An access point is your connection to the Peppol network. It is the part that sends your invoices to your customer's access point and receives your suppliers' invoices for you. You almost never run one yourself. You get one through your accounting software or a service provider, the same way you get email through a provider rather than running a mail server.
The question most UK businesses are really asking is when, not whether. This guide covers who needs one now, what changes in 2029, what it costs, and the contract terms that matter. Prices and counts were checked on 19 and 20 October 2026.
Who needs an access point, and when
| Situation | Need one now? | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Supplier to NHS Supply Chain | Yes | NHS Supply Chain requires suppliers to invoice over Peppol, with GS1 GLNs |
| Supplier to an NHS trust | Possibly | Depends on the trust and contract |
| Customer asks for Peppol invoices | Yes, commercially | A buyer can make it a contract term |
| Invoicing businesses in Belgium | Usually | Belgian businesses must exchange B2B e-invoices over Peppol since January 2026 |
| Supplier to other UK public bodies | Not required | Public bodies must accept EN 16931 invoices, but suppliers are not required to send them |
| Any VAT-registered UK business invoicing other businesses | From April 2029 | The UK mandate covers all B2B and B2G VAT invoices |
| Selling only to consumers | No | B2C invoices are outside the mandate |
The 2029 date is announced policy, not yet law. Phasing, the UK invoice specification and any provider accreditation are expected in the roadmap due with the Budget on 28 October 2026. Our guide to what the Budget 2026 roadmap settles covers each open question.
Does the UK mandate require a certified access point?
Not in so many words. The government's position is that businesses "exchange e-invoices directly through their chosen software providers", with Peppol as the "core interoperability network". Nothing published requires a UK-accredited provider. In practice, sending an invoice over Peppol already requires an access point certified by OpenPeppol, because only certified access points hold the network certificates. Whether any non-Peppol route survives, such as existing EDI, is one of the questions the roadmap is expected to answer.
The parts of Peppol, in plain terms
| Term | What it is | Do you deal with it? |
|---|---|---|
| Access point | The service that sends and receives your Peppol documents | Through your provider |
| SMP (Service Metadata Publisher) | Publishes which documents you can receive and where to send them | Through your provider. Needed to receive |
| SML (Service Metadata Locator) | The central lookup that points to each business's SMP. Run by OpenPeppol | No |
| Peppol Directory | A free public search of registered businesses. Listing is optional | Yes, to check customers |
| Peppol ID (participant ID) | Your address on the network: a scheme code plus your identifier | Yes, you choose it |
The four-corner model in one line: you (corner 1) send through your access point (corner 2), which looks up your customer's SMP and delivers to their access point (corner 3), which hands the invoice to your customer's system (corner 4). Our Peppol UK guide has the diagram.
Which Peppol ID to use
Your Peppol ID is a scheme code followed by an identifier. For UK businesses the options in the current Peppol code list are:
| Scheme code | Identifier | Format | Use it if |
|---|---|---|---|
| 9932 | UK VAT number | 9932:GB123456789 | You are VAT registered. The default choice |
| 0088 | GS1 Global Location Number | 0088:5012345000008 | You use GS1 identifiers, or supply the NHS |
| 0060 | D-U-N-S number | 0060:123456789 | A customer or group policy requires it |
There is no Peppol scheme for Companies House numbers or UTRs. Some published guides suggest registering under one, or show example IDs using another country's scheme code. Neither will route. Code 9914 is Austrian VAT, not UK.
If you are not VAT registered you may struggle to register. Xero, for example, only registers VAT-registered UK businesses to receive. Since the mandate covers VAT invoices, most businesses without a VAT number are outside it anyway.
Three ways to get an access point
1. Through your accounting software
The cheapest route, if your software offers it.
| Software | Peppol in the UK |
|---|---|
| Xero | Included. Free registration, send and receive, VAT-registered businesses only |
| Odoo | Included. Odoo is a certified access point and SMP |
| Business Central | Format built in. You contract separately with a supported access point |
| NetSuite | Through the Electronic Business SuiteApp, paid licence |
| Sage | No UK product yet, though Sage is a certified access point. See Sage and Peppol in the UK |
| QuickBooks Online UK | No native support yet |
2. Through a service provider
For software without Peppol, or for businesses that want one connection across several systems. Published prices, as checked on 19 October 2026:
| Provider | Published price |
|---|---|
| Qvalia | 9 euros a month for 25 messages, 39 euros for 100, from 99 euros for 1,000. Overage 1 euro a message |
| B2Brouter | Free for 24 transactions a year, 110 euros a year Professional, 300 euros a year Business |
| Celtrino | From £750 a year for a portal and 3 trading partners, £1,500 a year with SFTP |
| Pagero | Free for 36 documents a year, then quoted |
| Tradeshift | Seller pays from 0.80 to 0.30 US dollars an invoice, first 30 a quarter free |
Across about 80 providers, a September 2026 market survey found prices from nothing up to about 1 US dollar a document, with most between 0.08 and 0.50. For a typical UK SME sending a few hundred invoices a month, expect tens of pounds a month, not hundreds. Integration with an older on-premise system is where the real cost sits, not the access point.
