The good news first
The Annual Tax Act 2024 exempted small-business owners from the obligation to issue e-invoices themselves. You may still write your customers a classic invoice — as a PDF or on paper. No one forces you to produce XRechnung or ZUGFeRD.
That takes off enormous pressure. The entire complicated part — choosing a format, buying software, understanding profiles — drops away for sending. For now.
The obligation that still applies to you
Now the part many overlook: the exemption only covers sending. Small-business owners must receive too. In full, since 1 January 2025, with no transition period.
If a supplier sends you an XRechnung, that is their good right. They do not need your consent. And you must be able to accept the file, make it readable and keep it properly. “I'm only a small business” is not an argument the tax office accepts here.
What “being able to receive” means in practice
It does not mean you need an expensive system. It means there must be a path by which an e-invoice arrives, is read and is archived.
An e-mail mailbox is legally enough as access. The real problem is the processing afterwards: an XRechnung is an .xml file that looks nothing like an invoice in any normal program. You have to make it visible — and keep the structured original, not just a printout, for eight years.
The typical mistake in a small business
It almost always looks the same. The XRechnung arrives by mail, no one can open it, so it is ignored or deleted as a “broken file”. Three months later the supplier asks about payment. Six years later the auditor asks about the document.
Both are avoidable. You do not have to decipher the file yourself — you just need a fixed place where every incoming e-invoice is automatically made readable and stored safely.
What changes in 2026 and beyond
The exemption from sending is not a law of nature. Under current rules it continues for small-business owners while larger companies must send from 2027 and everyone else from 2028. You should still keep an eye on it.
Regardless, receiving remains mandatory from now on. Whoever sets it up cleanly now barely has to worry about later tightening — the hard part is then long done.
Your 20-minute plan
Honestly it takes no more to get out of the risk:
- Determine a fixed address or fixed place for incoming invoices.
- Make sure incoming .xml invoices can be displayed readably.
- Keep the XML original, not just a printout or PDF.
- Tell suppliers who already send e-invoices this one address.
- For sending, do nothing for now — you may invoice the classic way.