Peppol statistics: how many Belgian companies are on the network

On 25 October 2026 the Peppol Directory held 2,164,719 Belgian entries. Most were added at the last minute: 483,534 in December 2025 alone, and another 693,291 after the mandate took effect on 1 January 2026. Among the Belgian small businesses we measured that show their company number on their website, 96.1 percent are listed.

Since 1 January 2026, Belgian VAT-registered companies must send each other structured e-invoices over the Peppol network; a PDF by email no longer counts. The grace period ran until 31 March 2026. Who falls under the rule is set out in is Peppol mandatory in Belgium. This page counts who is ready: across the country through the public directory, and among the small firms from our own measurement of Belgian business websites. For a foreign company invoicing Belgian customers, it answers a practical question: can my Belgian buyer receive a Peppol invoice? Almost certainly yes.

How many Belgian companies are on Peppol

The Peppol Directory is the public address book of the network. Its 2,164,719 Belgian entries are not 2.1 million companies: most Belgian firms are listed twice, once under their company number and once under their VAT number. In our sample, 72 percent of registered firms had both. Corrected for that, the directory covers roughly 1.2 million Belgian companies and organisations, about as many as the 1,202,139 VAT-registered businesses Statbel counted at the end of 2025.

The directory counts entries, including the second one of the same firm; the government figure counts companies. Read them as two views of the same rush, not as one series.

The December 2025 rush

Until the summer of 2025, Belgium added 28,000 to 43,000 entries a month. From September the pace picked up, and December 2025 brought 483,534 new entries: a third of everything registered by the end of the year, in one month. The busiest single day was 18 December 2025, with 34,001 new entries, the day the government announced the grace period.

After the grace period, from 1 April 2026, another 280,298 entries followed. Part of that is firms switching software: moving to another Peppol service provider gives an entry a new registration date. On 21 October 2026 the directory logged 32,896 Belgian entries in a single day, which points to a provider re-registering its customers rather than 33,000 new companies.

How many small businesses are ready

For a clean count among small businesses we used our own sample. Of 427 working small business websites, 203 showed their company number. Looked up in the directory, 195 were listed, under the company number, the VAT number or both. All 195 can receive a standard Peppol invoice; their entry says so.

The gap is mainly between regions: in Flanders and Brussels almost every small business is listed, in Wallonia nine in ten. Six of the eight firms we did not find are in Wallonia. Per sector (see the chart below) the groups hold 24 to 37 firms, so a few points say little; hospitality and healthcare are at 100 percent, business services lowest at 91.9 percent.

When small businesses registered

The registration date in the directory shows when a business card was last registered, so a firm that switched provider shows its newest date. With that caveat, the 195 small businesses in our national sample break down as follows: 57 (29 percent) registered before September 2025, 44 (23 percent) in December 2025 alone, and 38 (19 percent) only in 2026, after the mandate had started. Fourteen entries carry no usable date. Small businesses followed the national pattern: a long tail of early adopters, a rush at the deadline, and a sizeable group that caught up in the new year.

What a directory entry does and does not tell you

• The directory is not the whole networkA company can be reachable on Peppol without a business card in the directory, so the real number is if anything higher.
• Firms that publish their number are the tidy onesA business that puts its legal details on its website often sorts its invoicing on time too. The 96.1 percent applies to that group; just over half of the sites did not show a number, and for them we cannot say.
• Registered is not the same as sendingThe directory says a company can receive e-invoices, not that it sends them.

To check a specific Belgian customer or supplier, look up their company number with our Peppol check. How the company number and the VAT number work as Peppol IDs is explained in Peppol registration.

What this means if you invoice Belgian customers

The grace period is over. Since 1 April 2026 the Belgian tax authority can fine a company that cannot send or receive e-invoices: 1,500 euros the first time, 3,000 the second and 5,000 for a further breach; see Belgian e-invoicing penalties. For a foreign seller the rules differ: the Belgian mandate covers invoices between Belgian VAT-registered companies, and Peppol between countries stays voluntary until the EU's own rules for cross-border invoices arrive. The full picture is in e-invoicing in Belgium.

1. Check whether your Belgian entity falls under the mandate; even firms under the small business VAT exemption must be able to receive.
2. Choose software that works through a certified Peppol service provider; you cannot register directly. Options are compared in which software for Peppol.
3. Register under the Belgian company number (scheme 0208), the agreed minimum in Belgium.
4. Send a real test invoice and check that it arrives as a UBL invoice.

If you want Peppol tied into your own planning tool, web shop or portal, see Peppol invoicing software or book a call.

Method and limits

The national counts come from the public search service of the Peppol Directory: per day, the number of Belgian entries with that registration date, from 1 January 2023 to 24 October 2026, plus the total on 25 October 2026. About 150,000 entries carry a date before 2023 or none. The estimate of roughly 1.2 million companies rests on the share of double entries in our sample.

The small business sample comes from OpenStreetMap: local businesses with their own website, spread over the provinces by population, with each sector weighted equally. The full method is on the state of Belgian business websites. We repeat the Peppol count every quarter.