E-invoicing under EN 16931
Check, preview and create an e-invoice.In your browser, right away.
EN 16931 is the European standard for the structured invoice, and Peppol BIS Billing 3.0 is the profile that travels over the Peppol network, in the European Union and in a growing number of countries outside Europe. Here you check a file against those rules, read it as an ordinary document and build a new one without accounting software. The file is read in your browser and never uploaded.
- Check and preview free, no account, no limit
- Rules from EN 16931, Peppol and XRechnung 3.x
- Plain English for every finding, with the path to the element
for the XML download of one invoice, or 9.90 € for 30 days with no limit on the number of invoices. Check and preview are free.
- fill in the form and watch the document build itself
- the XML is made in your browser, nothing goes to a server
- our own check runs over it before you download
Seller: ARLing s. r. o., company ID 56583486, Bratislava, Slovakia. Stripe handles the payment.
The tool
Check an e-invoice
Load a UBL 2.1 file (Invoice or CreditNote) and we tell you what is wrong with it. Every finding carries the rule code, a sentence in plain English explaining what to fix, the path to the element, and the original wording of the rule under a disclosure link. We read the CustomizationID field and pick the rule set ourselves: EN 16931, Peppol BIS Billing 3.0 or XRechnung.
Preview an e-invoice as a document
The same XML file, read as an ordinary invoice: who billed whom, for what, when, how much and where to pay. Useful when a file arrives from a supplier and you have to read it without accounting software. The button below saves it as a PDF in A4.
Create an e-invoice without accounting software
Fill in the seller, the buyer, the numbers and the lines. On the right the document builds itself, and the UBL 2.1 XML with it. Seller and buyer can be kept in an address book that never leaves your browser. Before the download we run the same check over the generated XML as in the first tab; if it has an error, we do not hand it to you.
XML download
The form and the preview are free. The finished XML is paid: 2.90 € for one invoice (unlocked in this browser for 24 hours, so you can correct it and download again) or 9.90 € for 30 days with no limit on the number of invoices. The XML is made in your browser and is never sent to a server, so we never see it.
Stripe handles the sale as merchant of record (Stripe Payments Europe, Ltd., Dublin): the purchase contract is with Stripe, which collects the payment, issues the receipt and settles the VAT; ARLing supplies the content. By clicking pay you agree to immediate delivery of digital content and acknowledge that you lose the right to withdraw (EU Consumer Rights Directive 2011/83/EU Article 16(m); under Slovak law, where ARLing is based, section 19(1)(m) of Act 108/2024 Coll.). Terms · Withdrawal
or click and pick it from your computer
What we check and what we do not
An honest list, not a promise of completeness.
We check 332 rule codes. That covers the core rules of EN 16931 (BR-01 to BR-65), the total rules BR-CO, the decimal rules BR-DEC, the code list rules BR-CL, the rules per VAT category (S, Z, E, AE, K, G, O, L, M), the rules of Peppol BIS Billing 3.0 including the check digits of national identifiers, the rules of XRechnung 3.x (BR-DE-1 to BR-DE-31), and thirteen checks of our own: IBAN by mod 97, the shape of German, Slovak, Czech and Austrian VAT numbers, the format of the German Leitweg-ID, the order of dates and the currency code.
We do not check the UBL 2.1 XSD schema, so neither element order nor data types. We do not check the 755 rules in the UBL-CR, UBL-SR and UBL-DT groups, which mostly point at elements that should not be there. We apply no rules over the CII syntax: such a file we recognise and say so. Passing our check therefore does not guarantee that the buyer, the buyer invoicing system or the Peppol network will accept the invoice. It is a good first check, not the last word.
The rule wordings come from the official schematron files: EN 16931 from ConnectingEurope, Peppol BIS Billing 3.0 from OpenPEPPOL and XRechnung from KoSIT. Rule codes and rule texts are normative, so we quote them alongside the rule code and write our own explanation of what to fix.
- EN 16931 and its schematron: github.com/ConnectingEurope/eInvoicing-EN16931
- Peppol BIS Billing 3.0, including the EAS and ICD code lists: docs.peppol.eu
- XRechnung, the German CIUS, by KoSIT: xeinkauf.de
- Germany, the federal finance ministry on e-invoicing from 1 January 2025: bundesfinanzministerium.de
- Slovakia, Act 385/2025 Coll. (new section 76a, in force from 1 January 2027): slov-lex.sk
Questions
What people ask.
