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Country Guides

United Kingdom

UK B2B + B2G e-invoicing with Beliq, Peppol BIS 3.0 UBL (pre-confirmation pending HMRC 2026-11), EAS 9932, GBP currency, and the Peppol transmission boundary.

The UK’s upcoming e-invoicing mandate is expected to adopt standard Peppol BIS Billing 3.0 UBL (EN 16931) directly. UK Gov explicitly rejected a centralized SDI-style portal in favour of the Peppol 4-corner decentralized model. There is no national CIUS expected. Authority: HMRC + Department for Business and Trade (DBT).

So a UK invoice in Beliq is a Peppol BIS invoice with UK parties (EAS 9932) and GBP currency. See the Peppol BIS format reference for the full element layout.

Mandate timing

The UK confirmed a mandatory e-invoicing regime for B2B and B2G at the Autumn Budget 2025, on a decentralised Peppol-based model. NHS England has run a mandatory Peppol programme ahead of any general mandate. The detailed standards and timetable are still pending, so treat the specifics below as pre-confirmation.

DateWhat changes
March 2022NHS England runs a mandatory Peppol e-invoicing programme, ahead of any general mandate.
2029Structured e-invoicing becomes mandatory for B2B and B2G, confirmed at the Autumn Budget 2025.

Pre-confirmation. The government has confirmed a mandate from 2029 and a decentralised, Peppol-based model, but the detailed standards and business-rule pack are pending publication by HMRC and the Department for Business and Trade, expected with Budget 2026 (widely anticipated in November 2026). The exact month, format, and any CIUS are expected rather than legally fixed.

Last verified against the UK government's e-invoicing consultation response (Autumn Budget 2025) and the gov.uk Tax Update 2026 on 9 July 2026. Official source.

If you sell to UK private-sector buyers today, e-invoicing is voluntary; it becomes mandatory once the regime takes effect. Plan your Peppol Access Point relationship before then. For the dates beliq tracks across every covered country, see the mandate calendar.

Making Tax Digital is not e-invoicing

MTD (Making Tax Digital) is HMRC’s digital VAT-return submission regime (mandatory since April 2019 for large turnover, April 2022 for all VAT-registered businesses). MTD is a separate compliance layer from e-invoicing: it covers VAT-return submission, not structured invoice exchange. The 2029 e-invoicing mandate is independent of MTD.

What Beliq does today

  • Generate UK Peppol invoices via standard: "peppol-bis" (profile peppol), addressed with the UK VAT endpoint scheme (UK:VAT, Peppol EAS 9932).
  • Validate and parse Peppol BIS UBL against the full EN 16931 + Peppol BIS 3.0 Schematron (peppolVersion in the response).
  • Compliance status for uk_peppol is supported; it rides the fully-verified Peppol BIS pipeline (9 OpenPeppol positive examples + 227 negative test cases). The UK adds no country-specific rules under the current pre-publication assumption. We re-verify against HMRC, DBT, and the OpenPeppol UK WG on a calendar-enforced schedule and update the profile when the Budget 2026 standards are published.

What Beliq does not do (Peppol transmission boundary)

The UK’s network is the Peppol Network. Beliq is not a Peppol Access Point. It does not:

  • Transmit invoices over Peppol or register you as a UK Peppol participant.
  • Operate the 4-corner exchange on your behalf.
  • Submit VAT returns to HMRC via MTD (separate regime; not e-invoicing).

You send Beliq’s UBL output through your chosen Access Point (BYOC). Beliq’s job ends at a correct, Peppol-valid document. Authority oversight: HMRC + Department for Business and Trade.

Northern Ireland and the Windsor Framework

Northern Ireland parties carry XI-prefix VAT IDs for customs-aligned goods under the Windsor Framework. Peppol routing for NI parties is not clarified in current OpenPeppol public docs as of June 2026. Follow your Access Point provider’s NI routing guidance; do not assume NI invoices route identically to GB-prefix invoices for cross-border goods. Beliq emits the UBL document; the routing decision sits with your Access Point.

Integration architecture (Beliq vs Peppol Access Point)

Concern In Beliq today Outside Beliq (your stack / partner)
Peppol BIS 3.0 UBL invoice XML Generate, Validate, Parse —
Peppol Network transmission (4-corner) Not offered, see boundary above Your Access Point provider
Northern Ireland Windsor Framework routing Not implemented (open question in Peppol docs) Your Access Point provider
Making Tax Digital VAT-return submission Out of scope (separate regime) Your accounting / MTD-compatible software

Generating a UK Peppol invoice

Address both parties with the UK VAT endpoint scheme (UK:VAT, EAS 9932) via the peppol block. Use GBP for the invoice currency. Provide either a buyerReference or an orderReference (Peppol requires one). The simpler alternative is to omit the peppol block and pass a vatId (GB…) + address.countryCode: "GB"; Beliq then derives the UK:VAT scheme (9932) automatically.

generate-uk-peppol.sh
curl -X POST https://api.beliq.eu/v1/generate \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "standard": "peppol-bis",
    "profile": "peppol",
    "output": "xml",
    "invoice": {
      "number": "2026-0001",
      "issueDate": "2026-06-03",
      "currencyCode": "GBP",
      "buyerReference": "UK-PO-9911",
      "seller": {
        "name": "Test Seller Ltd",
        "vatId": "GB123456789",
        "peppol": { "schemeId": "9932", "id": "GB123456789" },
        "address": { "street": "1 Sample Street", "city": "London", "postalCode": "SW1A 1AA", "countryCode": "GB" }
      },
      "buyer": {
        "name": "Test Buyer Ltd",
        "vatId": "GB987654321",
        "peppol": { "schemeId": "9932", "id": "GB987654321" },
        "address": { "street": "2 Example Road", "city": "Manchester", "postalCode": "M1 2AB", "countryCode": "GB" }
      },
      "lines": [
        {
          "description": "Professional services",
          "quantity": 1,
          "unitCode": "C62",
          "unitPrice": 100.00,
          "lineTotal": 100.00,
          "vatRate": 20,
          "vatCategoryCode": "S"
        }
      ],
      "taxSummary": [
        { "vatCategoryCode": "S", "vatRate": 20, "taxableAmount": 100.00, "taxAmount": 20.00 }
      ],
      "totalNetAmount": 100.00,
      "totalTaxAmount": 20.00,
      "totalGrossAmount": 120.00
    }
  }'

Validation behaviour

On /v1/validate and /v1/generate, UK invoices run the full EN 16931 + Peppol BIS 3.0 Schematron; failures carry the relevant BR-* / PEPPOL-* rule id. The response reports profileDetected: "peppol" and a peppolVersion. CreditNote payloads are supported (documentType: "creditnote"). GBP currency round-trips cleanly through cbc:DocumentCurrencyCode.

Further reading