Peppol Access Point

Short definition

A Peppol Access Point is a certified service provider that delivers documents — primarily e-invoices — into the European Peppol network or receives them. It occupies the two middle “corners” of the 4-corner model: sender access point (C2) and receiver access point (C3).

Without an access point, no Peppol communication happens. You can produce the most correct UBL invoices imaginable — they only reach the Peppol network through an AP, on both sides.

Role in the Peppol network

Sender (C1)
   │ sends UBL to
   ▼
Sender AP (C2)  ── AS4 ──▶  Receiver AP (C3)
                                   │ delivers to
                                   ▼
                              Recipient (C4)

The sender AP accepts the document from the originator, validates it, wraps it into an AS4 message and sends it to the AP responsible for the recipient. The receiver AP uses SMP/SML lookups to resolve the correct target endpoint and delivers the invoice to the recipient — via API, SFTP or a direct ERP push, depending on the integration.

Certification and operations

An AP isn’t just a server with an email inbox. To participate in the Peppol network the operator must:

1. Enter a Peppol Authority agreement with the responsible Peppol authority (in Germany: KoSIT for the public sector)
2. Pass a technical certification against the Peppol Transport Infrastructure specifications
3. Maintain an ongoing SLA (availability, delivery guarantees)
4. Transport documents with its own Peppol certificate via AS4

This rules out ad-hoc implementations and gives every Peppol participant confidence in delivery quality.

Access Points active in Germany

A selection of APs operating in Germany (as of 2026):

• Federal and state portals — ZRE (federal), OZG-RE (state) act partly as APs for B2G invoices
• Commercial AP providers — Basware, Pagero, Unifiedpost, Storecove, B2Brouter, Seeburger
• In-house APs — large corporations and software vendors operate their own APs

The official list of all accredited Access Points is maintained by OpenPeppol; it updates continuously.

Peppol ID and SMP lookup

Every recipient in the Peppol network has a Peppol ID (e.g. 9930:DE123456789 for a German VAT ID). The SMP lookup works as follows:

1. The sender AP asks the central SML (Service Metadata Locator): “who handles 9930:DE123456789?”
2. The SML returns the URL of the receiver’s SMP
3. The SMP provides the endpoint details: receiver AP URL, supported document types, certificate

Only then does the actual AS4 transport begin. The lookup is transparent to end users — it completes in milliseconds in the background.

Integration: own AP or a provider?

For most companies, running your own AP is not worthwhile — certification is demanding, SLA effort is high, volumes are too low. The common path: a commercial AP integrated via API/webhook.

Make-or-buy decision:

Own AP makes sense when	Commercial AP is sufficient when
volume > 100,000 invoices/month	volume < 100,000 invoices/month
specific compliance requirements	standard Peppol scenarios
deep ERP integration is critical	API integration suffices
third-party data concerns	trusted providers available

Into the Peppol network with the Dokmatiq API

Dokmatiq produces Peppol BIS-compliant documents — transport into the network is handled by a connected Access Point. A typical pipeline:

# 1) Produce UBL invoice
curl -X POST https://api.dokmatiq.com/v1/einvoice/peppol \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $DOKMATIQ_KEY" \
  -d '{
    "customizationId": "urn:fdc:peppol.eu:2017:poacc:billing:3.0",
    "profileId": "urn:fdc:peppol.eu:2017:poacc:billing:01:1.0",
    "senderEndpoint": { "scheme": "9930", "id": "DE123456789" },
    "receiverEndpoint": { "scheme": "9930", "id": "DE987654321" },
    "invoice": { ... }
  }' -o invoice.xml

# 2) Deliver via configured Access Point
curl -X POST https://ap.your-provider.eu/send \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $AP_KEY" \
  --data-binary "@invoice.xml"

If you need an AP that plugs into a Dokmatiq integration directly, reference partners are available on request.

Common pitfalls

1. Wrong Peppol ID scheme — 9930 (VAT) and 0088 (GLN) are not interchangeable
2. Recipient not in the SML — not every German company is Peppol-registered; plan alternative transport (email with XRechnung) as a fallback
3. Own SMP without declared document types — recipients must declare which document types they accept; otherwise the sender AP rejects before sending
4. AS4 MDN signature misconfigured — leads to delivery receipts that the recipient system cannot verify