Electronic invoice in Latvia

Comprehensive guide to Latvia’s e-invoicing requirements – B2G mandate (2025) and upcoming B2B mandate (2028)

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Overview

Latvia has built something more interesting than a clearance system. Invoices are exchanged directly between seller and buyer through whatever channel the parties agree — and, separately, the invoice data is passed to the State Revenue Service (Valsts ieņēmumu dienests, VID) once, within five working days of the invoice being sent. There is no prior approval, no clearance code and no authorisation number. Cabinet Regulation No. 749 describes the VID solution as decentralised and structured, which is exactly what it is.

The date most sources still get wrong: mandatory domestic B2B e-invoicing moved from 1 January 2026 to 1 January 2028. The amendments were adopted on 5 June 2025 and took effect on 12 June 2025. Public sector invoicing is already live — see the timeline for what is running now and what is not.

0218 and 9939

the Unified Registration Number and the VAT number — support both

UBL 2.1 only

CII is not an operational alternative for submission to the VID

5 working days

to report the invoice to the VID after it is sent — not in real time

Timeline

Latvia separates two things that are usually announced together: the duty to issue a structured invoice, and the duty to report it to the tax authority. They arrive on different dates for each segment.

Already in force

18 April 2019

Public authorities must be able to receive EN 16931 invoices

The reception obligation under Directive 2014/55/EU takes effect for Latvian contracting authorities.

1 January 2025

Structured invoices become mandatory towards budget institutions

A supplier subject to the Accounting Law issuing a payment invoice to a budget institution must issue it as a structured electronic invoice. Contracts concluded before 31 December 2024 could defer this, but no later than 1 January 2026.

12 June 2025

The B2B postponement takes effect

Amendments adopted on 5 June 2025 move the mandatory domestic B2B date from 2026 to 2028, after feedback about unclear definitions, incomplete technical infrastructure and late specifications.

9 December 2025

Cabinet Regulation No. 749 is adopted

The regulation on how structured electronic invoice circulation is organised and how the data is submitted to the VID, published in Latvijas Vēstnesis on 12 December 2025. This is where the operational detail lives — formats, channels, deadlines and failure procedures.

1 January 2026

Reporting to the VID begins for the public sector segments

B2G, G2B and G2G e-invoices must also be transmitted to the VID, within five working days of being sent. Ordinary B2B companies may report voluntarily from this date. See Reporting to the VID.

Still ahead

1 January 2028

Mandatory domestic B2B e-invoicing and reporting

A company must issue a structured electronic invoice to another company registered in Latvia, and transmit it to the VID. Both obligations start on the same day.

1 July 2030

ViDA digital reporting for intra-EU B2B

EU-level requirements for the cross-border B2B transactions in scope. See Cross-border and ViDA.

Older Latvian and European material still shows 2026 as the B2B date, and some of it is still being republished. Plan against 2028 — that is the date in the current Accounting Law and on the current VID and Ministry of Finance pages. Note also that an intermediate proposal to move only to 2027 was rejected; the committee went straight to 2028.

Who is in scope

Invoicing a budget institutionStructured e-invoice mandatory since 1 January 2025, plus VID reporting since 1 January 2026. Covers G2G, B2G and G2B — not only classic procurement invoices

Domestic B2B, 2026–2027Not yet mandatory. Companies may transmit e-invoices to the VID voluntarily

Domestic B2B from 2028Mandatory where the recipient is another company registered in Latvia

Cross-borderThe domestic rule is written for recipients registered in Latvia. Structured exchange with a foreign company remains a matter of agreement until ViDA applies

B2CNo mandate. Invoices to natural persons may continue in ordinary formats

The obligation attaches to enterprises subject to the Latvian Accounting Law, which the Law defines to include Latvian companies, branches of foreign merchants and non-resident permanent establishments in Latvia. A foreign seller that is not an Accounting Law subject does not become obliged merely because its buyer is registered in Latvia.

The Accounting Law also carries exceptions worth checking against a specific client: certain transactions evidenced by documents produced under the rules for electronic or fiscal devices, particular invoices originating in designated state information systems, and specific security and law-enforcement cases.

B2G, G2B and G2G

Latvia's public sector obligation is unusually broad in one respect. It is not limited to invoices arising from public procurement — it applies to payment invoices issued to budget institutions, and covers government-to-government and government-to-business flows as well as the familiar business-to-government direction.

