Ireland Advances E-Invoicing Legislation With Peppol Five-Corner Model

Ireland’s Department of Finance published the Finance (No. 2) Bill 2026 on October 19, 2026, setting out the legislative basis for the country’s planned move to mandatory structured e-invoicing and digital VAT reporting. The following day, the Bill moved to Second Stage in the Oireachtas. On October 21, 2026, the Irish Revenue Commissioners released an accompanying paper, VAT Modernisation: Implementation of eInvoicing in Ireland – 2026 Update, explaining how the proposed legislation will work in practice.

Legal Basis and Scope

The Bill proposes amendments to the Value-Added Tax Consolidation Act 2010 to introduce mandatory e-invoicing and digital reporting for domestic B2B and B2G transactions. The legislative amendments are scheduled to take effect on January 1, 2027, though no e-invoicing or reporting obligations begin on that date – instead, they follow the phased timeline below. The provisions remain subject to the ongoing legislative process, and detailed implementing rules will be set out in regulations, drafts of which are available on Revenue’s eInvoicing Hub.

Businesses in scope must issue a structured e-invoice for each domestic supply of taxable goods or services to a VAT-registered customer established in Ireland or to a public body, and must report a defined subset of invoice data to Revenue at the time of issuance.

Reverse-charge supplies also require an e-invoice and a digital report from the in-scope supplier. Customers receiving e-invoices cannot opt out of accepting them, and every e-invoice must include the customer’s business identifier – its VAT number for VAT-registered businesses, or an identifier issued by Revenue for others.

Phased Rollout

• November 1, 2028 (Phase One): VAT-registered businesses administered by Revenue’s Large Corporates Division must issue e-invoices and report data to Revenue in real time for domestic B2B transactions. From this date, all businesses in Ireland, including public bodies, must be able to receive structured e-invoices.
• November 1, 2029 (Phase Two): The domestic e-invoicing and reporting obligation extends to Irish-established, VAT-registered businesses engaged in intra-EU trade in goods or services, as well as additional businesses assigned to the Large Corporates Division by January 1, 2028.
• July 1, 2030 (Phase Three): The EU’s VAT in the Digital Age (ViDA) requirements become mandatory for cross-border intra-EU B2B transactions, replacing the current monthly VIES return.

Structured e-invoices must comply with the European standard EN 16931-1, as referenced in Directive 2014/55/EU. Scanned documents, Word files, and emailed PDFs will not qualify.

Peppol and the Five-Corner Model

Revenue’s 2026 Update paper confirms that Peppol will be the default network for exchanging e-invoices, unless the supplier and customer agree on an alternative transmission method, and the mandated channel for reporting invoice data.

Under the five-corner model, the supplier issues the invoice from its accounting or ERP system (Corner 1) through a certified Peppol access point (Corner 2), which validates the invoice, transmits it across the network, and reports the required data to Revenue. The customer’s access point (Corner 3) receives the invoice and delivers it to the customer (Corner 4), who must be able to accept structured e-invoices. Revenue (Corner 5) receives the reported data and sets the applicable reporting rules.

From January 1, 2027, Revenue will take over as Ireland’s Peppol Authority from the Office of Government Procurement, which has held the role since 2018.

Next Steps

Revenue has advised large corporates to begin reviewing their invoicing processes and to engage with solution providers, while waiting for the finalized technical specifications before completing system builds. Revenue plans to issue business identifiers to non-VAT-registered businesses during 2027 and intends to hold communication events for businesses, tax practitioners, and software providers starting in mid-November 2026, with further details to be published on its eInvoicing Hub.

There’s more you should know about global e-invoicing changes – learn more about the new and upcoming regulations.