The best invoicing software for freelancers in Europe in 2026

Short answer

If you need to send a structured electronic invoice over the Peppol network, Moneybird is the only tool in this comparison that offers it on every paid plan, from 3 euros a month with the freelancer plan at 15. If your problem is intra-EU business to business VAT instead, Stripe Invoicing with Stripe Tax is the only one that validates a customer's VAT number and applies reverse charge automatically. If your problem is selling digital services to consumers in several member states, sevdesk is one of only three here that names the One Stop Shop procedure as a feature.

Prices are the cheapest paid plan on the vendor's own pricing page on 11 November 2026, net of VAT where the vendor states it. Dollar prices are converted at 1 USD = 0.92 EUR and the original is named in the product entry.

How we judged invoicing software for EU freelancers

Five tests, all of them things that cost you money when they are missing.

Does it handle intra-EU B2B reverse charge, and does it check the VAT number first? A reverse charge invoice with an invalid VAT number is your liability, not your client's. Only one tool here automates both halves.

Does it do One Stop Shop? If you sell digital services to consumers in other member states, OSS is the mechanism that keeps you from registering in each one. Three of the eleven tools we read name it.

Can it send over Peppol, or does it only make a file? This is the distinction vendors blur the most, and it is the subject of the next section.

Is the price readable? Promotional pricing is everywhere in this category. We print the regular price and name the promotion.

Is the interface in your language? English, German and French specifically. Several otherwise good German and French tools are monolingual, and that is a real constraint if you work across borders.

The three different things vendors call electronic invoicing

Read this before you compare any two tools on an e-invoicing claim, because the same word covers three incompatible things.

A network. Peppol is a delivery network: your software hands the invoice to an access point, the recipient's access point receives it, and nobody emails anything. Of the eleven tools we checked, exactly two make a Peppol sending claim: Moneybird on every plan, and Invoice Ninja through its certified partner on the Enterprise tier.

A national platform. France requires invoices to travel through an approved platform, a Plateforme Agréée, in the Factur-X format. Qonto, Tiime and Abby are registered on that network. It is real compliance, for France, and it is not Peppol.

A file format. XRechnung and ZUGFeRD in Germany are structured formats to the European standard EN 16931, generated by your software and then sent however you like, usually by email. sevdesk and Lexware Office both sell this and neither mentions Peppol anywhere on the pages we read. A file is not delivery.

None of the three is wrong. The mistake is buying one when your client needs another. Luxembourg is instructive here: since 18 March 2023 every economic operator has had to reach public bodies through Peppol or MyGuichet.lu, and a German format generator does nothing for that.

The ranking

1. Moneybird, from 3 euros a month

The Dutch option, and the only one where Peppol sending and receiving appear as a plan feature at every paid tier, including the 3 euro Compact plan. The plan Moneybird itself points freelancers to is Start at 15 euros a month, and the trial is 60 days on the full feature set. The interface switcher offers English, German and French. The honest limitation is national gravity: the reporting is built around the Dutch VAT return and the ICP declaration, and the knowledge base is Dutch only. Reverse charge wording, VIES validation and OSS are not documented on the pricing page, so verify them in the trial if you need them.

2. sevdesk, from 9.90 euros a month net

German, with a permanently free tier of three invoices a month and, unusually, an explicitly named One Stop Shop function for declaring B2C sales across member states. Multi-currency works on both invoices and receipts, and the e-invoice output follows EN 16931 as XRechnung or ZUGFeRD. There is no Peppol claim anywhere on the site: the invoice leaves by email. Note the price ladder, 11.90 monthly, 9.90 annually and 8.90 on a 24 month commitment, and that reverse charge and VIES appear only as glossary content, not as features.

