UBL/Peppol invoice to PDF

Peppol, UBL, and why you still need a readable copy

For decades an invoice was a document you could read. Since Belgium's B2B e-invoicing mandate, and equivalent rules rolling out across Europe, a growing share of invoices are structured data files instead — XML built to a standard so accounting software can read them without anyone retyping anything. That is a genuine improvement for automation and a genuine nuisance for people, because opening one in a browser gives you a wall of tags rather than an invoice. This tool renders that file into the document you expected: sender and receiver, the lines, the VAT breakdown, the totals and the payment details, laid out to be read, printed or attached to an email.

UBL, Peppol BIS, Factur-X: what the names mean

UBL 2.1 is the underlying XML language for business documents. Peppol BIS Billing 3.0 is a specific, tightened set of rules built on top of UBL, and it is what most European e-invoicing actually uses — it says which fields are mandatory and how they must be filled, so that two systems that have never met can still agree. Peppol itself is the network those documents travel over. Factur-X, known as ZUGFeRD in Germany, is a different idea altogether: a normal PDF with the structured XML embedded inside it, so one file serves both the human and the machine. If you have one of those, you do not need to render anything — you need to extract the XML that is already in there, which is a separate tool on this site.

What this tool reads, and what it does not

It handles UBL 2.1 Invoice documents, including Peppol BIS Billing 3.0. It does not yet handle credit notes, other UBL document types, or Factur-X files. Parsing is deliberately focused on the fields that make a readable invoice: both parties, the invoice lines, the VAT subtotals, the totals and the IBAN. If a document uses an exotic extension your ERP added, that extension will not appear in the PDF — the invoice will still render, but treat the PDF as a readable rendition rather than a byte-for-byte reproduction of everything in the file.

The PDF is a copy. The XML is the invoice.

This matters more than anything else on this page. Where structured e-invoicing is mandatory, the XML file is the legal invoice; a PDF generated from it is a human-readable copy and does not replace it. Keep the original XML for your archive and your accountant, and treat the PDF as what it is — something to read, check, print or forward. The same logic runs the other way: turning a PDF invoice into XML afterwards does not make it a valid Peppol exchange, because validity comes from how the document was sent, not from its file extension. If a customer asks you for an e-invoice, sending them a PDF of one does not satisfy the requirement.

When a file will not convert

The most common causes are simple. The file is a credit note rather than an invoice; it is a Factur-X PDF rather than raw XML; it is a different UBL document type; or it is genuinely malformed because something went wrong upstream. Before assuming the invoice is broken, it is worth running it through a structural check to see whether it parses and whether the mandatory fields are present — that is a separate validator tool here, and it uses exactly the same parser as this page, so if the validator is happy this page will be too. Be aware of what such a check is and is not: it confirms the structure and the required fields, not full official Peppol Schematron conformance.

What happens to your invoice data

This is one of the few tools on this site that needs a server, because the PDF is generated there. Your file is parsed in memory to build the document and discarded the moment the response is sent — nothing is written to disk, nothing is logged, nothing is inspected. The server sits in the EU. Given that an invoice carries names, addresses, amounts and bank details, that is not a detail we treat casually, and it is the reason everything that can run in your browser on this site does run in your browser.

Why a readable PDF still matters

Since Belgium's B2B e-invoicing mandate took effect, businesses exchange structured Peppol BIS Billing 3.0 files (built on UBL 2.1) instead of PDFs. That's great for accounting software, but people still want a copy they can read, print or attach to an email — this tool renders that copy.