Electronic invoice in Australia

Understand Australia’s Peppol framework, PINT A-NZ requirements, public-sector obligations and voluntary B2B e-invoicing rules.

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Overview

Australia chose a decentralised Peppol four-corner model aimed at automation and fraud prevention rather than tax control. The Australian Taxation Office does not receive copies of invoices and cannot see their contents. The system is therefore neither a clearance model nor a continuous transaction control regime.

There is no national B2B mandate. The obligation sits with federal government bodies — Non-Corporate Commonwealth Entities — first to be able to receive Peppol invoices, and since 2026 to hit actual usage and automation targets. Private suppliers face no general statutory duty to send, though an individual government buyer may make it a contractual condition.

0151:ABN

the Australian Business Number is the required participant identifier

PINT A-NZ

the mandatory specification in UBL 2.1 — not Peppol BIS Billing 3.0

Accreditation

required for any provider serving Australian users — foreign certification is not enough

Timeline

A slow build on the receiving side, then a sharp turn in 2025–2026 towards measurable usage rather than mere capability.

Already in force

31 October 2019

The ATO becomes the Australian Peppol Authority

Federal Peppol rollout begins, with the tax office in the unusual role of network governor rather than data recipient.

2021 – 2022

Receiving capability for federal entities

Material Non-Corporate Commonwealth Entities had to be able to receive Peppol eInvoices by 1 July 2021, and the remaining NCEs by 1 July 2022.

15 November 2024 – 15 May 2025

Migration to PINT A-NZ

PINT A-NZ became the mandatory specification, and the older A-NZ Peppol BIS Billing was decommissioned. See PINT A-NZ and formats.

9 March 2026

PINT A-NZ 1.1.2 becomes mandatory

The current binding version. Version 1.1.3 was published on 8 June 2026 but does not become mandatory until later in the year.

1 July 2026

The 30% target falls due

NCEs were to work with suppliers so that at least 30% of all invoices received arrive as Peppol eInvoices. The date has passed; no consolidated public report on actual compliance across all NCEs has been published.

Ahead

7 September 2026

PINT A-NZ 1.1.3 becomes mandatory

Published in June, binding from September — the kind of cadence that makes version tracking part of the operating model rather than a project task.

December 2026

Automated sending and processing

NCEs must automate both the processing of incoming and the sending of outgoing eInvoices, moving towards touchless workflows. Quarterly progress reports to the Australian Peppol Authority continue throughout.

B2G and the federal mandate

The federal obligation is on the buyer side. Non-Corporate Commonwealth Entities must be able to receive Peppol eInvoices, and since 2026 must also demonstrate usage and automation. Corporate Commonwealth Entities and Commonwealth Companies are not subject to the same universal coverage — adoption there is recommended rather than required.

Are suppliers obliged to send?

No general law requires a supplier to a federal entity to send only Peppol eInvoices. But government buyers can include eInvoicing in new tenders and contracts, agree Peppol with a supplier, and prioritise onboarding of high-volume suppliers. Obligation can therefore arise contractually even where tax law imposes none.

This is the practical point for anyone selling to the Australian Commonwealth: check the contract, not the statute book.

States and territories

There is no single mandatory schedule across states, territories and local government — adoption is uneven and needs checking jurisdiction by jurisdiction.

New South WalesThe clearest example: since 1 January 2022 all NSW Government agencies must be able to accept eInvoices. The official portal states plainly that the mandate does not extend to suppliers

Western AustraliaRollout runs agency by agency. Some WA bodies already send and receive over Peppol while continuing to accept PDF by e-mail — which confirms the absence of a state-wide supplier mandate

ElsewhereProgramme-by-programme adoption; no consolidated deadline

The pattern across Australia is consistent: receiving obligations for the public sector, no sending obligation for business.

B2B and B2C

For domestic B2B transactions Peppol remains voluntary — the ATO's own product register states that eInvoicing is not compulsory. Treasury consulted twice on going further: in 2020–2021 on options for mandatory B2B eInvoicing, and in 2021–2022 on a Business eInvoicing Right under which a buyer could require a supplier to send a Peppol invoice.

