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.
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