3. Become an access point yourself
Only worth it if Peppol transport is part of your product. OpenPeppol fees for new members:
| Role | Sign-up fee | Annual fee | Certification fee, yearly |
|---|---|---|---|
| Access point and SMP | 1,800 to 5,400 euros | 2,750 to 8,250 euros | 2,500 euros |
| Access point only | 1,050 to 2,950 euros | 1,850 to 5,500 euros | 1,500 euros |
On top of the fees, certified providers must hold ISO 27001 by 1 October 2027, a requirement OpenPeppol's managing committee approved in June 2026. You also need to pass the Peppol testbed. Expect a couple of months at least. You do not need to be an OpenPeppol member to use Peppol as a buyer or supplier.
UK-based certified providers
OpenPeppol's register, updated 19 October 2026, lists 18 certified providers with a UK legal address:
- Access point and SMP: BluJay Solutions, Cegedim e-business, Clever Dynamics, Commerce-Connections, Crimson Partners, Data Interchange, DXC, Integrate Digital, Open ECX, Supply Lens, Transalis.
- Access point only: Avalara Europe, EDI Plus, First B2B, GHX UK, Lovat Compliance, OneAdvanced, Sage.
The register records legal residence, not where a provider operates. Many providers based elsewhere, including Pagero, Storecove, Qvalia and Xero's Tickstar, serve UK businesses. Some companies sell Peppol connectivity under their own name using another provider's access point. That is normal, but it means the company you contract with may not be on the register. Ask whose access point you are on.
Switching providers and avoiding lock-in
Your Peppol ID belongs to you, not the provider. Switching works like this:
- Your current provider generates a migration key for your Peppol ID.
- You give the key to your new provider.
- The new provider uses it to move your registration, and from that point invoices to your ID route to the new provider.
The ID itself does not change, so customers do not need to update anything. Each Peppol ID can only be registered with one SMP at a time, so you cannot receive the same documents through two providers on one ID.
The risk is a slow handover. If the old provider is slow to issue the key, or the key expires, the move stalls. We could not find a published rule that forces a provider to hand over a key within a set time, so put it in your contract.
How to check whether a customer is on Peppol
Search the Peppol Directory by company name, VAT number or country. Two things to know:
- Listing is optional. A business can be registered to receive without appearing in the Directory, so a missing entry is not proof they are not on Peppol. Your provider can run a definitive lookup.
- UK numbers are rising fast. On 20 October 2026 the Directory held about 22,650 entries for the UK, almost all under the VAT scheme 9932 and almost all registered during 2026. Bulk registration through accounting software accounts for most of them.
For a business with hundreds of customers, ask your provider for a bulk lookup against your customer list. It will show which customers can already receive Peppol invoices, and which VAT numbers in your records are wrong.
Questions to ask a provider
- Are you certified as an access point and an SMP, and do you hold ISO 27001? If not, whose access point do you use?
- Which Peppol ID will you register for us, and in whose name? It should be your VAT number or GLN, registered to your company.
- How quickly will you issue a migration key if we leave? Get it in the contract.
- What validation do you run before sending, and how do rejections reach the person who raised the invoice?
- What is your plan for PINT UK, the UK invoice specification being drafted by the OpenPeppol UK Working Group?
- How do received invoices reach our finance system? As UBL XML, through an API, or only as a PDF copy?
- Do you handle credit notes and self-billing?
- For NHS suppliers: do you support purchase orders, despatch advice and GLN identifiers, not just invoices?
- Pricing per document in each direction, minimums, and what happens when you go over.
- Archiving period and where data is stored.
How long it takes
Bundled software registration takes minutes. Xero says "a few minutes". A standalone provider with a web portal is usually a few days. Connecting an ERP through an API is a few weeks, most of it spent on mapping and testing. These are vendor figures. Leave more time for an older on-premise system.
What an access point will not fix
An access point delivers the invoice. It does not make the invoice right. The most common reason a valid Peppol invoice still fails at the customer's end is that it does not match the purchase order: the wrong PO number, quantities or prices. Peppol requires a buyer reference or order reference on every invoice, and the customer's system matches on it.
For most UK suppliers those purchase orders still arrive by email as PDFs and spreadsheets and are keyed in by hand. OrderSync reads them and creates the sales order in your ERP with the customer's PO reference captured exactly, so the invoice built from that order quotes it correctly. If your orders arrive as EDI, the free EDI Inspector will show you what is in them. We set out the gap in Peppol solved the invoice, nobody solved the order.
Sources
- Peppol certified service providers, OpenPeppol, list updated 19 October 2026
- OpenPeppol membership fees, OpenPeppol
- ISO 27001 requirement for service providers, OpenPeppol
- Peppol code lists, version 9.7, OpenPeppol, 2 July 2026
- Peppol Directory, OpenPeppol
- Promoting electronic invoicing across UK businesses and the public sector: consultation response, HMRC and Department for Business and Trade, 26 November 2025
- Tax Update 2026: simplification, modernisation and fairness, HM Treasury, 23 June 2026
- England NHS country profile, OpenPeppol
- Electronic invoicing FAQ for Business Central, Microsoft Learn
- Qvalia pricing and B2Brouter prices, checked 19 October 2026