ebInterface 7.0 in preparation: tighter EN 16931 alignment for Austria's e-invoice standard

ebInterface has been Austria’s standard for structured XML invoices since 2009, developed and maintained by AUSTRIAPRO — a subsidiary of the Austrian Federal Economic Chamber (WKÖ) — within its e-billing working group. The standard is free to use and under active development.

Any company invoicing Austrian federal agencies must use either ebInterface or PEPPOL BIS 3.0: the B2G obligation has been in force since 1 January 2014 (IKTKonG §5, BGBl. I Nr. 35/2012) and was extended to all central contracting authorities under the Federal Public Procurement Act 2018 (BVergG 2018, §368).

Where things stand today: version 6.1

The current version is 6.1, published on 25 August 2022. It builds on version 5.0, which was the first to adopt the semantic data model of the European standard EN 16931 as its foundation. In practice, this means ebInterface 6.1 is EN-16931-compliant — the mandatory fields (BT fields) and calculation rules (BR rules) of the European norm are covered.

Austrian federal agencies accept versions 4.3, 5.0, 6.0 and 6.1. These can be submitted via the business service portal (USP, usp.gv.at), via e-rechnung.gv.at, or through a PEPPOL Access Point. No qualified electronic signature is required — authentication is handled via USP account access.

What version 7.0 brings (planned Q4 2026)

AUSTRIAPRO is working on ebInterface 7.0, with release planned for Q4 2026. The central technical feature: a formal syntax binding to EN 16931.

What does that mean? A syntax binding is a CEN (European Committee for Standardisation) normative document that specifies, in a binding way, how the abstract fields and validation rules of EN 16931 map onto a concrete XML schema. Existing EN-16931-compliant formats such as Factur-X, ZUGFeRD and PEPPOL BIS 3.0 already have such bindings. With version 7.0, ebInterface would formally join that group.

What this simplifies in practice: the BT fields and BR rules of the norm can be directly traced to ebInterface 7.0 documents. Validation tools and software libraries that work against EN 16931 syntax bindings can include the Austrian standard without special-casing it. For software vendors, this reduces the maintenance overhead of Austria-specific logic.

What stays the same, what changes

ebInterface remains an Austrian standard. The tighter EN 16931 alignment makes it more interoperable — but does not automatically make it a mandated format outside Austria. Companies currently working with version 6.0 or 6.1 do not need to migrate immediately: no mandatory switch to 7.0 has been announced, and development is being carried out with backwards compatibility in mind.

For businesses and software providers planning or extending Austria support, version 7.0 is a relevant development. The formal norm alignment simplifies implementation and increases confidence in long-term EU compatibility.

milchrechnung and ebInterface

milchrechnung currently supports ebInterface in the versions accepted by Austrian federal agencies. Support for version 7.0 will be added after the official publication and availability of the schema.