Invoicing
Writing invoices and VAT: mandatory details, small-business rule, e-invoicing
General information on the law in Germany (as of September 2026), not legal advice. Other countries regulate this differently.
An invoice above 250 euros gross has to carry ten items, and the two most often missing are the delivery date and a description specific enough to identify what you supplied. Below 250 euros gross a short form is enough: your name and address, the date, quantity and description, the gross amount and the tax rate. As a small business under § 19 UStG you charge no VAT and instead state the exemption on the invoice; the rule applies while last year's turnover stayed at or below 25,000 euros and this year's stays at or below 100,000 euros. The second of those limits is not a forecast: exceed it and the exemption ends with the very transaction that crosses it, mid-year, and the tax is owed whether or not the invoice showed it. Since 1 January 2025 every business must be able to receive electronic invoices; issuing them becomes mandatory from 2027 for larger businesses and from 2028 for the rest, while small businesses stay exempt from issuing permanently. Keep every invoice you send and receive for eight years.
An invoice is not a form, it is a condition
Most founders treat the invoice as the last administrative step after the work is done: a document that says what something cost and where the money should go. That is what it does for you. What it does for your business customer is something else entirely: it is the condition on which they get their input tax back. Miss one of the ten items and that deduction is at risk, which is why the finance department that seemed pedantic on the phone was doing its job.
That is the whole logic of the list below, and it is worth holding on to, because it makes the exceptions predictable. Where the deduction is small, the requirements shrink: that is the short form up to 250 euros. Where there is no deduction to protect, the tax line disappears and a sentence takes its place: that is the small-business rule. Everything else follows from those two.
Two things in this area cost real money rather than time, and both are further down: a tax rate shown by accident, which you then owe, and the 100,000 euro limit that stops being a forecast the moment you cross it.
The ten items, and why each is there
In the order they appear on the page, top to bottom, rather than the order of the statute, so you can hold your own document alongside. Items 1 to 8 are needed on every invoice above 250 euros gross; item 9 or item 10 applies, never both.
What has to be on the invoice
Your full name and address
Full means the name as registered, not the short form from your letterhead. A post-office box is not enough; an address where you can be served is.
The recipient's name and address
For business customers that means the company, not your contact there. An invoice made out to the wrong legal entity is worthless for input tax, even once the money has arrived.
Your tax number or VAT identification number
Either one is enough. For invoices to other EU countries you need the identification number, which has the side benefit of revealing nothing about which tax office handles you.
The date of issue
The day you write the invoice. It is not the same as the delivery date in row 6, and assuming one covers the other is exactly what makes invoices unusable.
A sequential, unique invoice number
Sequential means traceable without gaps, not necessarily arithmetically ascending. Several number ranges are allowed, by year or by business area. The same number twice is not.
Quantity and customary description of what you supplied
"Consulting" or "various services" is not enough. The description has to identify the supply unambiguously so it cannot be billed twice. For services that means type, extent and period.
The date of delivery or performance
The month is enough. This is the most commonly missing item, because with immediate delivery it coincides with the issue date. It still has to be stated, for example "delivery date equals invoice date".
The net amount, broken down by tax rate
Net, that is without tax. If an invoice carries both the reduced and the standard rate, each rate needs its own subtotal. A single net line mixing rates is formally wrong.
The tax rate and the tax amount
The percentage and the amount in euros, not merely a gross total marked "incl. VAT". Your customer deducts exactly this figure as input tax, and cannot deduct what is not shown.
If exempt: a statement saying so
Instead of row 9. A sentence such as "No VAT charged, small business under § 19 UStG" is enough. It is mandatory, and it heads off the question of why no tax appears on the invoice.
Your invoice is your customer's receipt from the tax office. That is why it is picky.
The list follows § 14 Abs. 4 UStG. Special cases add to it: supplies to other EU countries need both VAT identification numbers and a note on the reverse charge, and construction services to private customers require a note on the retention obligation. General information on the law in Germany, not legal advice.
Up to 250 euros: the short form
Below 250 euros gross, four items are enough, and the four that fall away are the ones that make a till receipt impossible. This is why a café can hand you a slip of paper rather than ask for your address. The threshold is gross, so it includes the tax, and it applies per invoice, not per customer or per day.
