German invoice requirements: the mandatory details

The mandatory details under § 14 (4) UStG

A German invoice is not a free-form letter. § 14 (4) of the German VAT Act lists what it must contain, and a missing entry can cost the recipient their input-VAT deduction. That loss falls on your customer, not on you, which is why an incomplete invoice comes back unpaid rather than being quietly accepted.

Check the list against a real document rather than against the template in your head. The time of supply and the invoice number are the two that go missing most often, because they survive unchanged when an old invoice is copied.

• Full name and address of both the supplier and the recipient.
• The supplier's tax number (Steuernummer) or VAT identification number (USt-IdNr.).
• The date the invoice was issued.
• A sequential invoice number, issued only once.
• Quantity and commercial description of the goods, or the scope and type of the service.
• The time of supply — for advance payments, when the payment was received.
• The amount broken down by tax rate and by exemption, plus any reduction agreed in advance.
• The applicable tax rate and tax amount — or, where the supply is exempt, a note saying so.

Invoice date and time of supply are two separate entries

The issue date says when you wrote the invoice. The time of supply says when the goods or services were actually delivered. Both belong on the document even when they fall in the same month, and naming the calendar month is enough for the time of supply.

Writing "invoice date = date of supply" is acceptable only when it is true. On a project that ran for weeks, the time of supply is when the work was completed, not the day you typed the invoice.

Small-amount invoices up to EUR 250

When the total including VAT stays at or below EUR 250, § 33 UStDV allows a shorter set of entries: the supplier's name and address, the issue date, the quantity and type of supply, the amount and tax as a single combined figure, and the tax rate or a note on the exemption.

The recipient's address, their tax number and a separate net-and-tax breakdown are not required in that case. The relief does not apply everywhere, though — it does not cover intra-Community distance selling or supplies where the tax liability shifts to the recipient. When in doubt, issue the full invoice; it is never wrong.

Small business, exemption and reverse charge

A business applying the small-business rule under § 19 UStG shows no VAT and adds a note referring to the rule instead. Tax shown anyway is tax owed — leaving the line in place because the template has one is an expensive habit.

Where the tax liability shifts to the recipient, the invoice carries the note "Steuerschuldnerschaft des Leistungsempfängers" and shows no tax. Whether your supply is such a case depends on what was supplied and to whom; settle that with your tax adviser before sending, not by reading a template.

E-invoices between German businesses

Since 1 January 2025 every business in Germany must be able to receive e-invoices; an email inbox is enough, according to the Federal Ministry of Finance (BMF). Issuing follows in stages: in 2025 and 2026 businesses may still send each other paper invoices or, with the recipient’s consent, PDF invoices; in 2027 only businesses whose turnover in the previous year was at most EUR 800,000 may do so. From 1 January 2028, invoices between domestic businesses must be e-invoices.

An e-invoice is structured data under the European standard EN 16931, such as XRechnung or ZUGFeRD from version 2.0.1; a plain PDF is not one. Small-amount invoices up to EUR 250, invoices from small businesses and invoices to private consumers are outside the obligation. QuoteBill makes PDF, Word and Excel files, not e-invoices (BMF FAQ, as of March 2026, read on 5 October 2026).