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Format Reference

ZUGFeRD (2.x)

The German hybrid PDF/A-3 + CII e-invoice format — the FeRD label for the same artefacts as Factur-X, covering all five EN 16931 profiles.

ZUGFeRD is a hybrid e-invoice format published by FeRD (Forum elektronische Rechnung Deutschland). It pairs a PDF/A-3 document (human-readable) with embedded UN/CEFACT CII D22B XML (machine-readable) — the same technical artefacts as Factur-X, which is the French co-label for the same joint standard.

Beliq validates against ZUGFeRD 2.x / Factur-X 1.08 (published 2025-12-04, effective 2026-01-15). The ZUGFeRD 2.5 / Factur-X 1.09 upgrade is in progress (tracked under bq-engine #141); Beliq intentionally uses a version-agnostic label (ZF-2.x) to cover the full ZUGFeRD 2.0-2.x series — the underlying Schematron and XSD artefacts are the same joint pack.

ZUGFeRD vs. Factur-X

ZUGFeRD and Factur-X are the same wire format — the same CII D22B syntax, the same per-profile XSDs, and the same Schematron pack. FeRD publishes ZUGFeRD for the German market; FNFE-MPE publishes Factur-X for France. The joint pack carries both labels.

The only API-level differences when calling Beliq:

ZUGFeRD Factur-X
standard API value "zugferd" "facturx"
EXTENDED-CTC-FR profile Not available extended-ctc-fr
Authority FeRD FNFE-MPE + FeRD joint

ZUGFeRD omits the extended-ctc-fr profile because it is a France-only regulatory overlay (the BR-FR-CTC Flux 2 Schematron for the French B2B reform). All other profiles are identical.

Profiles

ZUGFeRD 2.x ships five EN-16931-aligned profiles. All five are supported in Beliq.

Profile Beliq value What it carries
MINIMUM minimum Header-only structured data (invoice number, dates, totals).
BASIC_WL basicwl Basic without line items — header-level data only.
BASIC basic Header data plus essential invoice lines.
EN 16931 (Comfort) en16931 Full EN 16931 compliance — recommended default.
EXTENDED extended EN 16931 plus additional EXTENDED-only fields.

What Beliq emits

When you call POST /v1/generate with standard: "zugferd":

  • output: "pdf" → a PDF/A-3 document with embedded CII D22B XML, attached under the standard filename factur-x.xml (the joint attachment name used by both labels).
  • output: "xml" → the same CII D22B XML without the PDF envelope.

If profile is omitted, it defaults to en16931. The full request schema is on POST /v1/generate.

curl -X POST https://api.beliq.eu/v1/generate \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $BELIQ_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "standard": "zugferd",
    "profile": "en16931",
    "output": "pdf",
    "invoice": { ... }
  }'

Validation pipeline

The validation pipeline is identical to Factur-X (same artefacts, same Schematron pack — only the extended-ctc-fr overlay step is absent):

  1. CII D22B XSD — structural validity, per-profile XSD subset where applicable.
  2. EN 16931 Schematron — cross-syntax core rules.
  3. Factur-X 1.08 / ZUGFeRD 2.x profile Schematron — profile-specific business rules.

See the Factur-X page for artefact sourcing details (primary FNFE-MPE / FeRD joint pack; Mustangproject secondary source for MINIMUM and BASIC).