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https://github.com/gflohr/e-invoice-eu

🇪🇺 💶 Generate e-invoices (E-Rechnung in German) conforming to EN16931 (Factur-X/ZUGFeRD, UBL, CII, XRechnung aka X-Rechnung) from LibreOffice Calc/Excel data or JSON.
https://github.com/gflohr/e-invoice-eu

cii e-invoice e-rechnung en16931 factur-x nestjs nodejs pdfa ubl xrechnung zugferd

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🇪🇺 💶 Generate e-invoices (E-Rechnung in German) conforming to EN16931 (Factur-X/ZUGFeRD, UBL, CII, XRechnung aka X-Rechnung) from LibreOffice Calc/Excel data or JSON.

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# E-Invoice-EU



Free and open source tool chain for generating EN16931 conforming e-invoices

(Factur-X/ZUGFeRD, UBL, CII, XRechnung) from popular spreadsheet formats or

JSON with free and open source software.



- [Why?](#why)

- [How?](#how)

- [What?](#what)

- [Description](#description)

- [Documentation](#documentation)

- [Validation](#validation)

- [BUGS](#bugs)

	- [PDF/A](#pdfa)

- [Reporting Bugs](#reporting-bugs)

- [Copyright](#copyright)

- [Disclaimer](#disclaimer)



## Why?



Electronic invoicing in the EU is mandatory, but most available solutions are

proprietary, commercial, closed, and costly. E-Invoice-EU takes a different approach:



- ✅ **100% free & open source** – no licence fees, no vendor lock-in

- ✅ **Standards-compliant** – EN16931, Factur-X, ZUGFeRD, UBL, CII, XRechnung

- ✅ **Flexible integration** – use the CLI tool, the REST API, or the TypeScript/JavaScript library

- ✅ **Modern ERP-friendly** – JSON-based input/output makes it trivial to integrate into any contemporary ERP infrastructure

- ✅ **Proven in production** – already used by organizations ranging from freelancers to multinational enterprises



Whether you need to automate a few invoices per month or integrate e-invoicing

into a large-scale workflow: E-Invoice-EU gives you a reliable foundation.



## How?



There are several ways to use the software:



- a [commandline tool `e-invoice-eu`](apps/cli/README.md)

- a [web service with a RESTful API](apps/server/README.md)

- a [JavaScript/TypeScript library](packages/core/README.md)



The JavaScript/TypeScript library works both on the commandline and in the

browser. The only limitation of the browser version is that it cannot generate

PDF versions of invoices from spreadsheet data because this requires invocation

of [LibreOffice](https://www.libreoffice.org/) which is not possible in the

browser. Instead, you have to provide a PDF version yourself, in case it is

needed.



The [E-Invoice-EU documentation](https://gflohr.github.io/e-invoice-eu/)

contains a [fully working demo of invoice generation right in your

browser](https://gflohr.github.io/e-invoice-eu/en/docs/other/browser-example/).



## What?



You can currently create e-invoices in these formats:



- `CII`: customization id `urn:cen.eu:en16931:2017`

- `Factur-X-Minimum` customization id `urn:factur-x.eu:1p0:minimum`

- `Factur-X-BasicWL` customization id `urn:factur-x.eu:1p0:basicwl`

- `Factur-X-Basic-WL` is an alias for `Factur-X-BasicWL`

- `Factur-X-Basic` customization id `'urn:cen.eu:en16931:2017#compliant#urn:factur-x.eu:1p0:basic'`

- `Factur-X-EN16931` customization id `urn:cen.eu:en16931:2017`

- `Factur-X-Comfort` is an alias for `Factur-X-EN16931`

- `Factur-X-Extended` customization id `urn:cen.eu:en16931:2017#conformant#urn:factur-x.eu:1p0:extended`

- `Factur-X-XRechung` customization id `urn:cen.eu:en16931:2017#compliant#urn:xeinkauf.de:kosit:xrechnung_3.0`

- `UBL`: customization customization id `urn:cen.eu:en16931:2017`

- `XRECHNUNG-CII`: customization id `urn:cen.eu:en16931:2017#compliant#urn:xeinkauf.de:kosit:xrechnung_3.0`

