ViDA stands for "VAT in a Digital Age" and aims to modernize VAT collection across Europe by introducing e-invoicing and e-reporting by 2030. The new rules for electronic invoices and real-time reporting simplify cross-border cooperation, reduce administrative burdens and facilitate VAT compliance for businesses.

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The digitization of European VAT legislation

The history of VAT goes back to the 1950s. At that time, France had introduced a system to collect tax without placing too much tax burden on businesses. VAT or Value Added Tax is an indirect tax where each company in the value chain levies a tax on the value added that is ultimately paid by the consumer. 

In the 1960s and 1970s, the then European Community (the predecessor to the EU) embraced the system as a uniform way to collect taxes for trade between member states. VAT then quickly made its way across Europe. In Belgium, VAT has existed since January 1971. 

With ViDA, VAT collection is going to be radically digitized. The most important aspect of ViDA is so-called e-invoicing, or the processing of structured electronic invoices, and e-reporting, the digital reporting of those invoices to the government. 

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E-invoicing and e-reporting

The most important aspect of ViDA is the fact that invoices must be sent and received between companies in a structured electronic format. Thus, it will no longer be possible to send invoices in PDF or paper format. The main advantage of an e-invoice is that it can be read easily by computer systems without human interaction. More on this in our blog about the Peppol e-invoice. 

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The fact that invoices can be read smoothly by computer programs offers companies many advantages with regard to automation. But it also offers benefits to the government. The ViDA directive states that all invoices must also be reported digitally to the tax authorities (so-called e-reporting). So in the future, a copy of all invoices will always be forwarded to the government, which can perform better checks based on a large central database in order to combat VAT fraud. 

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Belgium as a European forerunner

Belgium has played an important role in terms of the ViDA directive. For example, during the Belgian Presidency of the Council of the European Union, Finance Minister Vincent Van Peteghem worked hard on the compromise proposal for the ViDA Directive. 

Belgium is also 1 of the first countries in the EU to make e-invoicing easier from January 1, 2026. Belgium is going for the Peppol network and format here. 

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Billtobox as a compliant solution

We closely monitor changing legislation. So with Billtobox , you are already in compliance with the new regulations now. Any Billtobox user can also register for free on Peppol at https://www.billtobox.com/peppol.