Your name and address
required
Date of issue
required
Quantity and description
required
Gross amount and tax rate
required
Recipient's name and address
may be omitted
Your tax number
may be omitted
Sequential invoice number
may be omitted
Separate net and tax amounts
may be omitted
§ 33 UStDV. Note what stays: the tax rate. The customer works the tax out of the gross figure themselves, which is precisely why the rate cannot be left off. General information on the law in Germany, not legal advice.
The small-business rule: two limits that work differently
Under § 19 UStG you charge no VAT while last year's total turnover stayed at or below 25,000 euros and this year's stays at or below 100,000 euros. Both conditions have to hold. Most summaries stop there, and that is where the expensive part begins, because the two numbers do not behave the same way.
The 25,000 waits. The 100,000 does not.
Go over 25,000 euros in a year and nothing happens that year. You move to standard taxation on 1 January of the year after, with months of warning and a fixed date to prepare for. That is the manageable version.
Go over 100,000 euros and the exemption ends immediately, with the transaction that crosses the line. Everything invoiced before it stays exempt; that invoice and everything after it carries VAT. Until 2024 this second figure was a forecast you made at the start of the year, which is why so much older advice still describes it that way. It is now a hard threshold, and an invoice you wrote without tax after crossing it does not save you: the tax is owed either way, and a consumer will rarely pay it afterwards.
§ 19 UStG in the version applying from 1 January 2025; the figures are unchanged for 2026. Until 2024 the limits were 22,000 and 50,000 euros, and the second was a forecast. General information on the law in Germany, not legal advice.
Where you stand, and what the change would cost
Put in last year's turnover, this year's so far and what you still expect, then the share of your turnover that comes from consumers. The tool measures you against both limits and adds the number that is missing from every summary of this rule: what the move to standard taxation would cost you if your gross prices stayed as they are.
Are you still a small business for VAT?
Five numbers, two limits, one date. The starting values are an example, not a recommendation. Nothing is stored or transmitted.
Total turnover last year
18.000 €
Turnover this year so far
21.000 €
Turnover expected by year end
12.000 €
Share of turnover from consumers
60 %
Your VAT rate
19 %
Your status right now
no VAT on invoices
Last year against 25,000 €
18.000 € (72 %)
Decides your status from 1 January of this year.
This year so far against 100,000 €
21.000 € (21 %)
Ends the exemption immediately, with the transaction that crosses it.
Full year against 25,000 €
33.000 € (132 %)
Decides your status from 1 January next year.
Room left before the hard limit this year: 79.000 €. Unlike the 25,000 euro figure, this one does not wait for the turn of the year. The exemption ends with the transaction that crosses it, and that transaction is taxed in full.
If the change came today and you kept your gross prices unchanged, it would cost you 3.161 € a year, which is 9.6 percent of your turnover. That figure is the 60 percent consumer share only: business customers deduct the tax as input tax, so for them the change is paperwork, not money. The alternative is to raise your gross prices by 19 percent and hand the decision to your customers.
Your next step
You stay exempt for the rest of this year, but your own figures put you over 25.000 euros for the year as a whole, which means standard taxation from 1 January. That is the good version of this change: it has a date on it. Use the months in between for the two things that take longest, namely deciding what happens to your prices and getting invoicing that produces a compliant electronic invoice.
The model is deliberately plain: last year against 25,000, this year against 100,000, and the cost of the change as the tax share of the gross price on the consumer part of your turnover, which is 15.97 percent at the standard rate and 6.54 percent at the reduced one. Business customers are left out of that figure on purpose, because they deduct the tax. Input tax on your own purchases is not modelled here at all; it works in the opposite direction and depends on what you buy, which is exactly the point at which a tax adviser earns their fee.
The electronic invoice: four dates, one distinction
Almost all the confusion here comes from one thing: receiving and issuing are two separate obligations that start at different times, and the exemption for small businesses covers only one of them. Read the board with that split in mind and the rest is a calendar.
Receiving, issuing, and who is exempt
since 1 January 2025
in force
You have to be able to receive them. Every domestic business must be able to accept and read electronic invoices from other businesses. That includes small businesses, and an email address plus software that opens the format is enough.
since 1 January 2025
in force
You are allowed to issue them. Anyone who wants to can already issue electronic invoices, and between domestic businesses the recipient's consent is no longer required.
from 1 January 2027
upcoming
You have to issue them if your previous year's turnover exceeded 800,000 euros. For everyone else the transition period continues, and paper or PDF still suffices.
from 1 January 2028
upcoming
All remaining businesses must then issue them for domestic invoices to other businesses. That is the date a business founded today should be planning towards.
permanently
exempt
Small businesses are exempt from the obligation to issue, with no end date; paper or PDF remains fine. It does not exempt them from having to receive.
