Peppol: what the network is, and whether you need it

OpenPeppol separates the name of the framework from the name of the organisation behind it:

OpenPeppol is an international non-profit association under Belgian law, with its seat in Brussels. It took over the network in 2012 from a pilot the European Commission had co-financed since 2008. It does not carry invoices itself:

In practice, a business does not connect to Peppol. It connects to one provider, and that provider is connected to every other one.

The idea that sets Peppol apart from an ordinary e-invoicing service is that sender and receiver do not need the same provider:

The four corners, as OpenPeppol's own policies number them:

Only C2 and C3 speak Peppol to each other, using a transport protocol called AS4. The sending side is also responsible for checking what it sends:

A participant identifier: a scheme, then a value

Every receiver on Peppol has an address, called a participant identifier. It is made of a four-digit code naming the identifier scheme, then the identifier itself in that scheme. OpenPeppol's own example uses a French company number:

Only schemes on OpenPeppol's code list can be used. For the five countries this site covers, the active schemes in version 9.7 of that list, in force since 2 July 2026, are these:

Three older Italian schemes (0097, 0135, 0142) are still active but marked for deprecation in the list, and are left out above. Poland and Portugal have no scheme on the list other than their VAT number.

Two lookups: SML, then SMP

Before sending, C2 has to learn where the receiver's provider is, and what the receiver can accept:

• The SML (Service Metadata Locator) is the single central registry. It works on the Domain Name System, the way a browser finds a website from its name, and answers one question: which SMP holds this participant.
• The SMP (Service Metadata Publisher) is kept by the receiver's provider. It says which documents that receiver accepts, and at which access point. “Each participant identifier is registered with one and only one SMP” (Peppol SML specification 1.3.0, section 2.1).

Only receivers are registered. A business that only sends needs no registration of its own, as the German federal e-invoicing portal puts it: “There is no need for invoice senders to register the Peppol ID with an SMP as long as they only want to send.”

The SML has so far been operated by the European Commission. OpenPeppol presents it as its own service, and a Commission post of 16 May 2026 says the two are “aiming to complete the migration in the second half of 2026”. For a business this changes nothing: the lookup is its provider's job.

The Peppol Directory is not the address book

OpenPeppol also runs a public, searchable directory of participants. It is useful, but it is not complete, and an absence from it proves nothing:

Providers do not simply switch on an access point. Before offering Peppol services, a provider must have

The agreement comes with a Peppol certificate, which is what the other access points check, and which can be revoked if the provider breaches the agreement. The provider also has to remain a member of OpenPeppol for as long as the agreement runs (Service Provider Agreement 4.0.2, clause 9.3).

A Peppol Authority governs the network within its country. Where there is none, OpenPeppol plays the part itself. Each of the five countries has one, under these names in OpenPeppol's list:

A Peppol Authority governs the network. It is not the same thing as a rule that obliges anyone to use it: that is the next section.

• Joining OpenPeppol is not required to send or receive. “End Users are not required to become members of OpenPeppol to send or receive Peppol-based messages” (OpenPeppol, “Join”).
• The provider sets its own price. “The Peppol Service Provider shall freely and independently determine its business model and pricing towards the End Users” (Service Provider Agreement 4.0.2, clause 14.5).
• The authority cannot charge for access. “The Peppol Authority cannot charge the Peppol Service Providers or End Users for connecting to or using the Peppol Network” (same agreement, clause 14.3).

Running an access point of one's own is possible, but means becoming a provider: membership fees, a certification fee, conformance testing and the agreement above. For a business that only wants to send and receive its own invoices, the usual route is a provider.

Not because the law of any of the five countries says so for invoices between businesses. Each of them either names another channel or names none:

Where you will meet it: German federal public buyers

The federal government's invoice portal lists Peppol as a submission channel in its own right:

There, the receiver's Peppol address is the buyer's Leitweg-ID behind the code 0204: “the Peppol receiver ID corresponds to the buyer reference (Leitweg-ID) preceded by the prefix 0204 (e.g. 0204:99661-WEBSERVICEOZG-28)”. Which format to send to that buyer, and the other ways to submit it, are on the German page XRechnung oder ZUGFeRD?.

So, in short

You need Peppol when the business or the public buyer you invoice receives through it, or asks you to send through it. You do not need it to meet the domestic rules of these five countries, which either name another channel or leave the choice to you.