There is no rule in German VAT law that an invoice must be written in German. The law prescribes what an invoice must contain, not the language it says it in, and a tax office can at most ask for a translation if it audits your customer. With an e-invoice the question shrinks further: the parts a machine checks, the type of invoice, the tax categories, the units, the dates and amounts, are transmitted as standardized codes that mean the same thing in every language. What remains genuinely English in your ZUGFeRD file is mostly the item descriptions, and those you want your customer to understand anyway.
What the law actually says
German VAT law (section 14 of the VAT Act) lists the required contents of an invoice: the parties, the tax numbers, an invoice number, dates, the supply, the amounts, the tax. It says nothing about language. German is the official language of the authorities, so in an audit the tax office may request a translation of foreign-language documents, at your customer's side and case by case. That is the whole legal exposure of invoicing in English, and it has nothing specifically to do with e-invoicing.
Whether you have to send an e-invoice at all as a foreign supplier is a separate question with a friendlier answer than most expect: Your German customer wants an e-invoice walks through it.
Why the e-invoice makes English easier, not harder
In a paper or PDF invoice, everything is words, and a German bookkeeper has to interpret yours. In a ZUGFeRD or XRechnung file, the load-bearing parts are codes:
| What the invoice says | How the file carries it | Language |
|---|---|---|
| This is an invoice / a credit note | A type code (380, 381) | None, it is a code |
| Standard VAT, reverse charge, exempt | A tax category code per line | None |
| Hours, pieces, square metres | A unit code per line | None |
| Dates and amounts | ISO dates, dot-decimal amounts | None |
| Payment by SEPA transfer to this IBAN | A payment means code plus the IBAN | None |
| What you actually delivered | The item name and description fields | Yours, so English |
| Notes and payment terms prose | Free-text fields | Yours, so English |
The accounting system on the German side, DATEV above all, books from the coded half. Your English prose is read by humans for plausibility, not parsed for compliance.
The two phrases that are not free
- The reverse-charge mention. When your B2B service is taxed by the German customer, the invoice must say so. The EU VAT Directive fixes the exact wording, and it fixes it in your language: the English term is precisely "Reverse charge". You do not need the German sentence, but you do need the mention, the tax category AE, a zero tax amount and both VAT numbers; the details are in the foreign supplier's guide.
- Cash-discount terms to German authorities. Public-sector XRechnung files carry early-payment discounts in a fixed German machine notation inside the payment terms. If you do not offer a discount, this never concerns you; if you do, use the notation rather than an English sentence.
What a German bookkeeper will thank you for
- Clear item names. Short, concrete English beats elegant English; the description is the one field a human must understand to book the expense.
- Your legal name and address exactly as registered, plus your VAT identifier in the data fields, not just the letterhead.
- A consistent invoice number series and the service date, both of which German law cares about and both of which are ordinary fields in the file.
- One currency per invoice, stated in the currency field; the amounts in the XML always use dot decimals whatever your locale writes.
Doing it without new software
Fill in the guided form once and create the ZUGFeRD invoice in your browser; the form is in English, asks for the fields above, and produces the hybrid PDF your client's system reads. How that file is built is explained in the ZUGFeRD format guide. For files from other sources, the ZUGFeRD validator reports findings in plain English. If a public-sector customer rejects a file and the report comes back in German, the rejection guide translates the codes.
What to do now
- Keep invoicing in English. Translate nothing; add the reverse-charge mention where it applies.
- Move your identifiers into the data fields: VAT number, IBAN, legal name.
- Create one test invoice before the real one, and send your client the result.
- Save that file as your template for the next invoice; only the line items change.
Further reading
The deadlines and formats on the German side, in English, are mapped in the e-invoicing guide. And if German e-invoices are starting to arrive in your own inbox, An e-invoice arrived covers the receiving end.
Legal position as at September 2026, last reviewed on 25 September 2026. Based on sections 14 and 14a of the German VAT Act, section 87 of the German Fiscal Code on the language of proceedings, Article 226 of the EU VAT Directive and the European standard EN 16931. This article is not tax advice.
Frequently asked questions
Is an invoice written in English legally valid in Germany?
Yes. German VAT law prescribes the contents of an invoice, not its language. Your German customer can book it, and their input VAT deduction does not depend on the language.
Can the German tax office reject an English invoice?
It cannot reject the invoice for its language. In an audit it may ask the German party for a translation of foreign-language documents; that is a documentation request, not an invalidation.
Which parts must be in German?
Strictly speaking none. The reverse-charge mention has a fixed English form ("Reverse charge"), and the only genuinely German notation is the machine pattern for early-payment discounts in public-sector invoices, which only matters if you grant a discount.
Will DATEV process an invoice with English item names?
Yes. Accounting systems book from the structured data: codes, amounts, dates and identifiers. The item descriptions are read by people, so clear English is enough.
Does this apply to XRechnung for German authorities too?
Yes, the format has no language requirement either. Expect the surrounding process to be German: the portal, the rejection reports and the clerks. Keeping item names short and concrete helps more there than anywhere.