XRechnung is the German implementation (CIUS) of the European standard EN 16931 and the mandatory standard for e-invoices to German government bodies. It is the German equivalent of NLCIUS in the Netherlands.

XRechnung adds German business rules on top of Peppol BIS Billing V3. The standard is managed by KoSIT (Koordinierungsstelle für IT-Standards), a department of the German federal government.

Like NLCIUS, XRechnung is available in two syntaxes: UBL and CII. In practice, the UBL variant is the most widely used on the Peppol network.

KoSIT (Koordinierungsstelle für IT-Standards) manages XRechnung and supports the IT-Planungsrat (IT Planning Council) with IT interoperability and IT security standards and with federal-state government projects. KoSIT is based in Bremen (Freie Hansestadt Bremen, Senator für Finanzen) and can also be engaged by other government bodies for specific IT tasks.

KoSIT releases a new version twice a year (effective from 1 February and 1 August respectively). Version 2.3 has not been maintained since 1 February 2024; the current version is 3.0.

UBL Invoice:

urn:oasis:names:specification:ubl:schema:xsd:Invoice-2::Invoice##urn:cen.eu:en16931:2017#compliant#urn:xeinkauf.de:kosit:xrechnung_3.0::2.1

An important feature of XRechnung is the Leitweg-ID, a unique identifier that indicates to which government office the invoice should be routed. The Leitweg-ID is included as BuyerReference in the invoice and is mandatory when invoicing German government bodies.

The structure is: {coarse}-{fine}-{check} (e.g. 991-12345-67). The first digits identify the federal state or government organisation, the middle group the specific office.

XRechnung has additional validation rules on top of BIS Billing V3:

• Leitweg-ID is mandatory as BuyerReference
• Specific identifier schemes for German parties (Leitweg-ID as 0204)
• Additional rules for tax representation
• Restrictions on certain optional EN 16931 elements

XRechnung restricts the EN 16931/UNTDID 1001 code list for InvoiceTypeCode (BT-3):

This differs from Peppol BIS Billing V3 (where 383 and 386 are permitted but 384 is not) and from NLCIUS (where 380, 381, 384 and 389 are permitted but 383 and 386 are not).

German government bodies can be reached via the Peppol network with XRechnung, or, for senders based abroad, also with an invoice compliant with Peppol BIS Billing 3.0 (UBL variant). Since the German National Ruleset (17 February 2025), XRechnung (UBL) and Peppol BIS Billing 3.0 are content-equivalent: the German XRechnung rules have been incorporated into BIS Billing 3.0 as a country-specific extension. XRechnung in CII syntax is not interchangeable with BIS Billing 3.0, since BIS Billing 3.0 uses UBL exclusively.

For foreign senders who already generate Peppol BIS Billing V3, this is a practical alternative: no separate XRechnung transformation is needed as long as the UBL variant is used.

eConnect fully supports XRechnung. When you send an invoice to a German receiver that expects XRechnung, the PSB automatically transforms your invoice to the correct format. Conversely, received XRechnung invoices are automatically processed and made available in the platform.

Note: since 1 January 2025, all businesses in Germany are required to be able to receive structured e-invoices. A plain PDF is no longer accepted as a valid invoice format. If you send invoices to German customers, use XRechnung or ZUGFeRD/Factur-X. eConnect automatically transforms your invoice to the correct format.