ELMA (Elektronisk mottakaradresseregister) is Norway’s register of receivers on the Peppol network. It is operated by the Norwegian Digitalisation Agency (Digdir) and shows which documents a Norwegian business can receive and which service provider handles them. Qvalia is registered as a service provider in ELMA.
What is EHF?
EHF (Elektronisk handelsformat) is Norway’s family of specifications for structured business documents. EHF is a format, not a network. EHF documents are exchanged over the Peppol network, in Norway as elsewhere in Europe.
EHF Billing 3.0 is the same specification as Peppol BIS Billing 3.0, so an invoice or credit note that follows Peppol BIS Billing 3.0 is also a valid EHF invoice. Norway also has EHF specifications for documents that Peppol BIS does not cover, such as payment reminders.
What is ELMA?
ELMA is a Service Metadata Publisher (SMP), an address book on the Peppol network. For each registered business, it lists the document types the business can receive and the Access Point that delivers them. When a document is sent, the sender’s Access Point looks up the receiver and delivers the document to the right Access Point.
- The service provider registers receivers in ELMA. Businesses do not register themselves.
- Norwegian businesses are identified by their organization number with the prefix 0192, for example 0192:999999999. The older prefix 9908 was removed from ELMA on December 14, 2024.
- ELMA is not the only register. Norwegian businesses can also be registered in other SMPs on the Peppol network, such as Qvalia’s own.
- A Peppol ID can be registered in only one SMP at a time, so all document types for the same ID are kept in the same register.
Which document types are there?
ELMA holds both the shared Peppol document types and Norwegian EHF specifications. All the document types below are on Peppol’s code list and are exchanged over the Peppol network.
Peppol BIS
- Invoice and credit note (Peppol BIS Billing 3.0, known in Norway as EHF Billing 3.0)
- Self-billing (Peppol BIS Self-Billing)
- Order and order response (Peppol BIS Ordering and Advanced Ordering)
- Order agreement (Peppol BIS Order Agreement)
- Despatch advice (Peppol BIS Despatch Advice)
- Catalogue and punch out (Peppol BIS Catalogue and Punch Out)
- Invoice and message responses (Peppol BIS Invoice Response and Message Level Response)
Norwegian EHF document types with no Peppol BIS equivalent
- EHF Reminder 3.0: a payment reminder from a supplier to a customer whose invoice is overdue, optionally with a reminder fee
- EHF Forward Billing 3.0: forward billing, mainly in the Norwegian energy sector, where a grid owner’s invoice is billed on to the end customer through the electricity supplier
- EHF Payment Request 3.0: a request for payment of financial support, such as grants or compensation. It is not an invoice.
Norwegian versions of Peppol BIS processes
- EHF Catalogue 3.0
- EHF Order Agreement 3.0
- EHF Despatch Advice 3.0
- EHF Advanced Ordering 3.0
Other services in ELMA
ELMA is also used for Norwegian public-sector messaging, such as eFormidling (archive messages, digital mail and eInnsyn), and for ISO 20022 bank messages (BITS). These are not part of business-to-business e-invoicing.
How to check whether a business can receive
- Look up the receiver on the Peppol network. Access Points do this before every transmission, and Digdir describes it as the only reliable check.
- Search the Peppol Directory at directory.peppol.eu. It is useful but incomplete, because not all service providers publish their receivers there.
- Do not use ELMA’s old open datasets. They have not been updated since September 23, 2024.
ELMA and e-invoicing in Norway from 2027
From January 1, 2027, businesses with bookkeeping obligations in Norway must send e-invoices to other such businesses that can receive them. Registration in an SMP, ELMA or another, is what shows that a business can receive. Read more in our Norway e-invoicing compliance: step-by-step guide.
ELMA and Qvalia
Qvalia is a certified Peppol Access Point, operates its own SMP and is registered as a service provider in ELMA. If you only need invoices and credit notes, we register your Peppol ID in Qvalia’s SMP. If you also want to receive Norwegian EHF document types, such as EHF Reminder, we register your Peppol ID in ELMA with all your document types in one place.
Want to know more about ELMA and EHF?
Contact Qvalia to review your setup for Norway.
