Lifecycles and use cases

Document status progression and supported business scenarios for Belgium PEPPOL.

Belgium uses the PEPPOL four-corner model. After you submit an outbound invoice, Sovos processes and delivers the document to the buyer's access point. The buyer's system can then send an invoice response back through PEPPOL to confirm receipt, acceptance, or rejection. Sovos makes these responses available as notifications through the notifications API.

For inbound invoices, Sovos makes the document available through a single notification. No further lifecycle progression occurs on the inbound side.

Sovos generates lifecycle status updates internally. You receive them as notifications. There is no customer-facing API for submitting status changes.

Outbound status sequence

After you submit an outbound invoice, the document moves through these statuses in order:


Status code	CN portal status	Description
100	Pending	Sovos received the document
102	Processing	Sovos is validating and mapping the document
204	Sent by the platform	Sovos sent the document to the buyer's access point
214	Delivered	Buyer's access point acknowledged receipt
215	Made available	Document delivered to the buyer

Buyer invoice response statuses

After delivery, the buyer's system can return one of these invoice response statuses:


PEPPOL Code	CN status code	CN portal status	Description
AB	216	Received	Buyer's system acknowledged the document
IP	108	In process	Buyer's system is processing the document
AP	203	Approved	Buyer accepted the document
CA	225	Conditionally accepted	Buyer accepted the document with conditions
UQ	218	Disputed	Buyer disputes the document
RE	405	Rejected	Buyer rejected the document
PD	213	Payment sent	Buyer sent payment

Approved (203) and Rejected (405) are terminal statuses. After a document reaches either status, no further lifecycle transitions occur.

Inbound status codes

For inbound invoices, Sovos generates a notification with sciCloudStatusCode 215 and sciResponseCode AP when the document is available for retrieval. If validation fails, the notification uses status code 401.

Use cases

Belgium uses standard PEPPOL BIS Billing 3.0 without country-specific extensions. The following use cases are supported:


Use case	Description
Standard B2B invoice	Domestic invoice with standard VAT rate (21%, 12%, or 6%)
Credit note	Full or partial reversal referencing the original invoice
Zero-rated transaction	Invoice with 0% VAT for zero-rated supplies (Z category)
Exempt transaction	Invoice for VAT-exempt supplies (E category)
Reverse charge	Invoice with reverse charge mechanism (AE category)
Intra-community supply	Export sale to another EU country with VAT exemption code VATEX-EU-IC (K category)
Self-billing	Buyer-generated invoice where permitted
Invoice with allowances	Invoice with line-level or document-level discounts
Invoice with sales order reference	Invoice referencing a purchase order

For sample payloads covering these scenarios, see Send invoices page.

2028 CTC transition

Starting in 2028, Belgium plans to introduce a Continuous Transaction Control (CTC) component. This will require sending invoice data to the Belgian tax authorities. Belgium will transition from a post-audit model to a CTC model.

e-invoicing