Both consultations are closed and neither produced a national B2B mandate. No future date for compulsory domestic B2B eInvoicing has been announced. Treat any roadmap that shows one as speculation.

B2C

Business-to-consumer transactions are expressly excluded from the Australian Peppol eInvoicing framework. There is no mandate and no announced timetable for one.

Cross-border and ViDA

Australia is outside the EU and applies GST, so the EU's ViDA reform creates no Australian obligation. A sale from Australia to an EU buyer is not an intra-EU supply: Australian GST rules apply, plus whatever the buyer's country requires. If the European counterparty falls under a national or future ViDA regime, it is their local rules that may demand a particular European format or channel — which is where the PINT A-NZ compatibility question becomes practical.

The Peppol model

Australia runs the standard four-corner model: supplier → supplier's access point → buyer's access point → buyer, with access points locating the recipient's address and supported documents through the Peppol discovery infrastructure.

What Australia deliberately does not do

No centralised clearance and no five-corner model sending each invoice to the tax office

No prior registration or approval of an invoice by the ATO, and no state clearance ID

No real-time or near-real-time invoice reporting, and no tax authority response required before delivery

The ATO frames eInvoicing as a productivity and business-protection measure, not a revenue mechanism. It does not receive copies of invoices and cannot see their contents.

What access points do report

Australian access points must send the Australian Peppol Authority monthly aggregated statistics — active senders, active receivers, and transactions sent and received by document type — within ten business days of month end. That is statistical network reporting, not invoice-level tax reporting: contents, amounts, parties and line items never reach the ATO.

PINT A-NZ and formats

The mandatory local specification is PINT A-NZ Billing, built on UBL 2.1. Access points must support the PINT A-NZ Invoice and Credit Note; self-billing invoice and credit note support is optional.

SyntaxUBL 2.1 Invoice and CreditNote. UN/CEFACT CII is not a required Australian Peppol syntax

CustomizationIDurn:peppol:pint:billing-1@aunz-1

ProfileIDurn:peppol:bis:billing

PINT A-NZ is not a declared EN 16931 CIUS. OpenPeppol describes it as a country specification built on global PINT and localised for Australian and New Zealand GST. PINT-EU, by contrast, is expressly a CIUS of EN 16931 and carries its own EN 16931 validation rules — and EN 16931 terminology was removed from the PINT A-NZ documentation. The two share architecture and much semantics, but PINT A-NZ compliance should not be presented as legal EN 16931 compliance.

The practical consequence: sending to a European recipient may require PINT-EU, Peppol BIS Billing 3.0 or a national European CIUS rather than PINT A-NZ. An Australian exporter cannot assume its domestic profile will satisfy a European mandate.

Where PDF stands

As a Peppol eInvoiceNot accepted. The ATO defines an eInvoice as structured data exchanged directly between systems; a PDF sent by e-mail is not an eInvoice

As a GST tax invoiceAccepted. The ATO allows a tax invoice to be issued by e-mail in PDF or another digital format, provided it carries the required particulars

As an attachmentA PDF may accompany a PINT A-NZ document, but does not replace the mandatory UBL XML where a counterparty or contract requires a Peppol eInvoice

Two different questions, two different answers — and the distinction is worth spelling out in any supplier agreement.

Identifiers

The Australian participant identifier is the Australian Business Number under scheme 0151, the ISO 6523 code for the ABN.

Format

0151:<11-digit ABN> — for example 0151:70598519443

The ABN must also appear as the legal registration identifier of Australian sellers and buyers inside the invoice. Peppol technically supports other schemes for international participants, but for an Australian organisation the ABN under 0151 is the standard and normatively required identifier.

Accreditation of providers

This is where Australia differs sharply from most Peppol countries. Certification by a European or other Peppol Authority is not sufficient to serve Australian end users. A provider must complete the Australian accreditation process with the ATO as Peppol Authority.

It is an additional national accreditation, but not a Slovak-style digitálny poštár or a clearance provider role: the access point remains an ordinary participant in the four-corner network and never forwards invoices to the ATO for registration.

