PEPPOL IN EUROPE
E-Invoicing in Austria
Austria has been working on e-invoicing solutions since 2012, when the IKT-Konsolidierungsgesetz, a law to consolidate ICT solutions and IT procedures in Austria, was enacted. In 2014, it introduced an e-invoicing obligation for B2G transactions. Thus, EU directive 2014/55/EU has been applied.
According to Art. 5 of the Austrian ICT Consolidation Act 2012 (Gesamte Rechtsvorschrift für IKT- Konsolidierungsgesetz, Fassung vom 13/06/2012), transactions with federal government entities must be documented with structured electronic invoices. In April 2020, the obligation to use e-invoices was extended to municipal administration units. There are some exceptions to this rule in both cases.
The Austrian Ministry of Finance has developed a service portal for companies, USP (Unternehmensserviceportal). It supports uploading and manually creating invoices and submitting them through a web service or service provider.
Sending invoices via PEPPOL is also possible but requires a PEPPOL Access Point. Accepted e-invoicing formats are ebInterface (the national XML standard) and PEPPOL format BIS Billing 3.0.
Invoices issued by domestic companies are processed using the USP or PEPPOL network. The USP platform has all the authentication services required to send e-invoices and eliminates the need for electronic signatures.
