B2B e-invoicing in Finland 2026: when will it become mandatory?

No. As of September 15, 2026, no Finnish law requires that every domestic business-to-business invoice be sent as a structured e-invoice. Law 241/2019 gives something else: the right to demand an e-invoice. From 1 April 2020, both the public contracting authority and the entrepreneur with an annual turnover exceeding 10,000 euros can demand an e-invoice from the seller that complies with the European standard, and if they do so, PDF is no longer acceptable. The public sector is stricter: the Finnish state takes from April 1, 2021 only accept e-invoices that comply with the European standard. The next real milestone will come from the EU ViDA package: cross-border B2B e-invoicing and transaction-based VAT reporting will become mandatory From July 1, 2030.

Finland B2G and B2B are two different regimes

The confusion arises because the Finnish public sector has been saying the same thing for years: „we only have e-invoices.“ This is true, but it is B2G, or invoicing with a public sector buyer.

Act 241/2019 imposes an obligation on the contracting authority to receive and process e-invoices that meet the requirements. The contracting authority, or procurement unit, is a public contracting entity subject to public procurement rules. This applies to state authorities and central purchasing organisations from 1 April 2019, and to other contracting authorities from 1 April 2020. Note what this obligation is: an obligation to receive on the public contracting authority, not an obligation to send on all Finnish companies.

The state's own practice goes further than this. The Treasury directly states that The state will not accept an invoice attached to an email., because it is not an e-invoice, and 981% of invoices sent to the state are electronic. The public sector accounts for all of Finland's B2B invoicing approximately 7 percent, but practically every company issues an invoice to some public buyer at some point in its life. That's how this practice spreads. It's a market practice, not a general legal obligation.

Who is affected by the 10,000 euro limit?

This border is the one that gets messed up the most. In Law 241/2019 The definition of 10,000 euros is for anyone who is considered an entrepreneur (elinkeinonharjoittaja) within the meaning of this law. This is the turnover for the financial year.

This is not:

• amount of one invoice: An invoice of 12,000 euros does not in itself create an e-invoice obligation;
• number of invoices: The number of invoices sent per month does not count;
• general B2B sales limit: The border will not make all inter-company billing electronic.

If the buyer's turnover is below this limit, he is outside the scope of Section 4. He can still ask for an e-invoice, but he has no legal right to claim it.

And now the honest answer to the question that interests the Baltic seller the most: whether Finnish law imposes a direct obligation on the Estonian, Latvian or Lithuanian seller is not clearly stated in these sources, and I will not try to figure it out here. In practice, this dispute does not go far. If a Finnish customer requests an electronic invoice and you send a PDF invoice, the invoice will not reach their system and the payment will be blocked. The requirement is usually written in the contract or purchase terms anyway.

Is a PDF sent by email an electronic invoice?

No. The definition of Treasury is clear and narrow: An e-invoice is a machine-readable invoice that is sent directly to business software or an online bank, and a PDF or image file attached to an e-mail is not an e-invoice. The same logic applies in law. A structured invoice that allows for automatic processing and meets European standards can be requested.

The European standard is EN 16931, which is a uniform description of which data fields must be on the invoice and what they mean. In Finland, it is SFS-EN 16931-1:2017 + A1:2019 and can be downloaded for free from the SFS e-shop. The reference to the standard was published at EU level Commission Implementing Decision (EU) 2017/1870, which is why the same standard is the basis in all Member States.

The formats Finvoice 3.0 and TEAPPSXML 3.0, which are common in Finland, can produce an invoice that complies with the standard, but compliance does not automatically arise from the fact that the format is correct. The data content must also be in place. For cross-border shipments, an international format is used, such as UBL, which is carried by the Peppol network.

If a Finnish customer asks for an electronic invoice, what exactly should you ask for?

The Treasury's instructions are simple: the buyer must first make sure that their invoice receiving service supports the European standard, and then provide the supplier with their e-invoice address and operator ID. Your side of this conversation looks like this.