3. Stripe Invoicing, 0.4 percent per paid invoice

No subscription, a percentage of invoices that actually get paid, which suits uneven freelance income. The reason it ranks this high is Stripe Tax, which automatically validates EU VAT numbers and applies reverse charge or a zero rate, and monitors the OSS threshold. That is a separate paid product, so budget 0.4 percent plus 0.5 percent per transaction, or from 80 euros a month for Stripe Tax Complete. Stripe's own documentation states it has no native field for a Peppol participant identifier and points you to a marketplace app, which is refreshingly direct and also disqualifying if a client insists on network delivery.

4. Invoice Ninja, from 12.88 euros a month

Converted from 14 US dollars at 1 USD = 0.92 EUR. Open source, self-hostable, with the most specific Peppol claim we read anywhere: delivery through a named certified partner to more than 37 countries, plus XRechnung, ZUGFeRD, Facturae and generic EN 16931 output. Two things to understand before you commit. Peppol requires the Enterprise tier, around 16.56 euros converted, and each e-invoice consumes a prepaid credit that the terms describe as entirely non refundable. There is no reverse charge, VIES or OSS automation.

5. Qonto, from 9 euros a month excluding VAT

A business account that includes compliant electronic invoicing in every plan at no extra cost, with unlimited quotes and invoices, starting at the 9 euro self-employed tier billed annually. For a French freelancer that is hard to beat, because the compliance sold is the French Plateforme Agréée network that the French reform actually requires. For anyone outside France it is the wrong network, and switching invoicing later means switching your bank account too. Only annual billing rates are published.

6. Zervant, from 9.99 euros a month excluding VAT

Free tier for five customers and five invoices a month, a readable price ladder with annual totals printed, and interfaces in English, German, French, Finnish, Swedish and Dutch. We rank it on potential because we could not verify the substance: the site returns the same page body for every feature path we tried, so reverse charge, VIES, OSS and multi-currency are unconfirmed rather than absent. The brand is also mid rename under new ownership, which is a reason to pay monthly.

7. Zoho Invoice, free

Free as a product, not as a trial, which is worth something when you issue twenty invoices a year. The limits are specific: two users, three projects, 500 invoices a year, Zoho branding on the document your client receives, and data deletion after 180 days of inactivity. No Peppol claim and no documented EU VAT handling on the Invoice pages, and multi-currency only appears in the paid Zoho Books tiers. Fine as a first system, not as a cross-border one.

8. Lexware Office, from 7.90 euros a month net

Formerly lexoffice. The German product does the German job well: store a contact with a Leitweg-ID and the compliant XRechnung XML is generated automatically. For an EU facing freelancer the maths are poor. Invoices to EU customers sit in the XL tier at 32.90 euros a month net, One Stop Shop is not mentioned on the pricing page at all, and the interface is German only. The vendor's own feature text also mixes the German construction industry reverse charge with cross-border invoicing, which is exactly the kind of wording to clarify before buying.

What we left out, and why

Holded is a capable Spanish all-in-one with real OSS evidence in its Spanish return coverage, but its e-invoicing is Spanish domestic, FACe and Verifactu, and it offers no German or French interface. Tiime and Abby both publish honest prices and are registered on the French approved platform network, so they are close substitutes for Qonto inside France only. FreshBooks publishes euro prices but its tax features are North American in shape, with no reverse charge, VIES or OSS claim.

Which one should you actually pick?

Start from the obligation that will bite you first. A client who demands Peppol delivery points to Moneybird or Invoice Ninja. Intra-EU B2B invoicing points to Stripe. B2C digital sales across borders point to sevdesk. A French business account points to Qonto. Low volume and no cross-border work points to Zoho Invoice, and you can move later.

Then sanity check the accounting half separately, because it is a different purchase with different rules. If you are in Luxembourg, the accounting software comparison and the five questions to ask your fiduciaire cover the ledger side, and which VAT rates apply in Luxembourg covers the rates your invoices have to carry.

If you publish one of these tools and a feature here is out of date, correct it through get listed. We re-read pricing pages rather than take vendor claims on trust, and we will say when a claim could not be verified.