Peppol Directory vs Lookup: which one should you use?

If you need to find out whether a customer or supplier can receive a Peppol e-invoice, the choice of tool comes down to one thing: do you already have their Peppol ID or not? The Peppol Directory, the network's public company catalogue, is a free, browsable search where you can look up a business by name, Peppol endpoint ID, country and document capability. That's the right place to start when all you have is a name, a country or a registry code. The Peppol Lookup service, publicly available since 19 March 2026, answers a narrower question: is this specific Peppol ID published on the network right now? Neither tool sends an invoice, and neither one proves your invoice arrived.

In short: the Directory finds, the Lookup confirms

Your situation	Use
You only know the customer's name or country	Peppol Directory
You want to see whether the customer has declared a capability to receive invoices	Peppol Directory
You have the Peppol ID and the question is whether it's published right now	Lookup service
You just registered as a receiver and want to check the record is live	Lookup service
You switched operators and invoices aren't arriving	Lookup service, then your operator
You want a guarantee that this one invoice gets delivered	Neither; see below

Are these two different invoice channels?

Well, and that misunderstanding is worth clearing up straight away. Neither the Directory nor the Lookup is an invoice channel. They don't send anything. They only answer questions.

What does the Directory actually collect?

The Directory is an aggregated view. The Peppol Directory specification v1.1.1 describes it as a collector of the Business Cards already held in existing SMPs, not as a replacement for any part of the network. An SMP, or Service Metadata Publisher, is the register where your operator keeps your company's network record. The Directory pulls that data together so a human can search it in a browser.

What does the Lookup check do?

The Lookup looks at one narrow thing: is the participant currently published on the network? OpenPeppol says plainly that the service exists because the Directory is asynchronous. Directory updates don't propagate instantly, which creates situations where it isn't clear whether publishing a participant actually succeeded.

When to start with the Directory

If you only have the customer's name, start in the Directory. It's a free, browseable open-source service, and you can search by company name, Peppol endpoint ID, country and Peppol document capability, one criterion at a time or several combined. Where the data exists, you'll also see additional identifiers, contact details, the registration date, a website and free text.

In practice you're doing two jobs at once here. You find the customer's likely Peppol identifier, which you can then save on their customer card in your accounting software. And you check what document capability is listed. Is the receiver published for invoices at all, or only for something else, such as orders?

One caution: how old a Directory record is, and whether it's correct, are two different questions. If the customer changed operators last year, the Directory may still show the old details. At that point the next step is the Lookup, not guesswork.

Does an empty search result mean the customer can't receive e-invoices?

No, and this is the most expensive mistake a Baltic small business can make here. Absence from the Directory does not mean the customer cannot receive an e-invoice.

OpenPeppol states it directly: uploading data to the Directory is the responsibility of the Peppol SMP service provider and is not currently mandatory, which is why you won't find every registered Peppol receiver there. Publishing is a voluntary step taken by the operator, not by the network itself.

Picture an invoice of €1,200 to an Estonian client. You search their name in the Directory, get no results, and email a PDF instead. The client replies that they only accept machine-readable e-invoices, and the invoice comes back to you. Technically the channel was fine the whole time; the only thing missing was the Directory record. That's a week off your payment terms with no actual failure anywhere.

So never treat an empty search result as the final answer. Ask the customer, or have your operator run the query.

When does the new Lookup service actually help?

The Lookup service has been available since 19 March 2026, and its purpose is to give you a simple way to check whether a participant is published on the network right now. OpenPeppol calls it a first version, built to solve a daily practical worry for service providers and developers. The chair itself is public, at lookup.peppol.org.

Three situations where it earns its keep

• During onboarding: you've registered as an e-invoice receiver and want to see that the record really is live before you promise anything to a customer.
• After a change: you switched operators or changed your identifier, and you're checking that the new state is published.
• When chasing a fault: invoices aren't arriving and you want one query that separates a publishing problem from everything else.

What's coming next?

The service will keep developing. OpenPeppol has said future versions will support running SML and SMK queries together. SML, the Service Metadata Locator, is the network's central address register. No date has been published for that, so don't put the feature in your calendar.

What really happens before an invoice leaves?

Public searches are being prepared. The real check happens at the moment of sending, and your operator does it, not you in a browser.

The sender's Access Point first asks the SML where the recipient's SMP is, then queries that SMP to see whether the recipient can receive the document type in question. Only then does the invoice travel. Both the SML and the SMP are mandatory parts of the Peppol network, and each has its own current specification. SMP version v1.4.0 has been valid since 1 November 2025.

Which answers the question of whether any of these tools guarantees delivery. They don't. A positive Lookup result means the participant is published. It is not proof that your particular invoice was received. If you need confirmation about one specific invoice, that comes from your operator's sending log, not from a public search.

What should an Estonian seller do now?

In Estonia, since 1 July 2025 a company can mark itself in the business register as an e-invoice recipient, together with its receiving channel details, and such a company may require an e-invoice from the seller. An invoice counts as compliant if it follows the European e-invoicing standard EN 16931-1, unless the parties have agreed on another relevant standard.

An important nuance: that rule does not say the channel has to be Peppol. So an e-invoice recipient marker in the business register and a public Peppol Directory record are not the same thing, and you can't infer the presence or absence of one from the other.

The working routine for a new customer

It's simple. Search the name in the Directory and see whether an identifier and a document capability are there. If you have the ID, check with the Lookup whether it's published right now. If you find nothing, ask the customer in one sentence which channel and format they expect. The final capability check happens at your operator's end when the invoice is sent.

What if nobody finds you in the Directory?

If your situation is the reverse, meaning your company does receive e-invoices but nobody can find you, there is one concrete action. OpenPeppol recommends you contact your Peppol service provider and ask them to upload your data to the Directory. Ask specifically for your Business Card to be published, then verify the result yourself with the Lookup. A customer who can't find you in the Directory will send a PDF, and that means manual work again for both sides.

Also available in: in Estonian · Latvian · Lithuanian

Last reviewed: September 21, 2026

FAQ

Does an empty search result in the Peppoli catalog mean that the customer cannot receive an e-invoice?

No, absence from the directory does not mean lack of reception capability. Loading the data directory is a voluntary step for Peppoli service providers and does not occur automatically online. If the search does not yield results, the customer must be asked directly about the reception channel or a request must be made through the operator.

What is the Peppol Lookup service, which has been open since March 19, 2026, used for?

The lookup service allows you to check in real time whether a specific Peppol ID is currently published online. The tool solves delays caused by directory asynchrony when checking subscriptions, changing operators, and analyzing sending errors.

Does Peppol Directory or Lookup guarantee invoice delivery?

Neither tool sends invoices or guarantees the delivery of the document. A positive search result only indicates that the participant has been published online. Confirmation of the successful delivery of a specific invoice can only be obtained from your carrier's shipping log.