IssueStructured electronic invoice, mandatory since 1 January 2025

ReportTo the VID, within five working days of sending, since 1 January 2026

Transitional reliefContracts concluded before 31 December 2024 could defer application — but no later than 1 January 2026, so that relief has now run out

ChanneleAddress, an operator, or another agreed electronic channel. See Delivery channels

Because the issuing duty landed a full year before the reporting duty, some suppliers have been sending structured invoices since 2025 without ever touching the VID interface. Those are the businesses most likely to have discovered the reporting leg late.

B2B and B2C

From 1 January 2028, a payment invoice issued to another company registered in Latvia must be a structured electronic invoice, delivered through an agreed electronic channel and transmitted to the VID within five working days. Issue and report begin together — unlike the public sector, where they were staggered.

The two years in between are not empty. From 1 January 2026 ordinary B2B companies may transmit e-invoices to the VID voluntarily, which is a genuine opportunity: the reporting integration can be built, tested and corrected against real traffic while nothing turns on it.

B2C

No mandate. The VID states directly that invoices to natural persons may continue to be issued in ordinary formats. A structured invoice may be used, but the consumer must be able to see a human-readable version — a PDF rendering, for instance.

The model

Two flows run separately, and keeping them separate is the whole design:

Seller to buyer

The invoice travels directly, through eAddress, an operator, or another agreed electronic channel. Nothing waits for approval.

Onward to the VID

Once, within five working days of sending — by the seller, its operator, or automatically through eAddress.

What Latvia is not

Not clearance. The invoice is not sent to the VID first, and no validation, clearance code or authorisation number is required before delivery to the buyer

Not real-time reporting. A five working day window is a different regime from near-real-time, and the European Commission records Latvia as a decentralised model without a real-time VAT reporting system

Not an officially declared Peppol five-corner model. Latvian law does not name the VID as a fifth Peppol corner

That said, when a service provider both delivers the invoice to the buyer and pushes it to the VID API, what you have built is functionally a five-corner-like CTC overlay on a four-corner exchange. It is a fair architectural description — it is just not what the legislation calls it. The accurate formulation is: decentralised e-invoicing with post-issuance CTC reporting to the VID.

Formats and PDF

There is a gap between what the statute says and what the system accepts, and it catches people out. The Accounting Law defines a structured invoice by reference to LVS EN 16931-1:2017, created using a syntax listed in LVS CEN/TS 16931-2:2017 — which points at both European syntaxes. The implementing regulation is narrower.

Semantic modelEN 16931, with no Latvian national CIUS or extensions layered on top

Required XMLCabinet Regulation No. 749 requires the XML structure to conform to UBL 2.1 and the Peppol BIS Billing 3.0 CIUS. The VID accepts XML on upload through EDS

CIIThe statutory definition points to the CEN syntax list, but the current VID documentation does not confirm UN/CEFACT CII as an alternative native submission syntax. Treat conversion to UBL as required

Working profileUBL 2.1 XML on Peppol BIS Billing 3.0 / EN 16931 — the operational national format for VID reporting

Where the PDF sits

A PDF on its own does not satisfy the structured e-invoice requirement, which presupposes machine-readable XML capable of automatic processing. A PDF is fine as a visualisation of the XML, as an extra copy for a human reader, and in B2C where no mandate applies. The national eAddress infrastructure even provides conversion of the XML into HTML or PDF for human-readable rendering.

The line to hold: a PDF invoice is not a structured electronic invoice for the mandatory B2G and, from 2028, B2B segments.

Delivery channels

Regulation No. 749 permits three groups of channel between seller and buyer, and the parties choose. Latvia is Peppol-aligned but not Peppol-exclusive.

eAddressThe official Latvian electronic address channel, where the recipient's eAddress account is activated. Operated by the State Digital Development Agency (Valsts digitālās attīstības aģentūra, VDAA), with a dedicated document type for e-invoices

Operator channelThrough an e-invoice service provider

Other electronic channelDirect system-to-system integration, e-mail, or another electronic delivery mechanism the parties agree on

Note that the VDAA owns and runs the eAddress infrastructure — it is not the Latvian Peppol Authority, and the two get confused. eAddress integration is a channel choice, not a licensing prerequisite for an Access Point.

Identifiers

Two Latvian schemes are active in the Peppol participant identifier list, and an Access Point onboarding Latvian clients needs both.

0218LV:URN — the Unified Registration Number from the Register of Enterprises. Typically eleven digits, with nine-digit exceptions provided for in the specification. Used as 0218:

9939LV:VAT — the Latvia VAT number, also active. Used as 9939:

Do not confuse these with a universal national routing identifier. They are Peppol addressing schemes, and Peppol is only one of the permitted transport channels — a Latvian invoice may perfectly well travel by eAddress or direct integration and never touch a participant identifier at all.

