Croatia Joins the Mandatory B2B E-Invoicing Club: Fiscalization 2.0 Explained
Croatia's Fiscalization 2.0 reform made structured B2B e-invoicing mandatory for all VAT-registered taxpayers from 1 January 2026, with budgetary entities following from January 2027 โ extending mandatory e-invoicing to a ninth EU country.
Croatia has joined Germany, Italy, France, Poland, Spain, Belgium, and other EU countries with a live domestic B2B e-invoicing mandate. Under the Fiscalization 2.0 reform, structured B2B e-invoicing became mandatory for all VAT-registered taxpayers from 1 January 2026, with budgetary (public-sector) entities issuing invoices under the same rules following from 1 January 2027.
What Changed
Fiscalization 2.0 replaces Croatia's prior cash-transaction fiscalisation rules with a broader regime covering both e-invoicing and e-reporting. From 1 January 2026:
- VAT-registered businesses established in Croatia must issue and receive structured XML invoices, aligned with the EN 16931 European standard
- Invoices are exchanged via the Peppol network or authorised information intermediaries, or reported through the national platform
- The eRaฤun platform, managed by FINA (the Financial Agency), handles the B2G side of exchange; the Croatian Tax Administration (Porezna uprava) oversees compliance
- The mandate applies comprehensively โ no phased threshold by business size or turnover โ extending to sole traders and self-employed professionals as well as companies
An early-access testing window opened on 1 September 2025, giving businesses and software vendors several months to validate their systems before the January 2026 go-live.
How Croatia Compares
Croatia's approach โ mandating B2B e-invoicing for everyone at once, without a size-based phase-in โ mirrors Belgium's rollout more than Germany's multi-year, threshold-based transition. It's a pattern increasingly common among EU countries implementing mandates after the European Commission clarified the ViDA-compatible path: get everyone using EN 16931-compliant structured invoices first, then layer real-time reporting on top later โ Croatia's budgetary-entity phase from January 2027 is one such next step.
What This Means for Cross-Border Trading Partners
If your business trades with Croatian VAT-registered partners, confirm your invoicing software or Peppol access point supports Croatian delivery โ most established EU-wide providers (Storecove, Pagero, Basware, and similar multi-country platforms) are extending coverage as national mandates like Croatia's come online.
Source
European Commission, eInvoicing in Croatia; EDICOM, Croatia Confirms Mandatory B2B Electronic Invoice Launch for 2026.
