Quick answer up front: since 1 January 2025, every domestic company in Germany has to be able to receive and process e-invoices. That’s a legal duty, not a suggestion. But “able to receive” doesn’t mean signing up for another SaaS subscription. To start, a mailbox, a free viewer and an archive that meets the GoBD requirements are enough. You only need more once you have to send e-invoices yourself, and that comes later.
What does the obligation actually require?
The split that matters is between receiving and sending. One already applies, the other is still ahead:
| From when | What applies |
|---|---|
| since 01.01.2025 | All domestic companies must be able to receive and process e-invoices. |
| until 31.12.2026 | Transition period: paper and PDF are still allowed for sending, with the recipient’s consent. |
| from 01.01.2027 | Sending obligation for companies with over €800,000 prior-year turnover. |
| from 01.01.2028 | Sending obligation for everyone (small invoices up to €250 excepted). |
An e-invoice in the legal sense is a structured data set under the EN 16931 standard, so XRechnung or ZUGFeRD. A PDF invoice by email is not an e-invoice in this sense, even if it feels digital.
In plain terms: if a supplier sends you an XRechnung today, you have to accept it and make it readable. If you can’t, you have a problem, and it’s now, not 2027.
The minimal stack, no subscription
You need three things, and none of them costs money each month:
- A mailbox for invoices. A clearly named address like
invoice@yourdomain.comwhere e-invoices arrive. You already have this. - Something that makes the file readable. An XRechnung is technically an XML file, unreadable to a human at first. A free viewer like the open-source Quba viewer, which builds on the KoSIT XRechnung visualisation, turns it into a normal, readable invoice. ZUGFeRD brings the readable PDF along with it.
- An audit-proof archive. The file has to be kept in its original format, unalterable and findable for the legal retention period (GoBD). That can be an ordered directory on a system that write-protects versions, or your existing document archive if it can do this. If you run your own systems anyway, you already have the right place for it.
That’s the whole mandatory part. No contract, no monthly fee, no additional cloud that gets to see your invoice data.
When does software pay off after all?
Staying honest: past a certain volume, this becomes fiddly. If you get dozens of invoices a day, or have to send structured invoices yourself from 2027, software that connects reading, checking, posting and archiving pays off. That’s a genuine process improvement, not bureaucratic busywork. Whether an off-the-shelf product is enough or a lean custom build maps your process better is decided by your invoice volume — not by a salesperson.
You make that decision when your volume justifies it, not because someone sold you a subscription in 2025 that you never needed for the receiving duty alone. Meet the obligation cleanly first, then optimise at your own pace.
Not sure whether your invoice inbox already meets the receiving obligation, without needing another subscription for it? Get in touch — we’ll set up the lean path that fits your volume.