E-Invoice Implemented Incorrectly or Too Late: Penalties, Risks, and Safeguards

What you need to know about penalties for e-invoices

A specific “penalty” for e-invoices does not exist in the law. However, anyone who issues an invoice not at all, too late, or in the wrong format commits an administrative offense under § 26a UStG, which can be punished with a fine of up to 5,000 euros.

The bigger risk is usually the threatened input VAT deduction for the recipient if the tax office objects to an incorrect invoice. As a rule, this can be remedied by correcting the invoice. As of January 1, 2025, only receiving e-invoices is mandatory. For issuing your own invoices, a transitional rule applies until the end of 2026, and the obligation to issue them will then be introduced in stages in 2027 and 2028.

E-invoice fine: What amounts are possible

For e-invoices, three fine scenarios under VAT law are relevant. An invoice that you do not issue, or do not issue on time, can be punished with a fine of up to 5,000 euros. The same range applies if you do not retain invoices correctly. A higher amount of up to 30,000 euros concerns a different case—namely unpaid VAT, not the invoice itself.

Important for classification: A fine is the maximum, not automatic. It requires an intentional or reckless violation, not a one-off technical mishap. Anyone who is demonstrably making an effort to meet the requirement does not necessarily have to fear an immediate sanction.

The real risk: Input VAT deduction and tax audits

The most expensive problem is rarely the fine. It is your business customer’s input VAT deduction. If you issue an invoice to a company that does not meet the requirements, the tax office can deny the recipient the input VAT deduction. For an invoice of 10,000 euros net, that quickly amounts to 1,900 euros that your customer initially will not get back. This can negatively affect the business relationship.

Two things mitigate this risk. First, a formal error can usually be remedied by correcting the invoice; the input VAT deduction is then generally saved. Second, incorrect invoicing almost always comes to light only during a tax audit by the tax office, and until then there is enough time to correct conspicuous documents. As a rule of thumb: Issued correctly is better than corrected later, and corrected is better than ignored.

E-invoicing not implemented: What applies during the transitional period

The obligations are being introduced in stages, but that is no reason to wait. Receiving has been mandatory for everyone since 2025, and your own obligation to issue will move closer with 2027 and 2028. Anyone who completes the switch early won’t have to react under time pressure as soon as the first business customer demands an e-invoice.

The obligation to receive is the only one that currently applies to everyone. This obligation also applies to small businesses and to associations. When it comes to issuing, by contrast, a transitional period runs through the end of 2026 during which paper and PDF remain permissible with the customer’s consent.

E-invoice issued incorrectly: The most common mistakes and how to fix them

Most mistakes are not due to bad intent, but to a misunderstanding: A PDF sent by email is not an e-invoice. A real e-invoice is a structured, machine-readable data set compliant with the EN 16931 standard. A plain PDF or a scanned paper document does not meet this requirement, even if it is sent “electronically.”

Three sources of error show up particularly often. The wrong format—if a PDF is sent instead of XRechnung or ZUGFeRD. Missing mandatory details under § 14 UStG, such as an incomplete tax number or a missing sequential invoice number. And technically incorrect data sets that a recipient system cannot import. The technical basis behind it is explained in the article on the EN 16931 standard.

Each of these errors can be corrected. You cancel the incorrect invoice and reissue a correct e-invoice. With software like easybill that generates valid XRechnung and ZUGFeRD files, the error often doesn’t arise in the first place.

Rejecting an e-invoice: Is that possible?

Two concerns come up again and again. The first: “I’m not technically able to receive an e-invoice at all.” The second: “Can I simply reject an e-invoice?” Both can be cleared up quickly.

Receiving is easier than it sounds. It isn’t technically impossible—it’s the lowest hurdle of the entire requirement. An email inbox is sufficient to receive an e-invoice. Anyone who also wants to read and verify the file afterward uses software that makes the structured format visible. Becoming able to receive them costs you nothing.

Rejecting an e-invoice just because you don’t like the format, on the other hand, is not permissible. The obligation to receive means exactly that: You must be able to accept and process e-invoices. If you resist a properly issued e-invoice from your supplier, you yourself are in the wrong. The more relaxed solution is to set up receipt once and then put the topic to bed.

Is there a separate penalty for the e-invoicing obligation?

No. There is no separate criminal offense and no separately created sanction for the e-invoicing obligation. The legislature did not introduce a new fine “for e-invoices.”

Anything that could be at risk follows from rules that have long applied: the administrative offense under § 26a UStG for an invoice that is not issued or retained correctly, and the tax consequences surrounding the input VAT deduction. So if you implement the requirement properly, you have nothing to fear.

Implement e-invoicing safely: How to eliminate the risk

It’s only a few steps, and good invoicing software will take care of most of them for you, so you don’t have to deal with XML files yourself.

• Become able to receive them. Make sure incoming e-invoices from your suppliers arrive reliably and can be opened—most easily directly in your invoicing software rather than scattered across an email inbox.
• If in doubt, check whether a file is actually valid. For example, a free e-invoice validator can show you.
• Clarify your format. For most businesses, ZUGFeRD is practical because it combines a readable PDF with embedded XML; XRechnung is mainly required by public-sector contracting authorities.
• Issue your invoices using software that generates valid EN 16931-compliant formats, instead of assembling files manually. That way, format errors won’t occur in the first place.
• Archive each e-invoice in its original format and in a GoBD-compliant manner, so that record retention is correct from the very start.

This is exactly where easybill comes in. You create and receive e-invoices as XRechnung and ZUGFeRD without having to worry about the technical details, and receiving is already included in the permanently free Free plan.

Properly archive e-invoices and avoid record-retention fines

You must keep an e-invoice in its original format, i.e., as an XML data record, not as a printout. A printout of a ZUGFeRD file is legally only a copy; the original is the structured file. Anyone who files only the paper version does not meet the requirement.

For invoices and accounting records, an eight-year retention period has applied since 2025. Filing must be GoBD-compliant, meaning unalterable and machine-readable. Anyone who generates their e-invoices in software and archives them there in an audit-proof manner has this point automatically covered and does not need to worry about the record-retention fine under Section 14b UStG.