How a foreign provider gets accredited

01 Have a defined OpenPeppol home Peppol Authority

02 Provide the signed Peppol Service Provider Agreement with that home authority

03 Apply to the Australian Peppol Authority

04 Pass Australian due diligence, security and local interoperability requirements

05 Receive confirmation of Australian accreditation

For a provider already accredited in another jurisdiction the testing burden is reduced: instead of full unit and acceptance testing, only interoperability testing against PINT A-NZ is required.

No local entity required

The published requirements impose no obligation to hold an Australian legal entity, an Australian office, a local tax or Peppol representative, or a state delivery mailbox. The procedure expressly provides for applicants without an ABN, who submit a paper form by e-mail — strong confirmation that a foreign entity can be accredited without incorporating in Australia. The applicant must be a registered business in its own jurisdiction and pass checks on legal status and directors.

The substantive requirements

—OpenPeppol membership and a Peppol Service Provider Agreement

—Checks on company registration, solvency, and on directors for disqualification, bankruptcy and criminal record

—Professional indemnity insurance of at least AUD 1 million per claim

—The A-NZ Information Security Questionnaire, with self-assessment or independent audit against ISO/IEC 27001 or the ASD/NZ Information Security Manual

—Encryption at rest and in transit, multi-factor authentication, key management, audit logging, vulnerability and patch management, network segregation, secure development, backup and security monitoring

—Documented KYC and identification of end users, verification of the client's authority to register an ABN, and annual re-verification of clients

—PINT A-NZ interoperability testing, monthly statistical reporting and an annual accreditation review

The trans-Tasman arrangement

Australia and New Zealand run a coordinated approach: a shared PINT A-NZ specification, aligned security and accreditation requirements, and a mutual accreditation mechanism. A provider accredited in Australia can separately request mutual accreditation from the New Zealand Peppol Authority — which makes the two markets a single project rather than two.

Archiving

Australian tax law requires business records, invoices included, to be kept for five years from the date the record was prepared or obtained, or from the completion of the transaction — whichever is later.

Records must be in English or readily convertible to it, and kept in a form the ATO can access

Electronic storage is acceptable; the records must remain complete and unaltered

Because the ATO holds no copy of any invoice, retention is entirely the taxpayer's own responsibility

That last point is the difference from a clearance country. In Italy or Romania a state platform holds the original for a period; in Australia nothing is held centrally, so the UBL file and its delivery evidence must be retained by the business or its provider.

Payment terms and penalties

Australia uses a carrot rather than a stick. There is no fine for failing to send a Peppol invoice, because for private businesses there is no obligation to send one. Instead, federal payment policy rewards adoption.

5 calendar daysMaximum payment term where Peppol eInvoicing has been agreed

20 calendar daysThe usual term for other invoices

InterestPayable by the entity on late payment where the calculated amount exceeds AUD 100

A fourfold improvement in payment terms is a stronger argument for adoption than most European penalty regimes. Note that this is government payment policy — not an eInvoicing mandate on the supplier.

How we help

Australia is a Peppol market with its own specification, its own identifier scheme and its own accreditation — none of which a European setup covers by default:

PINT A-NZ Billing in UBL 2.1 — Invoice and Credit Note, with correct CustomizationID and ProfileID

Addressing on 0151:ABN with the ABN carried as the legal registration identifier

Version tracking across PINT A-NZ releases, so a mandatory version change does not become an incident

Conversion between PINT A-NZ and European profiles for exporters invoicing EU customers

GST-correct tax categories and rates on the Australian side, EN 16931 rules on the European side

Integration via API, SFTP and CSV, with ERP and IDoc source data

Frequently asked questions

Is eInvoicing mandatory in Australia?

Not for business. Federal government entities must be able to receive Peppol eInvoices and, since 2026, must meet usage and automation targets — but no general law obliges a private supplier to send one. There is no domestic B2B mandate and no announced date for one, and B2C is expressly outside the framework. An individual government buyer can nonetheless make Peppol a contractual condition.

Does the ATO see my invoices?

