Everyone is talking about e-invoicing in Latvia, and the dates get muddled. Here is the clear picture: what is already mandatory, what is still voluntary, and when structured e-invoices become compulsory for every business.

What a “structured e-invoice” actually is

The biggest misconception first: a PDF you email to a client is not an e-invoice in the legal sense. A structured electronic invoice is a machine-readable XML file that conforms to the European standard EN 16931 and, in Latvia, is produced in the Peppol BIS Billing 3.0 / UBL 2.1 format. To a human it looks like a wall of data, but your buyer's accounting system reads it and books it with no manual typing.

The timeline: who, and when

There are three separate stages, and they are easy to confuse:

  • B2G (business → government) — mandatory since 1 January 2025. If you invoice a state or municipal budget institution, it must be issued as a structured e-invoice. (Public bodies have had to accept EN 16931 e-invoices since 2019, when Latvia transposed EU Directive 2014/55/EU.)
  • B2B (business → business) — voluntary from 30 March 2026. From that date you may submit e-invoice data to the State Revenue Service (VID) through the official e-address. This is not a mandatory date — it is the option to start early.
  • B2B — mandatory from 1 January 2028. From then on, every company registered in Latvia must issue invoices to other companies as structured e-invoices.

One more date: from 1 January 2026, e-invoice data for transactions involving the state (G2G/B2G/G2B) must additionally be reported to VID. That is a reporting obligation, separate from the obligation to issue the invoice itself — another easy thing to conflate.

What this means for you

If you work with municipalities or state institutions, you need structured e-invoices already. If you only invoice other businesses, you have until 2028 — but nothing stops you from starting sooner, and starting sooner spares you the last-minute scramble.

How fakts handles it

fakts already generates Peppol BIS Billing 3.0 / UBL 2.1 XML e-invoices alongside an ordinary PDF, today. You never have to look at the XML — you fill in the invoice as usual and the file is ready to send through a Peppol access point or upload to your e-address. Numbering stays sequential and every mandatory EN 16931 field is filled in for you.

E-invoicing deadlines have already moved once and could, in theory, move again. This article reflects the position as of mid-2026; check the Ministry of Finance and VID websites before making important decisions.