EHF (Elektronisk Handelsformat)

What is EHF?

EHF stands for Elektronisk Handelsformat (Electronic Commerce Format) and is the Norwegian standard for electronic business documents—including invoices, credit notes, and orders. The format is maintained by the Norwegian Digitalisation Agency (Digitaliseringsdirektoratet) and has been mandatory for invoicing Norwegian public authorities since 2012. Like the Danish OIOUBL, EHF is based on the international UBL standard (Universal Business Language), which is essentially XML. This means the two formats share the same core principles and structure.

EHF vs. International Standards

For international businesses trading with Norwegian partners, the similarities between EHF and other regional standards are a major advantage. EHF specifies structured data in XML, requiring fields such as organization numbers, invoice numbers, line amounts, and VAT. The primary differences lie in country-specific requirements—for example, Norway uses an organization number with an "MVA" suffix for VAT-registered businesses. In practice, conversion between EHF and other UBL formats is straightforward.

EHF and Peppol

Norway was one of the earliest adopters of the Peppol network, and EHF is today used primarily as a transport format via Peppol infrastructure. In fact, since 2019, Norway has transitioned toward replacing the purely national EHF profile with Peppol BIS Billing 3.0, which is the pan-European standard. This reflects a broader trend: national formats are converging into one common European invoicing standard, while local profiles are gradually being phased out in favor of full interoperability.