The timeline as decided
| Stage | Period | Article |
|---|---|---|
| Validity of accreditation | Two years from the date granted | 13 |
| Renewal application | At least 70 business days before expiry | 15 |
| The Ministry's decision on renewal | Within 60 business days, notified within 5 | 15 |
| Fixing the reasons for a rejected renewal | At least 20 business days | 15 |
| Telling customers about a termination | Within 5 business days of the provider being notified | 16 |
| Objecting to a termination | Within 40 business days, decided within 30 | 17 |
Today's providers were accredited through 2025 and 2026, so the first renewals start in 2027, the same year as your first year of operation.
When accreditation is terminated
Article 16 names three cases: the provider itself asks to stop (after offboarding all its customers and settling its obligations), it no longer meets the Article 4 conditions, or the Ministry finds a breach based on documented complaints from end users. In the second case it cannot apply again for two years. The Ministry also tells OpenPeppol to delist it from its directory.
The sentence that matters to you: a written complaint from you to the Ministry now carries weight in the text. And if you are on the other side, meaning your provider's accreditation is terminated, it must tell you within 5 business days, and it is removed from the register within 5 business days.
What actually happens to your invoices
Your business's Peppol identifier is issued through your provider, and your connection to the system is registered under its name in EmaraTax. When its accreditation expires or is terminated, those links are cut. The decision gives no grace period for a terminated provider's customers, so assume none. You need a new provider and a new EmaraTax registration, and any invoice not issued electronically in between costs AED 100 (up to AED 5,000 a month) once your date has started.
Two lines in the contract that protect you
- "The provider shall notify the customer in writing when it files for renewal, and of any Ministry decision on it, within 5 business days." The text only obliges it to tell you about a termination; this line lets you know beforehand.
- "If accreditation expires, is terminated or is not renewed, the customer may end the contract immediately at no charge, and the provider shall hand over the customer's data and invoices in a portable format within 10 business days." Without this, switching provider is possible technically but expensive contractually.
A third that does no harm: the accreditation number and its grant date written in the contract, because from it you can compute the expiry date yourself.