XRechnung is Germany's national e-invoice standard — a CIUS (Core Invoice Usage Specification) of EN 16931 serialised in CII XML, mandatory for invoicing German public authorities.
XRechnung is the German national standard for electronic invoicing. It is a CIUS (Core Invoice Usage Specification) — a country-specific profile of the European e-invoice norm EN 16931 that restricts certain optional fields to mandatory ones and adds German-specific validation rules. XRechnung is serialised in CII (Cross Industry Invoice) XML, though the standard also allows a UBL binding.
XRechnung has been mandatory for invoicing German federal authorities since November 2020 and for invoicing many state and municipal authorities on rolling timelines since then. The upcoming German B2B e-invoicing mandate (stemming from the Wachstumschancengesetz, the Growth Opportunities Act of March 2024) also accepts XRechnung as one of the compliant formats for domestic B2B invoices from 2027.
In practice, public-sector senders often deliver XRechnung via the central OZG-RE portal or via Peppol. For B2B, the format can be exchanged directly, via email, or through a Peppol access point. KoSIT (Koordinierungsstelle für IT-Standards) publishes the official XRechnung specification, validation schema, and the widely used KoSIT Validator.
Invotify Pro exports CII XML aligned with the XRechnung specification. You can validate the output with the KoSIT Validator before delivery. Note that Invotify generates the structured XML file — submission to a government portal or Peppol delivery requires an additional step. For full context on Germany's e-invoicing timeline, see our Germany e-invoicing guide.
XRechnung is Germany's national e-invoice standard. Technically it is a CIUS (Core Invoice Usage Specification) of the European standard EN 16931, typically serialised in CII XML, and it defines exactly how an invoice to a German public authority must be structured.
XRechnung is mandatory for invoicing German federal public authorities, and most German states require it for their public bodies too. Since 2025, German businesses must also be able to receive structured e-invoices in B2B transactions, with phased obligations to issue them in the following years.
XRechnung is commonly submitted through national portals such as ZRE and OZG-RE, or sent over the Peppol network. Because it conforms to EN 16931, an XRechnung document is interoperable with other compliant European e-invoicing systems.
Yes. Invotify Pro exports standards-based CII XML that covers the XRechnung specification, so you can produce a compliant file for German public-sector recipients. It is generated from the same invoice data you already manage in Invotify.
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