: 9935: followed by your IE VAT number (e.g. 9935:IE1234567A). 9935 is the Irish VAT scheme identifier. This ID is registered in the Peppol Directory and allows other participants to find and send documents to you.

The Peppol BIS Billing 3.0 standard

All invoices sent over Peppol must comply with the Peppol BIS Billing 3.0 specification, which is based on the EU standard EN 16931. This is an XML format (UBL 2.1) that includes structured fields for all invoice data — buyer and seller identifiers, line items, VAT details, and payment information. Paper PDFs cannot be transmitted over Peppol.

Public bodies and Revenue e-invoicing plans

Under S.I. 258 of 2019 (European Union (Electronic Invoicing in Public Procurement) Regulations 2019), Irish public bodies must be able to receive and process electronic invoices that comply with the European standard: central government from April 2019 and sub-central bodies from April 2020. Suppliers are not obliged to send e-invoices under these Regulations.

Separately, Revenue has announced phases for structured e-invoicing: from 1 November 2028 domestic B2B e-invoicing plus real-time reporting for VAT-registered large corporates (Large Corporates Division), with all businesses required to be able to receive structured e-invoices; from November 2029 this extends to all VAT-registered businesses for intra-EU B2B; and from 1 July 2030 the ViDA rules apply to all intra-EU cross-border B2B transactions. Check Revenue for current dates and scope. If you supply any Irish public body, check whether they accept invoices over Peppol.

Choosing an Access Point

You need a certified Peppol Access Point to connect to the network. Options for Irish businesses include cloud-based SaaS providers (suitable for most SMEs) and on-premise solutions (for larger organisations with existing ERP systems). Costs range from free (for basic sending-only services) to €30–100/month for full receive-and-send capability with integration to your accounting software.

Compare access points at the OpenPeppol certified access point directory.

Benefits of Peppol for Irish businesses

Faster payment — EU Directive 2011/7/EU mandates government bodies pay within 30 days; structured electronic invoices reduce processing delays
Fewer errors — structured XML removes manual re-keying at the recipient end
Automatic reconciliation with your accounting software
Single connection to send to any Peppol participant globally
Access to government procurement opportunities that require Peppol capability