- `XRECHNUNG-UBL`: customization id `urn:cen.eu:en16931:2017#compliant#urn:xeinkauf.de:kosit:xrechnung_3.0`

- `ZUGFeRD-Minimum` is an alias for `Factur-X-Minimum`

- `ZUGFeRD-BasicWL` is an alias for `Factur-X-BasicWL`

- `ZUGFeRD-Basic-WL` is an alias for `Factur-X-BasicWL`

- `ZUGFeRD-Basic` is an alias for `Factur-X-Basic`

- `ZUGFeRD-EN16931` is an alias for `Factur-X-EN16931`

- `ZUGFeRD-Comfort` is an alias for `Factur-X-EN16931`

- `ZUGFeRD-Extended` is an alias for `Factur-X-Extended`

- `ZUGFeRD-XRechnung` is an alias for `Factur-X-XRechnung`



Case does not matter, when you specify a format.



## Description



This repository is an attempt to aid businesses, especially in France and

Germany but also in other parts of the European Union to create e-invoices

conforming with EN16931 with only free and open-source software.



## Documentation



See the [E-Invoice-EU online documentation](https://gflohr.github.io/e-invoice-eu/).



The blog post

[Creating E-Invoices with Free and Open Source

Software](https://www.guido-flohr.net/creating-electronic-invoices-with-free-and-open-source-software/)

or the German version [Elektronische Rechnungen mit freier und quelloffener Software erzeugen](https://www.guido-flohr.net/elektronische-rechnungen-mit-freier-und-quelloffener-software-erzeugen/)

also provides in-depth information using a gentler approach!



You can also use the documentation interactively by asking questions in

natural language. See https://gflohr.github.io/e-invoice-eu/en/docs/basics/ai-supported-documentation/

or go directly to https://notebooklm.google.com/notebook/f5783dde-ebe6-4610-bac1-f181fdf45f94.



## Validation



It is strongly recommended that you validate all incoming and outgoing e-invoices.

See [Validation](./contrib/validators) for details.



A new and very simple option is offered by the sister project to this one,

[e-invoice-eu-validator](https://github.com/gflohr/e-invoice-eu-validator).



## BUGS



### PDF/A



The Factur-X resp. ZUGFeRD standard requires PDF/A compliance for the PDF that

the invoice is wrapped in. Please search the internet if you do not know what

PDF/A means.



This library creates PDFs solely with [`pdf-lib`](https://github.com/cantoo-scribe/pdf-lib)

and does some pretty complicated transformations on the PDF to achieve PDF/A

compliance. This is not battle tested and may fail.



If you encounter a PDF that does not meet the PDF/A requirements, please

open an issue and attach an anonymized version of the PDF. What you can do

in the meantime:



- If you have [GhostScript](https://www.ghostscript.com/) installed, convert the PDF to PDF/A with this command: `gs -dVERBOSE -dPDFA=3 -dBATCH -dNOPAUSE -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -sOutputFile=OUTPUT_FILE.pdf PDFA_def.ps INPUT_FILE.pdf`

- Try to create the PDF again with [LibreOffice](https://www.libreoffice.org/).

- If the normal settings in LibreOffice do not work, enable PDF/A support (in the General section of the PDF options).

- If you want to automate the process, you can start LibreOffice in headless mode on the commandline: `libreoffice --headless "-env:UserInstallation=file:///tmp/LibreOffice_Conversion_${USER}" --convert-to 'pdf:writer_pdf_Export:{"SelectPdfVersion":{"type":"long","value":"3"}}' SOURCE_FILE.ods`



On Un\*x systems, `libreoffice` should be in your `$PATH`. On MacOS, you will

find it under `/Applications/LibreOffice.app/Contents/MacOS/soffice`. On

MS Windows, it is probably somewhere like `C:\\Program Files\\LibreOffice\\libreoffice.exe` (corrections are welcome).



## Reporting Bugs



Please report bugs at https://github.com/gflohr/e-invoice-eu/issues.



## Copyright



Copyright (C) 2024-2026 Guido Flohr , all

rights reserved.



This is free software available under the terms of the

[WTFPL](http://www.wtfpl.net/).



## Disclaimer



This free software has been written with the greatest possible care, but like

all software it may contain errors. Use at your own risk! There is no

warranty and no liability.