New E-Invoice Rules: Mandatory Validation and 8-Year Storage of Validation Reports in Germany

• German businesses must now not only check the content of incoming e-invoices but also technically validate them and keep the validation report for at least eight years.
• The obligation to issue e-invoices between domestic businesses starts January 1, 2025, with transition rules until 2028, but the ability to receive and process e-invoices is required from 2025 to maintain input tax deduction.
• E-invoices must be in a specific format with all VAT-required information in the structured part; references to attachments are not sufficient.
• Recipients must check for format errors, business rule errors, and content errors; format and content errors always lead to loss of input tax deduction, and business rule errors usually do as well.

Source: nwb-experten-blog.de

Note that this post was (partially) written with the help of AI. It is always useful to review the original source material, and where needed to obtain (local) advice from a specialist.

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