Peppol in Latvia

Whether Peppol is "the main channel" depends on which sense you mean. Peppol BIS Billing 3.0 is the normative profile — the regulation requires it. But the Peppol network is not the legally mandatory or exclusive transport, because Regulation No. 749 also permits eAddress, operator channels and agreed bilateral channels.

No separate national Peppol Authority

No dedicated Latvia Peppol Authority appears in the current OpenPeppol list. OpenPeppol states that it acts as the Peppol Authority in jurisdictions without a national one, which is the position that applies here. The Service Provider Agreement is therefore with OpenPeppol, and there is no Latvian body to apply to.

Reporting to the VID

The e-invoice is transmitted to the VID once, no later than five working days after the date it was sent to the recipient. Three routes are provided:

Automatically through eAddress — where that channel is used, the reporting happens as part of it

Through an operator integrated with the VID API

By the taxpayer directly, through the VID Electronic Declaration System (EDS), its API, or file upload

When something fails

Regulation No. 749 sets out explicit correction procedures, which is one of the more thoughtful parts of the Latvian design and worth building into your operational runbook:

Your system failsNotify the VID through EDS no later than the next working day after the reporting deadline, and transmit the invoice within three working days of the system being restored

The VID solution is unavailableTransmit no later than the next working day after the VID system is restored

Any other reasonNotify the VID through EDS with the reason and the period concerned, and transmit no later than 30 calendar days after the cause is identified

The notification obligation is the part that gets missed. In each failure case there is something to tell the VID, on a tighter clock than the deadline for actually sending the data.

Requirements for providers

No national accreditation or licensing regime comparable to the Slovak digitálny poštár was found in the Accounting Law, Cabinet Regulation No. 749 or the VID's published material. The VID does maintain a list of e-invoice service providers — but it is careful about what that list is.

—The list is expressly of an informational nature

—The technical and legal recommendations published for providers are recommendatory

—The VID states that it does not use those recommendations to assess a provider or decide on its inclusion

—Inclusion is therefore not a national licence or certification. A provider may ask to be listed through EDS correspondence or the designated contact channel, and remains responsible for the quality of its own service

No requirement for a Latvian legal entity, branch, local office or local representative was found — and the VID's own published list includes foreign providers established in Estonia and Sweden, which is a stronger practical confirmation than any absence of a rule.

Peppol certification is not Latvian reporting capability. An Access Point doing seller → AP → Peppol → buyer AP has delivered the invoice and nothing more. The client's duty to get that invoice to the VID is separate, and is met only if the provider has integrated with the VID E-Invoice API, or the taxpayer submits through EDS itself, or the reporting runs through eAddress. The VID says this explicitly: it receives the data if the provider has built the integration.

What the VID recommends

Its provider recommendations mention EN 16931 and Peppol BIS Billing 3.0 support, VID API compatibility, interoperability with Latvian operators and with Peppol, AS4 and eDelivery, TLS 1.2 or 1.3, authentication and audit trails, service levels, disaster recovery, data protection arrangements, security and risk management, auditing, publicly available technical documentation and customer support. Sound engineering practice — but recommendations, not statutory accreditation criteria.

Peppol delivery onlyPeppol certification and governance, plus BIS Billing 3.0 interoperability

Delivery plus VID reportingAdditionally, integration with the VID E-Invoice API

Using eAddressTechnical integration with the VDAA, using its documentation

Foreign EU providerMay serve Latvian clients; no local entity requirement identified

Penalties and VAT deduction

There is no dedicated fine of the "€X per missing e-invoice" kind in Cabinet Regulation No. 749. Liability comes from the general administrative offence provisions of the Accounting Law, and the amounts are expressed in fine units — one unit being €5 under the Administrative Liability Law.

Article 43Breach of the rules on formatting, registration or use of supporting documents — a warning, or a fine of up to 86 fine units, that is €430

Article 42Broader breaches of accounting rules — a warning, or a fine of up to 400 fine units, that is €2,000

Who decidesAdministrative offence proceedings under these provisions are conducted by the VID

It would be wrong to say that every single late submission automatically attracts €430 or €2,000. These are ceilings for categories of accounting breach; the legal characterisation and the sanction depend on the nature of what went wrong and on the VID's assessment. And the correction procedures exist precisely so that a system failure handled properly is not treated as a breach at all.

