Receiving XRechnung: Obligation, channel and safe processing

You received an .xml file — do not delete it

The first reflex with an unintelligible file is often the wrong one: get rid of it. Do not. The .xml file is most likely an XRechnung — a full, legally valid invoice. Deleting it means destroying a document you must keep for eight years.

That it looks cryptic is not a defect. An XRechnung is written for machines, not for the eye; tags like cbc:ID are the format, just as a music file looks like nonsense in a text editor although nothing is wrong with it. The invoice is fully there — number, date, amounts, tax — just structured instead of pictured.

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Receiving is mandatory, not optional

Since 1 January 2025, every company in domestic German B2B must be able to accept and process XRechnung. This obligation from the newly worded § 14 UStG has no transition period and requires no consent.

The supplier decides whether to send an XRechnung. You have to be able to handle it — that is the core; everything else is execution.

What defines an XRechnung

The XRechnung is a pure XML file based on the European norm EN 16931, technically in the UBL or CII syntax. No layout, no picture — structured data.

That is why a double-click shows cryptic code. It is not an error but the nature of the format: machine-readable first, human-readable only after rendering.

Which receiving channel is sufficient

Legally an e-mail mailbox is enough as an access point. No Peppol connection and no portal are required just because the law demands it — it does not.

The real question is not the channel but what happens afterwards: is the file made readable, validated, approved, and the original archived in an audit-proof way? Access is the easy part; the process is the important one.

From inbox to a clean document

A received XRechnung ideally runs through the same stations, every time: acceptance via a fixed address, automatic format detection, validation against the norm, readable presentation, approval with clear responsibility, audit-proof archiving of the XML original, clean export.

This repeatability is what separates a process from an inbox in which files disappear.

The most common pitfalls

What to watch for:

• Do not let the XML get lost in a shared mailbox.
• Do not save only a PDF — the XML is the original.
• Validate before approval, not at year-end.
• Name a responsible person plus a deputy.
• Define the hand-off to accounting or the tax advisor once, cleanly.