• Ask two things: The e-invoice address, or the customer's e-invoice address, and their operator ID. Without them, there is nowhere to send.
• Check your side: Ask your software or operator whether the version you are using sends e-invoices that comply with the European standard. If not, you will need to upgrade.
• Select channel: You can send to Finnish government agencies via the Peppoli network or via Posti Messaging. If neither is suitable, You can create an e-invoice for free. In the Handi or Basware supplier portal.
• Write the details correctly: The State Treasury lists the seller's and buyer's VAT number (FI + Y-number without a hyphen in the case of Finland), names and addresses as mandatory data; the invoice sent to the state must include both the Y-number and the VAT number. If the buyer has provided an order or contract number, this must be included on the invoice.
• Do not place multiple orders on one invoice: According to Peppoli's instructions The invoice may only refer to one order – the invoice may have at most one purchase order reference (BT-13). If the customer requests a consolidated invoice, the data content must be agreed with them separately.

One practical side effect is worth noting: a standard-compliant invoice is validated using uniform rules, so an invoice with incomplete content will already be rejected by the operator. It is better to receive a rejection notice immediately than to discover two weeks later that the invoice has disappeared somewhere.

July 1, 2030 and January 1, 2035: what ViDA changes

The ViDA, or EU "VAT in the Digital Age" package, was adopted on 11 March 2025 and published in the Official Journal of the European Union on 25 March 2025 (Directive (EU) 2025/516). According to the Commission's timetable Member States already gained the right to introduce mandatory e-invoicing under certain conditions when the package entered into force on 14 April 2025; the OSS and IOSS specifications will enter into force on 1 January 2027, and the single VAT registration part with platform rules will enter into force on 1 July 2028.

The part that concerns you is July 1, 2030. From that date, both e-invoices that meet the European standard and transaction-based reporting will become mandatory in cross-border business-to-business transactions in the EU. According to the Tax Board's explanation The seller must submit the invoice data to the tax authority within 10 days of the sale or receipt of the advance payment and the buyer, in principle, within 5 days of receipt of the invoice, although a Member State may exclude purchase invoices from mandatory reporting. At the same time, VAT recapitulative statements will disappear. A Member State may introduce domestic transaction-based reporting at its own discretion, but this too must be based on e-invoices, and national systems must be aligned with the EU model by 1 January 2035 at the latest.

What will not change in 2026

Two things that are not being interpreted at the moment: there is no general domestic B2B e-invoicing obligation in Finland, and ViDA itself does not force Finland to create a domestic transaction-based reporting system. There is no date in these sources when Finland could introduce a domestic obligation. It has not been set by law.

Pressure comes from elsewhere. In Finland, in 2025, traffic moved through operators 353.2 million invoices, the number of Peppoli messages increased by 61 percent to 778,884 transactions, and the e-invoice address book has nearly 370,000 Y-identities, which is 100,000 more than in 2021. The same review notes that Germany, France and Belgium will introduce mandatory e-invoicing in 2026–2027.

The practical conclusion of all this is boring and useful: there is no point in waiting for a change in the law with a Finnish customer. Ask for their e-invoice address and operator ID with the next invoice and make sure that your side can send an e-invoice that meets the European standard. If this is in place, the 2030 cross-border obligation will be more of a new reporting rule for you than a new system.

Read also: English · Latvian · Lithuanian

Last checked: September 15, 2026

FAQ

Will there be a general B2B e-invoicing obligation in Finland in 2026?

No, in 2026, no Finnish law will require all domestic B2B invoices to be sent as a structured e-invoice. However, Act 241/2019 gives a buyer with a turnover exceeding 10,000 euros per financial year the legal right to request an e-invoice from the seller that complies with the European standard.

Is a PDF file sent by email considered a verkkolasku in Finland?

No, according to the definition of the Finnish Treasury and the law, a PDF or image file sent as an email attachment is not an e-invoice. An e-invoice must be a machine-readable structured XML file (for example Finvoice 3.0 or Peppol BIS) that complies with the European standard EN 16931.

When will cross-border e-invoicing between Finland and other EU countries become mandatory?

According to the EU ViDA (VAT in the Digital Age) Directive, mandatory cross-border B2B e-invoicing and transaction-based reporting will come into effect on 1 July 2030. From this date, the current VAT summary reports will also disappear.