A PDF is a picture of an invoice. An electronic invoice is data a program can read.
§ 14 UStG as amended, with the obligation to receive from 1 January 2025, the issuing obligation from 1 January 2027 above 800,000 euros of previous-year turnover and from 1 January 2028 for the rest. § 34a UStDV exempts small businesses from issuing, permanently and without a deadline. All of this concerns domestic invoices between businesses; invoices to consumers are untouched. General information on the law in Germany, not legal advice.
Two deadlines nobody tells you about
The first runs forwards: when you supply another business, the invoice has to be issued within six months of performance. That is a generous limit and a terrible habit. Invoice in the week of delivery, because willingness to pay falls with distance from the work, and because after three months neither side remembers precisely what was agreed.
The second runs backwards: every invoice you send and every invoice you receive has to be kept for eight years, counted from the end of the calendar year in which it was issued or received. An invoice from March 2026 therefore has to survive until the end of 2034. Kept means readable and unaltered, which rules out a folder of documents you can still edit and, in practice, rules in either paper or a system that locks each document once it is booked.
Both deadlines apply to small businesses as well. The exemption covers the tax, never the paperwork, and the retention rule does not care whether you ever deducted anything.
Five mistakes that cost money, not time
The first two are found by the customer's accountant and cost you a corrected invoice. The last three are found by the tax office, years later, and cost you the tax plus interest.
Showing VAT you do not owe. The most expensive typo in the field: a small business that puts a tax line on an invoice owes the amount shown to the tax office, even though it was never entitled to charge it. A word-processor template is the usual culprit.
Omitting the delivery date because it matches the invoice date. It still belongs there. Without it the invoice is formally incomplete and your customer may lose the input tax deduction.
Building invoice numbers from dates and then cancelling one. Gaps in the sequence have to be explainable. A credit note with its own number referring back to the original solves it; skipping the number does not.
Treating the 100,000 euro limit as a forecast. It was one until 2024; since 2025 it is a hard threshold. The exemption ends with the transaction that crosses it, not at year end. Carry on as before and you owe tax you never collected.
Throwing away purchase invoices because you cannot deduct input tax anyway. The eight-year retention rule does not depend on the deduction. And anyone who later moves to standard taxation needs the earlier years' documents for entirely different questions.
Frequently asked questions
Does a small business under § 19 have to issue invoices at all?
Yes. The small-business rule exempts you from VAT, not from invoicing. Towards other businesses there is an obligation to issue an invoice, and your customer needs the document for their own bookkeeping in any case. The difference from a standard invoice is two-fold: there is no tax line, and there is a statement naming the exemption instead.
How long do I have to issue an invoice?
Six months after performance when supplying another business. That is the legal maximum, not a recommendation: in practice you invoice in the week of delivery, because payment discipline falls with every day that passes and because after three months nobody remembers precisely what was supplied.
What happens if I show VAT by mistake?
You owe the amount shown to the tax office, even as a small business that was never entitled to charge it. Correcting it towards the customer is possible, but it takes a separate document, in practice the other side's cooperation, and depending on the case a refund to the customer. This is one of the points where a tax adviser costs less than the experiment.
When do I have to issue electronic invoices?
You have had to be able to receive them since 1 January 2025, without exception. Issuing becomes mandatory from 1 January 2027 for businesses whose previous-year turnover exceeded 800,000 euros, and from 1 January 2028 for all remaining businesses, for domestic invoices to other businesses. Small businesses are permanently exempt from issuing. The distinction matters: the exemption covers issuing only, never receiving.
Is a PDF an electronic invoice?
No, and this is the most common misconception here. An electronic invoice under the new rules is a structured data record a program can process without an intermediate step. A PDF is a picture of an invoice; it counts as an ordinary invoice and stays permissible during the transition and for small businesses, but it does not satisfy the obligation from 2027 or 2028 respectively.
Is it worth waiving the small-business rule voluntarily?
It can be, in two situations: when you mostly supply businesses, because for them the tax is a pass-through item while you get to deduct input tax on your own purchases, and when large acquisitions come at the start whose input tax would otherwise be lost. Against it stand the ongoing administration and the commitment, since the waiver binds you for several years. That is a calculation on your own figures and a question for a tax adviser.
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