The ViDA timeline, and why most of it is not about you
ViDA entered into force on 14 April 2025. From that date member states may impose domestic e-invoicing mandates without seeking a derogation first, which is the part that matters most to venues, because it is what lets national systems proceed.
From 1 July 2028 the deemed-supplier rules bite on platforms in short-term accommodation and passenger road transport, alongside single VAT registration changes. Hotels selling rooms through platforms should note that date.
From 1 July 2030 cross-border B2B transactions come under digital reporting requirements, with structured e-invoicing as the default. By 1 January 2035 member states running their own real-time domestic reporting must align it with the EU model.
A single venue selling food and drink to consumers in its own country is mostly outside all of that. Your corporate customers and your cross-border suppliers are where it will show up.
The domestic mandate is the real deadline
National systems are moving faster than the EU timeline and are the ones with immediate consequences. Poland’s KSeF is the clearest example for venues in this region and is covered separately.
The pattern is consistent wherever these land: invoices stop being documents you produce and become records you submit to a government system, which returns an identifier. Your invoice numbering, your accounting software and often your till have to talk to it.
What is worth doing now
Find out from your accountant which mandate applies to your entity and from what date. This is a question with a specific answer, and it depends on your country, your turnover and sometimes your invoice volume.
Establish whether your existing accounting software already supports the national system. Most established packages do, and the ones that do not are usually the local or bespoke ones.
Consumer sales are generally receipted rather than invoiced, so the volume affected is your B2B side: company lunches, event invoices, supplier rebates. That is often a small enough number to handle manually in the first months.