HMRC publishes UK e-invoicing roadmap

London, 28 October 2026

HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) has published its roadmap for e-invoicing implementation, alongside Budget 2026. The roadmap confirms that VAT-registered organisations, including public sector bodies, must issue and receive VAT invoices as e-invoices from 1 April 2029, and sets out how the UK regime will be built between now and then.

The UK will adopt Peppol as its core interoperability framework. Invoices will be exchanged between trading partners through certified Peppol Access Points, in a four-corner model, rather than submitted to a government platform. HMRC will become the UK Peppol Authority, taking over governance of the framework from NHS Supply Chain. The roadmap states that the Peppol Authority will not receive copies of VAT invoices for business transactions.

The mandate applies where a VAT invoice is already required under UK VAT law, principally domestic business-to-business and public sector transactions between VAT-registered persons. It does not change when a VAT invoice must be issued or what it must contain. It changes the format: PDFs, Word documents, image files and invoices sent by email will not qualify. An e-invoice is structured data exchanged directly between the buyer’s and the supplier’s financial systems.

The timeline

HMRC will open a public technical consultation on the proposed UK e-invoicing standards, and on Access Point certification, in Spring 2027. Guidance on how EDI and other legacy systems will sit alongside the Peppol network follows in Autumn 2027.

The requirements organisations need to prepare, covering scope, exclusions, standards, guidance, business identifiers and software provider requirements, will be published between October 2027 and April 2028. The government has said it does not plan to change the requirements after April 2028 unless stakeholder feedback makes it necessary.

Readiness testing with software providers begins in Summer 2028. Infrastructure and governance arrangements are due to be operational by Winter 2028, so that providers can complete onboarding and accreditation before the requirements take effect on 1 April 2029.

The roadmap also confirms that the April 2029 mandate does not include real-time reporting to HMRC. A separate consultation on e-invoicing digital reporting, launched at the same time, explores whether e-invoice data could later support tax administration. No decision has been made.

For what the roadmap settles, what it leaves open and what AP teams should do in 2027, read UK e-invoicing roadmap: what HMRC settled on 28 October. For how structured invoicing works, see the SoftCo guide to e-invoicing. The full roadmap is on GOV.UK.