Factur-X 1.09.2 and ZUGFeRD 2.5.2 Published Ahead of France's September Mandate
FNFE-MPE and Germany's FeRD jointly published Factur-X 1.09.2 and ZUGFeRD 2.5.2 on 4 August 2026 — a maintenance update refining sub-line handling for bundled items, VAT-breakdown and rounding rules, and validation artefacts, weeks before France's 1 September 2026 e-invoicing mandate begins.
On 4 August 2026, the French FNFE-MPE and German FeRD associations jointly published Factur-X 1.09.2 and ZUGFeRD 2.5.2 — the technically identical hybrid PDF/XML invoice format used across both countries' e-invoicing mandates. The timing is deliberate: it lands less than a month before France's 1 September 2026 B2B e-invoicing mandate takes effect for large and mid-sized companies.
What Changed
This is a maintenance release on top of the ZUGFeRD 2.5 / Factur-X 1.09 baseline published in June 2026, not a new major version. It refines:
- Sub-line management — support for subtotal lines and invoice lines representing kits, bundles, or composite items, an addition that follows the biannual update to the underlying EN 16931 standard
- VAT-breakdown and rounding consistency — corrections to validation rules that previously produced inconsistent results in edge cases
- The EXTENDED profile — revised business rules for the most detailed of the format's five profiles
- Validation artefacts — refreshed XSD schemas and Schematron rules across all five Factur-X/ZUGFeRD profiles (MINIMUM, BASIC WL, BASIC, EN 16931/COMFORT, and EXTENDED)
Structurally, nothing changes: Factur-X and ZUGFeRD remain a PDF/A-3 human-readable invoice with an embedded EN 16931-compliant XML data file, following the UN/CEFACT Cross-Industry Invoice syntax.
Why It Matters Right Now
Businesses issuing Factur-X invoices — particularly those with bundled or multi-component product lines — should re-validate their invoice generation against the updated Schematron rules before France's mandate go-live. Software vendors serving the French market (Pennylane, Cegid, Sellsy, Axonaut) are expected to roll the update into their invoice generation pipelines ahead of September; businesses using any of these platforms should confirm with their vendor that the update has been applied rather than assuming it happens automatically.
Source
VATupdate, France and Germany Update Factur-X and ZUGFeRD E-Invoicing Standards; FNFE-MPE, Factur-X 1.09.2 - ZUGFeRD 2.5.2 common publication.