No. Australia's model is a Peppol four-corner network aimed at automation and fraud prevention, not tax control. The ATO receives no copies and cannot see invoice contents. There is no clearance, no invoice registration, no clearance ID and no real-time reporting. Access points do send the Australian Peppol Authority monthly aggregated statistics — sender and receiver counts and transaction volumes by document type — but never invoice contents, amounts, parties or line items.

Can I use my European Peppol access point in Australia?

Not without Australian accreditation. Certification by a European Peppol Authority is not sufficient to serve Australian end users — the provider must apply to the Australian Peppol Authority and pass local due diligence, security and interoperability requirements. The good news for an already-accredited provider is that testing is reduced to interoperability testing against PINT A-NZ. No Australian legal entity, office or representative is required, and applicants without an ABN can apply by paper form.

Will my PINT A-NZ invoice work for a European customer?

Do not assume so. PINT A-NZ is a country specification built on global PINT and localised for Australian and New Zealand GST — it is not a declared EN 16931 CIUS, and EN 16931 terminology was removed from its documentation. PINT-EU, by contrast, is expressly a CIUS of EN 16931 with its own validation rules. Sending to a European recipient may therefore require PINT-EU, Peppol BIS Billing 3.0 or a national European CIUS.

Can I still send PDF invoices?

It depends which question you are asking. As a GST tax invoice, yes — the ATO allows a tax invoice by e-mail in PDF or another digital format provided it carries the required particulars. As a Peppol eInvoice, no — the ATO defines an eInvoice as structured data exchanged directly between systems, and a PDF by e-mail is not one. A PDF may be attached to a PINT A-NZ document but does not replace the UBL XML where a contract requires a Peppol eInvoice.

Which identifier do I register?

The Australian Business Number under scheme 0151 — for example 0151:70598519443. The ABN must also appear as the legal registration identifier of Australian sellers and buyers inside the invoice itself. Peppol supports other schemes for international participants, but for an Australian organisation the ABN under 0151 is the standard and normatively required identifier.

What do I get for adopting eInvoicing?

Faster payment from the Commonwealth. Where Peppol eInvoicing has been agreed, the maximum federal payment term is 5 calendar days instead of the usual 20, and the entity must pay interest on late payment where the calculated amount exceeds AUD 100. This is government payment policy rather than an obligation on you — but it is a stronger commercial argument than most European penalty regimes.

Does the same setup work for New Zealand?

Largely, yes. Australia and New Zealand run a coordinated trans-Tasman approach: a shared PINT A-NZ specification, aligned security and accreditation requirements and a mutual accreditation mechanism. A provider accredited in Australia can separately request mutual accreditation from the New Zealand Peppol Authority, which makes the two markets a single implementation rather than two.

Summary

Australia is a Peppol country without a tax-control agenda. The ATO governs the network as Peppol Authority but sees no invoices; there is no clearance, no reporting and no B2B mandate. The obligations are on federal buyers — receiving capability since 2021–2022, a 30% usage target from July 2026 and automated sending and processing by December 2026.

Technically it is its own world: PINT A-NZ Billing in UBL 2.1 rather than Peppol BIS Billing 3.0, the ABN under scheme 0151, and a mandatory version cadence that moves roughly twice a year.

Two traps worth naming. PINT A-NZ is not a declared EN 16931 CIUS, so it should not be assumed to satisfy a European mandate. And Australian accreditation is a genuine additional requirement — a European Peppol certificate alone does not let you serve Australian users, though no Australian company is needed to obtain it.

Resources

ATO — eInvoicing The Australian Peppol Authority's guidance for business and government, including the register of certified products ATO — eInvoicing for government The federal requirements for NCEs, including the 30% target and the December 2026 automation obligation PINT A-NZ Billing specification The mandatory Australian and New Zealand specification — syntax, business rules and version history OpenPeppol — Australia country profile The Australian Peppol Authority and the national requirements that apply to service providers Australian Business Register Verify an ABN before registering a participant or issuing an invoice Peppol Directory Check whether an Australian business partner is reachable on the network

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