Preparing for the wave of EU VAT & Reporting changes in 2026: what companies should do now

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Preparing for the wave of EU VAT & Reporting changes in 2026: what companies should do now

Introduction

Europe’s tax landscape has moved beyond “shifting”. We are now in the execution phase of a digital reporting revolution. With the VAT in the Digital Age (ViDA) package adopted on 11 March 2025 (and published in the EU Official Journal on 25 March 2025), the new direction is legally set in stone: more structured data, more automation, and tighter transaction-level controls.

For growing companies, 2026 is a critical “go-live” year because multiple major EU economies move from pilots and soft adoption to hard, operational mandates. While ViDA’s EU-wide Digital Reporting Requirements for cross-border B2B apply from 1 July 2030, many governments have decided to go live much earlier, creating a real near-term compliance and systems hurdle.

Where this affects growing companies

Mandatory B2B e-invoicing: moving beyond PDFs

In 2026, several Member States will require structured, machine-readable e-invoices for domestic B2B companies. The exact formats and transmission requirements vary by country:

In some countries, e-invoicing is aligned to EN 16931 models (often via Peppol BIS using UBL/CII).
In others, the mandate is built around a national schema and government platform (for example, Poland’s KSeF uses its own XML schema rather than UBL).

The key takeaway: “e-invoice” now means structured data exchanged through mandated rails, not a PDF file.

The “Big Three” deadlines of 2026

Belgium: 1 January 2026

As of 1 January 2026, structured e-invoicing becomes compulsory for B2B transactions between Belgian VAT-liable enterprises. (A PDF can still be issued as a “human-readable copy,” but it is not a compliant e-invoice.)

Poland (KSeF): 1 February 2026 and 1 April 2026 (phased)

Poland’s KSeF mandate is phased:

February 1st, 2026 for large taxpayers (e.g., turnover above PLN 200m, per the applicable definition in the Polish framework), and
April 1st, 2026 for most other VAT-registered businesses.

Plan for targeted transitional relief and fallback/offline modes with strict submission timelines.

France: 1 September 2026 (phased; receiving vs issuing)

France’s rollout is phased and split between receiving and issuing:

Receiving e-invoices: mandatory for all firms from September 1, 2026.
Issuing e-invoices: mandatory from September 1, 2026 for large companies and mid-caps, with SME issuance following in September 2027

E-commerce and IOSS: low-value parcel economics change in 2026

From July 1, 2026, the EU will apply a fixed €3 customs duty on most low-value e-commerce consignments (<€150) where the seller settles VAT via IOSS, effectively ending the practical duty-free benefit for these parcels.

IOSS is still a key lever to sustain a smooth customer experience (predictable landed cost and faster release), but it is not universal (value limits and scope constraints still apply). Businesses should treat this as both a pricing/margin issue and an operations issue (carrier integration, checkout logic, returns).

Real-time reporting: not one rule, but a unified direction

Expect a shift from periodic “after-the-fact” reporting toward transaction-level, near-real-time regimes. The mechanics vary:

Some countries implement clearance-style controls (for example, Poland’s KSeF, with strict fallback submission timelines in offline modes).
Others require structured exchange through mandated networks or platforms (for example, Peppol-based models and platform-mediated exchange).

The operational implication remain consistent: invoice acceptance becomes a systems-and-data quality problem, not a back-office filing problem.

Practical preparation steps

1) Audit for structured readiness

Can your ERP/accounting stack generate structured e-invoices in the required country formats and validate them prior to submission? Standard PDFs are no longer sufficient under these mandates (even if you still provide them as a courtesy copy).

2) Verify your transmission rails (e.g., Peppol vs national platforms)

Many regimes depend on specific rails:

Peppol (and certified Access Points) is central in some countries (e.g., Belgium).
Government platforms or certified private platforms are central elsewhere (e.g., Poland’s KSeF; France’s platform model).

Ensure your provider(s) can support the right rails per jurisdiction, not just “e-invoicing in general.”

3) Cleanse and govern master data

Mandates require country-specific identifiers and fields (examples include SIREN/SIRET in France and NIP in Poland). Inaccurate master data increases the risk of automatic rejection or downstream reconciliation failures.

Treat VAT IDs, legal entity data, addresses, and customer/vendor identifiers as production-grade master data.

4) Upgrade data flows and controls

Move from manual CSV processes to API-based, monitored integrations:

Pre-validation (schema checks, required fields, routing)
Rejection handling (retry logic, exception workflows)
Auditability (logs, immutable records, archiving where required)

Manual work does not scale when invoice acceptance and reporting become transaction-level and time-sensitive.

5) Pilot deliberately: choose one jurisdiction as a proving ground

Pick one “early” jurisdiction (Belgium is a common candidate) to pilot structured e-invoicing end-to-end:

Data readiness → generation → transmission → acceptance → posting → reconciliation

Use the pilot to harden controls and monitoring before the later French and Polish milestones.

Operations & people

Tax + Ops partnership

Tax teams can no longer work in a silo. They must partner with IT/Ops to design:

Automated extracts and mappings
Real-time or near-real-time reconciliation
Issue management (rejections, mismatches, customer disputes)

Governance and accountability

Finance should treat VAT-critical invoice data as master data with ownership. The operational reality is that bad data at the point of sale can trigger:

invoice rejections,
delayed settlements,
reconciliation backlogs,
compliance exposure.

Risk vs opportunity

The risk

In clearance-style regimes, a non-compliant invoice may be treated as not properly issued, creating downstream risk: payment delays/disputes, audit exposure, and VAT deduction challenges. Even where the model is not strict clearance, lack of compliance might still trigger rejections, operational disruption, and delayed settlement.

The opportunity

Adopting these standards can be a major operational catalyst:

fewer manual “rekeying” errors,
faster, cleaner VAT recovery,
better transaction-level visibility into cash flows and leakage,
stronger controls for scaling internationally.

Conclusion

Don’t wait for the 2030 EU-wide ViDA digital reporting milestone. The local mandates landing in 2026 are the practical hurdle for growing companies. Treat digital VAT readiness as a data and automation program, with clear ownership across Tax, Finance Ops, and IT, not a tax-only checklist.

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13 Jan 2026

2026-01-13