ViDA e-invoicing deadline 2030: what changes cross-border

The short answer: cross-border B2B from 1 July 2030

The EU's ViDA rules (ViDA stands for “VAT in the Digital Age”) give cross-border B2B sales one hard date: 1 July 2030. From that day, an invoice issued to a business in another Member State has to be a structured e-invoice, and its data has to reach the tax authority essentially at the moment the invoice is issued. The legal basis is Council Directive (EU) 2025/516, adopted on 11 March 2025 and in force since 14 April 2025.

The confusion usually starts with the year 2035. That is not when cross-border reporting begins. Keep three sets of dates apart:

• 1 July 2030: EU-wide digital reporting on cross-border B2B transactions, built on a mandatory structured e-invoice.
• January 1, 2035: the deadline for Member States that already had their own real-time, transaction-level reporting, an earlier Council authorization, or an implementing law adopted before 2024. Those countries have to bring their domestic e-invoicing and reporting into line with the EU framework.
• Domestic dates: these come from each country separately. Since 14 April 2025, Member States may make domestic e-invoicing mandatory under the conditions set out in the directive, so there is no single 2030 deadline for domestic invoices.

Which transactions are in scope — and which are not

The four reportable transaction types

The scope of reporting is set by Article 262 of the VAT Directive. In the version rewritten by Directive 2025/516, from 1 July 2030 it covers four things: intra-Community supplies of goods, transfers of your own goods to another Member State (moving stock without a sale), intra-Community acquisitions, and the cross-border reverse-charge supplies of goods and services listed in the directive. Reverse charge simply means the buyer accounts for the VAT instead of the seller. The classic case is a service sold to a VAT-registered business in another Member State.

What remains outside

Out of scope: purely domestic B2B invoices (each country regulates those itself), sales to private individuals, and trade outside the EU. On the acquisition side, Member States keep some options, so the exact shape of the buyer's obligation may differ from country to country.

The practical test is easy. If your invoice carries the VAT number of a business in another Member State, that invoice is very likely in scope in 2030.

Is there a turnover threshold or a small-business exemption?

This is where most people guess wrong. ViDA sets no turnover threshold, no minimum invoice amount and no headcount limit for cross-border reporting. The starting point is every taxable person registered for VAT, with the transaction-based exceptions listed in the directive.

An example. An Estonian company with three employees and €180,000 of annual turnover sells goods to a Latvian business for €1,200. That is an intra-Community supply of goods, so in 2030 the invoice has to be issued in a structured format and its data passed to the tax authority. If the same company sells the same customer a €40 spare part the following week, the rule is identical. There is no small-amount carve-out.

A €1,200 invoice to a client in Tallinn, on the other hand, is not part of Article 262 reporting. Estonia decides that one through its own legislation.

What the 2030 process actually asks of you

Three technical requirements and two clocks.

Structured format, not a PDF

The invoice has to be issued, transmitted and received in a structured electronic format that allows automatic electronic processing. A PDF you email to the customer does not meet that definition on its own. The invoice has to comply with the European e-invoicing standard and its syntaxes listed in Directive 2014/55/EU. In practice, that means the EN 16931 data model. Member States may allow other standards only for domestic transactions that fall outside Article 262. ViDA itself does not require Peppol; Peppol is a channel, and in some countries a national requirement, not a requirement of the directive.

Customer consent drops off the agenda. From 1 July 2030, you cannot be required to obtain prior consent from a recipient that is a taxable person or a non-taxable legal person before sending an e-invoice that meets the EU standard. "Please just send us a PDF" stops being an option the customer can insist on.

Two clocks: 10 days to invoice, 5 days to report

The invoicing clock runs for ten days. For intra-Community supplies of goods exempt under Article 138 and for the reverse-charge transactions named in the directive, the invoice has to be issued no later than 10 days after the chargeable event, in plain terms after the supply takes place. A qualifying calendar-month summary invoice has to be issued within 10 days after the end of that month.

The reporting clock runs separately. As a rule, the seller transmits transaction data when the invoice is issued, or when it should have been issued. For acquisitions, the recipient normally reports within 5 days of receiving the invoice, and the same five-day rule applies to invoices the buyer draws up on the seller's behalf.

What a reporting error costs you

The consequence lands straight on cash. If data on an intra-Community transaction is not submitted or is wrong, the tax authority may withdraw the Article 138 exemption where the seller cannot duly justify the shortcoming. That means VAT on your own invoice instead of 0%. A reporting error turns into a tax cost.