VAT deduction

A structured e-invoice is not the sole legal basis for deducting input VAT in Latvia. Article 92 of the VAT Law recognises, among other things, VAT shown on a VAT invoice received from another registered taxable person, import VAT with the relevant customs documents, VAT calculated under reverse-charge rules, and VAT on intra-Community acquisitions. To exercise the right, the registered taxable person must keep the VAT invoice received.

A clarification worth knowing

The Ministry of Finance has explained that a business may hold either one structured invoice carrying all the mandatory VAT invoice details, or two documents — a structured payment invoice plus a separate VAT invoice, which may itself be electronic or on paper. So failing to issue the required XML can be an accounting and reporting breach without automatically meaning "no XML, no deduction". The right to deduct still depends on the substantive and documentary VAT conditions being met.

Archiving

Accounting documents, invoices included, are generally retained for five years under the Accounting Law, with longer periods — up to ten years — applying to certain categories of transaction and document. Confirm the applicable period for the specific document type with a Latvian adviser rather than assuming five years covers everything.

Retain the XML, not only the PDF rendering. In the mandatory segments the structured document is the invoice; the PDF is a visualisation of it

Keep the evidence of reporting as well as the invoice — when it was sent to the buyer, when it went to the VID, and any EDS notification made under the failure procedures

Where the Ministry of Finance's two-document approach is used, both the structured payment invoice and the separate VAT invoice need to survive the retention period

The VID holds a copy of what was reported to it, but that is not your archive and should not be treated as one. Sending data to a tax authority is not the same as being able to produce the original document years later.

Cross-border and ViDA

The domestic 2028 rule is drafted for invoices to a company registered in Latvia. It does not automatically convert every foreign invoice issued by a Latvian company into a mandatory national e-invoice, and it does not by itself catch a foreign seller merely because the buyer is Latvian.

Latvian seller → EU buyerStructured exchange by agreement, including through Peppol. The VID expressly acknowledges electronic exchange with foreign partners via Peppol providers

EU seller → Latvian buyerNo Latvian rule identified that obliges a seller which is not an Accounting Law subject. Exchange is by agreement until ViDA applies

Export outside the EUOutside the domestic rule, and outside the ViDA intra-EU regime. Ordinary VAT, customs and invoicing rules apply

From 1 July 2030ViDA digital reporting requirements apply to the intra-EU B2B transactions in scope, based on structured e-invoicing

Which produces a two-step migration for a Latvian exporter: domestic structured invoicing and VID reporting from 2028, then the EU cross-border layer from 2030. Building the first without regard to the second is the expensive path.

How we help

Latvia needs no licence and no local entity — but it does need two capabilities that are often sold as one:

UBL 2.1 on Peppol BIS Billing 3.0 — the operational national profile, with conversion from CII where source systems produce it

Addressing on both 0218 and 9939, with the eleven-digit and nine-digit registration number cases handled

Delivery to budget institutions through the channel each one actually uses

The reporting leg treated as its own project, with the five working day clock tracked per invoice rather than assumed

Use of the voluntary window before 2028 to test reporting against real traffic while nothing turns on it

Failure handling that produces the EDS notification on time, not just the retry

PDF visualisation alongside the XML, including for consumers who need a readable copy

Connection by API, SFTP and CSV, with ERP and IDoc source data

Frequently asked questions

When does mandatory B2B e-invoicing start in Latvia?

1 January 2028. It was originally 1 January 2026, and amendments adopted on 5 June 2025 and effective from 12 June 2025 moved it. An intermediate proposal to postpone only to 2027 was rejected in favour of going straight to 2028. Material still showing 2026 is out of date; plan against 2028.

Is Latvia a clearance country?

No. The invoice goes directly from seller to buyer through an agreed channel, and separately to the VID within five working days of being sent. Nothing requires prior tax authority validation, a clearance code or an authorisation number before delivery. Cabinet Regulation No. 749 describes the VID solution as decentralised and structured, and the European Commission records Latvia as a decentralised model without real-time VAT reporting.

How quickly must the invoice reach the VID?

Once, and no later than five working days after the date the invoice was sent to the recipient. Three routes exist: automatically through eAddress, through an operator integrated with the VID API, or by the taxpayer directly through the VID Electronic Declaration System, its API, or file upload.

Does Peppol certification make me compliant in Latvia?

Not on its own — this is the most important point for a provider. Peppol handles delivery from seller to buyer. The separate obligation to transmit the invoice to the VID is met only if the operator has integrated with the VID E-Invoice API, or the taxpayer submits through EDS itself, or the reporting runs through eAddress. The VID states that it receives the data if the provider has built the integration.