What is an e-invoice?
An e-invoice is an invoice issued, sent and received in a structured format that a computer can process without anyone retyping it. A PDF sent by e-mail is not an e-invoice. The format is set by the European standard EN 16931 and its two syntaxes: OASIS UBL 2.1 and UN/CEFACT CII.
Is EN 16931 only a European thing?
EN 16931 is a European standard, published by CEN. The delivery network built on top of it, Peppol, is used across the European Union and by a growing number of countries outside Europe; the official Peppol code lists carry national identifier schemes from outside Europe as well. If your customer asks for a Peppol BIS Billing 3.0 invoice, this page checks and builds exactly that, wherever you are.
Who has to do this and from when?
In Germany, businesses have had to be able to receive B2B e-invoices since 1 January 2025; sending is staged, with companies whose previous year turnover was up to 800 000 euro getting until 31 December 2027 and everyone having to send from 1 January 2028. In Slovakia, e-invoicing becomes mandatory for domestic business-to-business supplies between VAT payers on 1 January 2027, under Act 385/2025 Coll. which adds section 76a to the VAT Act. Elsewhere the dates differ, so check your own country; the format and the network are the same.
UBL or CII, which should I pick?
Both syntaxes are equal under EN 16931. In practice the Peppol network carries UBL 2.1, so that is what we generate. CII is used mostly in Germany, including inside the hybrid PDF format ZUGFeRD. Our checker applies the rules over UBL only; a CII file we recognise and tell you so, but we do not run the rules on it.
What is Peppol and how does the invoice travel?
Peppol is a network for exchanging electronic business documents. You do not send the invoice to the buyer directly: you hand it to your access point provider, that provider passes it to the buyer provider, and the buyer provider delivers it. Every party has an electronic address made of a scheme code and an identifier, for example a GS1 GLN with schemeID 0088, a German VAT number with 9930, or a Slovak tax number DIC with 0245. Codes for other countries are in the CEF EAS code list on docs.peppol.eu; we do not guess them.
What does CustomizationID mean?
CustomizationID is field BT-24 and says which specification the invoice follows. It decides which rules apply. For Peppol BIS Billing 3.0 the value is urn:cen.eu:en16931:2017#compliant#urn:fdc:peppol.eu:2017:poacc:billing:3.0; for XRechnung 3.0, the German national specification, it ends with xrechnung_3.0. Our checker reads this field and picks the rule set by itself.
Why does the checker report BR-CO-15?
BR-CO-15 requires the invoice total with VAT (BT-112) to equal the total without VAT (BT-109) plus the total VAT amount (BT-110). It is usually a single cent: your software computes VAT line by line and rounds, while the standard wants one VAT amount per rate, computed from the whole taxable amount. Correct the total in the invoice header, not the individual lines.
How do I get a receipt, and can I get a refund?
Stripe handles the sale as merchant of record and e-mails you a confirmation and a VAT receipt; enter your VAT number at the checkout if you are buying as a company. By clicking pay you agree to immediate delivery of digital content and acknowledge that you lose the right to withdraw (EU Consumer Rights Directive 2011/83/EU Article 16(m); under Slovak law, where ARLing is based, section 19(1)(m) of Act 108/2024 Coll.). If the tool does not work for you, write to andrej@arling.sk; I answer personally, usually within 24 hours.
What this is and what it is not
A template and a check, not tax advice.
This tool checks the shape of the file and assembles a UBL 2.1 invoice from what you type. It does not judge whether you should charge VAT, which rate applies to a supply, whether the reverse charge applies, or whether the supply is taxable at all. That is tax advice, and that is what an accountant or a tax adviser is for. Whoever issues the invoice is responsible for it being right.
We do not create an account and we do not store your data. The file and the form live in your browser; the address book for sellers and buyers sits in localStorage and a button in the form erases it. Exactly one thing goes to a server: after you come back from the payment, we ask whether that payment went through.
We offer VAT rates only for the countries we verified at an official source. For any other country the generator asks you to type the rate yourself rather than guessing it for you.
When a law, a schematron or a version of the specification changes, we adjust the rules and write it here with a date. The facts on this page we verified at the official sources listed above on 11 September 2026.