Not every technical detail is on the table yet. The Commission's implementation strategy of 24 September 2025 schedules explanatory notes on digital reporting for the last quarter of 2026, and central VIES IT development for 2026–2030. So prepare your data, not one specific button.

Domestic deadlines in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania

The three Baltic states are moving at three different speeds, and your company is probably touched by both layers — the local rule and 2030.

Country	What applies?	From
Estonia	An accounting entity registered as an e-invoice recipient in the Business Register may require the seller to issue an e-invoice; an invoice meeting EN 16931-1 is considered properly drawn up	01.07.2025
Latvia	Structured e-invoices in the G2G, B2G and G2B segments	01.01.2025
Latvia	Submission of e-invoice data for those segments to VID	01.01.2026
Latvia	Domestic B2B e-invoicing + data submission to VID (voluntary 01.01.2026–31.12.2027)	01.01.2028
Lithuania	VAT-registered persons submit data on issued and received invoices to VMI as i.SAF registers	already in force

What each rule means in practice

Estonia's model is recipient-driven: the obligation arises once the buyer has registered himself as an e-invoice recipient. The Accounting Act gives that buyer the right to demand an e-invoice from 1 July 2025 and ties compliance to the EN 16931-1 format.

Latvia has taken the mandate route. According to VID's e-invoice guidance, a structured e-invoice has to be in XML that complies with the Latvian national standard and the PEPPOL BIS Billing 3.0 specification, and the e-invoice has to be submitted to VID once, no later than five working days after the day it was sent. If you have a subsidiary registered in Latvia, or you sell to a Latvian public body, that rule is today's problem, not a 2030 one.

In Lithuania, reporting invoice data to the tax authority is a long-standing practice. VAT-registered persons submit registers of issues and received invoices through VMI's data submission environment. The content is familiar; in 2030 the channel and the speed change.

Practical preparation for 2026–2030

Four years sounds long, but most of the work is tidying up data, and you can do that now, in small steps.

• Clean up VAT numbers: every EU business customer needs a valid VAT number on file. The 2030 reporting links the invoice to that number, so an old or wrong one means an error.
• List your transaction types: write down which of your sales are intra-Community supplies of goods, which are cross-border reverse-charge services, which are domestic and which are B2C. That list becomes your scope map later.
• Check the invoice fields: does your invoice carry all mandatory EN 16931 details as structured data fields, not just as text inside a PDF? The most common gaps are buyer identifiers, the delivery date and payment reference fields.
• Shorten your issuing time: the 10-day rule does not fit the habit of batching invoices at the end of the month. Look at who in your company actually issues invoices, and when.
• Ask your software provider something specific: can the accounting software produce an EN 16931 e-invoice, does it have an ERP connection to an operator, and which tax authority interfaces are planned? A general "we support e-invoices" is not an answer.
• Map your sending channels: the e-invoice recipient marker in the Estonian Business Register, XML and the VID API in Latvia, VMI data submission in Lithuania. Each channel is one setup worth checking before a customer asks for it.
• Keep an eye on domestic changes and on the Commission's explanatory notes for digital reporting, promised by the end of 2026.

If your company sells goods or services to businesses in other Member States, 1 July 2030 is not an optional date. The upside is that fixing your data and your invoicing process is exactly the work that cuts manual effort today.

Also available in: in Estonian · Latvian · Lithuanian

Last reviewed: September 15, 2026

FAQ

When does ViDA's cross-border e-invoicing and digital reporting obligation come into effect?

The EU-wide obligation for cross-border B2B transactions will enter into force on 1 July 2030 under Council Directive (EU) 2025/516. From that date, an invoice issued to a company in another Member State must be a structured e-invoice compliant with the EN 16931 standard and its data must be transmitted to the tax authorities in real time.

Are there any turnover- or volume-based exemptions for small businesses from the ViDA e-invoicing requirement?

ViDA does not impose a turnover threshold, minimum invoice amount or employee number threshold for cross-border reporting. The obligation extends to any VAT taxable person who carries out cross-border B2B transactions within the EU, regardless of the size of the transaction.

By what date must a cross-border B2B e-invoice be issued and submitted to the tax authorities?

Invoices for supplies of goods and reverse charge transactions must be issued no later than 10 days after the transaction. The seller must provide the transaction details to the tax authority at the time of issuing the invoice; failure to provide the details may result in the tax authority canceling the 0% VAT exemption.