Can I submit UN/CEFACT CII to the VID?

Treat the answer as no. The Accounting Law definition points to EN 16931 and the CEN syntax list, which would suggest both syntaxes — but Cabinet Regulation No. 749 requires the XML structure to conform to UBL 2.1 and Peppol BIS Billing 3.0, and current VID documentation does not confirm CII as an alternative native submission syntax. If your source system produces CII, plan for conversion to UBL.

Is Peppol the only permitted channel?

No. Peppol BIS Billing 3.0 is the required profile, but Regulation No. 749 permits three channel groups between seller and buyer: eAddress where the recipient's account is activated, an e-invoice operator, or another agreed electronic channel including direct integration or e-mail. Latvia is Peppol-aligned but not Peppol-exclusive.

Can a foreign provider serve Latvian clients?

Yes. No requirement for a Latvian legal entity, branch, office or local representative was found in the mandatory rules, and the VID's own informational provider list includes companies established in Estonia and Sweden. The list itself is not a licence: the VID states it is informational, that its published provider recommendations are recommendatory, and that it does not use them to assess providers or decide on inclusion.

What happens if the invoice cannot be reported on time?

Regulation No. 749 provides for it. If your own or your operator's system fails, notify the VID through EDS no later than the next working day after the deadline and transmit within three working days of restoration. If the VID solution is unavailable, transmit by the next working day after it is restored. For any other reason, notify the VID through EDS with the reason and period, and transmit within 30 calendar days of identifying the cause.

What are the penalties?

There is no dedicated per-invoice e-invoicing fine. Liability comes from the general administrative offence provisions of the Accounting Law: Article 43 allows a warning or up to 86 fine units for breaches of the rules on formatting, registration or use of supporting documents — €430 at €5 per unit — and Article 42 allows a warning or up to 400 fine units, that is €2,000, for broader accounting breaches. Proceedings are conducted by the VID, and these are ceilings for categories of breach rather than an automatic charge per late submission.

Do I lose my VAT deduction without a structured e-invoice?

Not automatically. The VAT Law contains no rule making a structured EN 16931 or Peppol BIS XML invoice the only admissible basis; Article 92 recognises VAT on a VAT invoice from another registered taxable person, import VAT with customs documents, reverse-charge VAT and intra-Community acquisitions. The Ministry of Finance has confirmed a business may hold either one structured invoice containing all mandatory VAT details, or two documents — a structured payment invoice plus a separate VAT invoice, electronic or on paper. Missing XML can still be an accounting and reporting breach in its own right.

Summary

Latvia is a decentralised e-invoicing country with a reporting overlay: structured invoices exchanged through whatever channel the parties agree, and the data delivered to the VID once, within five working days. Public sector invoicing has been mandatory since 2025 and reportable since 2026. Domestic B2B follows on 1 January 2028, with issue and report starting together.

Technically it is narrower than the statute suggests: UBL 2.1 on Peppol BIS Billing 3.0, no national CIUS, and CII not confirmed as a submission syntax. There is no accreditation, no local entity requirement and no separate Latvian Peppol Authority.

The one thing worth repeating to any provider: delivering the invoice and reporting it are two different jobs. Peppol does the first. Only a VID integration, an EDS submission or eAddress does the second — and the years before 2028 are the cheapest time to find out which one you are missing.

Resources

State Revenue Service — e-invoices, frequently asked questions The VID's own guidance: reporting routes, the five working day rule, formats and the channels VID — explanatory material on Cabinet Regulation No. 749 The implementing regulation explained: decentralised design, the UBL 2.1 and Peppol BIS Billing 3.0 requirement, channels and the failure procedures Ministry of Finance — structured electronic invoice The policy page, including the clarification that one structured invoice or two documents may be used Accounting Law (English translation) The definition of a structured electronic invoice, the scope of covered enterprises, exceptions and the administrative offence articles eAddress — the official electronic address service The national channel operated by the VDAA, including the document type used for e-invoices European Commission — eInvoicing in Latvia The country profile: the decentralised classification, the absence of real-time reporting and the absence of a national CIUS Peppol BIS Billing 3.0 The CIUS that Regulation No. 749 requires the XML to conform to Peppol Electronic Address Scheme code list Where 0218 for the Unified Registration Number and 9939 for the VAT number sit European Commission — VAT in the Digital Age (ViDA) The 2030 cross-border layer that arrives two years after the Latvian domestic mandate Peppol Directory Check whether a Latvian participant is reachable over Peppol, and on which scheme

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