Peppol in practice: how sending and receiving e-invoices will work in Slovakia

From 1 January 2027, Slovak VAT payers will send e-invoices over the Peppol network, and every customer of theirs doing business in Slovakia will have to be able to receive them.^⁠[6]⁠[2] For most companies and sole traders this means one decision (choosing a digital postman) and a few settings in their invoicing software. Here is how it all works.

What Peppol is

Peppol is an international network and a set of rules for exchanging electronic business documents, run by the OpenPeppol association. It works much like e-mail: one provider connected to the network is enough to exchange documents with anyone on it, whichever provider they use.^⁠[1]

In Slovakia the network's national authority (Peppol Authority) is the Financial Directorate of the Slovak Republic: it accredits providers and sets the Slovak network rules.^⁠[2] The Slovak specific requirements (PASR SK) were published by OpenPeppol on 19 January 2026.^⁠[3]

Four corners plus one: how an e-invoice travels

Peppol runs on the so-called four-corner model. Slovakia adds a fifth corner: the Financial Administration, which receives the invoice data.^⁠[2]

1. The supplier creates the e-invoice in its invoicing or accounting software.
2. The supplier's provider (its digital postman) checks the invoice and sends it into the network.
3. The customer's provider receives it and delivers it.
4. The customer gets it in their software or web inbox.
5. The Financial Administration receives the invoice data in a structured report (Tax Data Document).^⁠[4]⁠[6]

Supplier and customer do not need the same provider: the network takes care of delivering to the right addressee.^⁠[1]

Who the digital postman is

The VAT Act speaks of a certified delivery service provider; the Financial Administration uses the friendlier name 'digital postman' (digitálny poštár).^⁠[5]⁠[7] Only a person with its seat or place of business in the European Union that the Financial Directorate of the Slovak Republic has entered in its register can be one. The provider must in particular:^⁠[5]

• automatically check the formal particulars of the e-invoice,
• reliably identify the sender and the addressee,
• ensure the origin, integrity and legibility of the invoice from sending to delivery,
• prove the date and time of sending, delivery and receipt,
• automatically meet the reporting obligations towards the Financial Administration.^⁠[5]

The Financial Administration publishes the list of certified providers and their intermediaries on its portal, in the eFaktúra section.^⁠[9]⁠[7] The offers vary: from simple web inboxes where a sole trader starts receiving e-invoices within minutes to connecting large accounting systems to the Peppol network.^⁠[8]

Peppol ID: how the network finds you

Every participant on the network has an identifier, called a Peppol ID. It consists of a scheme code and the number itself. For Slovakia, the Peppol code list contains two schemes: 0245 for the tax ID (DIČ) and 9950 for the VAT ID (IČ DPH).^⁠[10] Your provider sets the identifier up when it registers you; you do not have to make one up.

Registration goes through the Financial Administration's portal: after logging in you pick a provider from the list, your identification data are sent to it automatically, you confirm the activation with the provider and it registers you on the Peppol network. According to the Financial Administration this takes about two to three minutes.^⁠[7]

Whether a company is on the network can often be checked in the Peppol Directory. Listing there is not mandatory, though, so not every registered recipient appears in it.^⁠[11]

The format: EN 16931, UBL and Peppol BIS Billing 3.0

The content of an e-invoice is defined by the European standard EN 16931, a semantic model that says which data an invoice contains and what they mean. The standard allows two syntaxes, i.e. two ways of writing it down in XML: UBL (under ISO/IEC 19845) and UN/CEFACT CII.^⁠[12]

On the Peppol network, invoices are sent according to the Peppol BIS Billing 3.0 specification. It is a so-called CIUS of EN 16931, that is, a refinement with rules of its own, so every invoice that follows it also complies with the European standard.^⁠[13] Compliance is checked automatically by validation rules, and your provider checks the formal particulars too.^⁠[5]

Sending, step by step

1. You create the invoice in your invoicing software as usual.
2. The software turns it into a structured file (XML) under EN 16931 and hands it to your provider over a direct connection or by uploading the file to the provider’s web application.
3. The provider checks the invoice, finds the addressee on the network and delivers it to their provider.
4. By handing the e-invoice to the delivery service you have also met the obligation to report the data to the Financial Administration.^⁠[6]
5. You see the delivery status in your software or with your provider.

Receiving, step by step

1. The e-invoice arrives at your provider: in a web inbox or directly in your accounting software.
2. You open it in a readable view and check it like any other invoice.
3. Your software can turn it into an expense or a payable without retyping anything.
4. You archive the structured file for ten years.^⁠[6]
5. If you are a VAT payer, under the law as it stands you report the data of a received e-invoice within five days, again through the delivery service. The amendment now before parliament proposes to drop this obligation.^{⁠[6]⁠[14]}

What your software, your provider and you do

The Financial Administration expected large vendors of accounting and business information systems to offer e-invoicing and the digital postman service directly in their products as an "all-in-one" service.^⁠[7]

How to prepare

• Choose a digital postman from the Financial Administration's list and register.^⁠[9]
• Check that your software can both create and import EN 16931 (UBL) e-invoices and that it is connected to your provider.
• Fill in the tax IDs (DIČ), VAT IDs (IČ DPH) and addresses of your business partners.
• Send yourself a test invoice while 2026 is still voluntary.
• Set up ten-year archiving of the XML files.
• Agree on a stopgap with partners who will not be ready in time: sending an e-invoice outside the delivery service requires their consent.^⁠[6]

vporiadku and Peppol

vporiadku is not a certified delivery service provider and does not run its own access point to the Peppol network. You can upload a received UBL e-invoice to vporiadku manually and read it in a human-friendly view on every plan, including the free Start plan; on the Profi plan you turn it into an expense in one click. Creating an e-invoice in UBL 2.1 under EN 16931 / Peppol BIS 3.0 and validating it are built, but they will be made available only together with sending.

Sending through a certified partner is being prepared; it is not running yet and general availability is planned for Q4 2026. The current state is on our e-invoicing 2027 page. In the meantime you can try vporiadku for free.

Related reading: Choosing a digital postman step by step, E-invoicing in Slovakia from 1 January 2027, Invoice requirements in Slovakia 2026 and Keeping invoices in Slovakia.