In structured e-invoicing, businesses are identified by reference numbers — but the same number means different things in different countries. A Dutch KvK number, a Belgian KBO/BCE number, and a German USt-IdNr all look like strings of digits. The Scheme ID tells the receiving system which type of identifier it's looking at.Scheme ID Identifier Type
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0208 KBO/BCE enterprise number
0106 KvK Chamber of Commerce number
9930 VAT number (USt-IdNr)
9906 Codice Fiscale
0007 GLN (Global Location Number)
0088 EAN Location Code
0151 ABN (Australian Business Number)
Scheme IDs are defined by ISO 6523 (for organization identifiers) and maintained in the Peppol participant identifier scheme list. When you set up a Peppol ID, the scheme ID determines how your business is found on the network.
Common Scheme IDs
In UBL XML
The Scheme ID appears as an attribute on identifier elements:
0123456789
Getting the scheme ID wrong is one of the most common Peppol integration errors. A Belgian KBO/BCE number with scheme ID 9930 (German VAT) will fail validation — the scheme must match the identifier type and country.
In CII XML
0123456789
The concept is the same across both syntaxes — only the element names differ.