Proposed EU Late Payment Regulation: 30-day maximum payment terms in B2B transactions
Date note: Placeholder – no application date exists. Commission proposal COM(2023) 533 remains open: Parliament adopted its position in April 2024, but the file is classified 'Blocked' by the European Parliament's Legislative Train Schedule (no Council progress for 9+ months, as of Aug 2026) and 'Ongoing' by the EUR-Lex procedure tracker — not withdrawn, despite some secondary sources claiming so. Existing Directive 2011/7/EU (60-day default) continues to apply.
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What changes
The Commission proposed replacing the Late Payment Directive with a regulation capping B2B and B2G payment terms at 30 days, making late-payment interest automatic and creating national enforcement authorities. The file has not progressed in the Council since 2024, so no date is fixed.
Who is affected
All businesses, especially SMEs supplying larger customers on long payment terms.
Sizes: micro, small, medium, large · Sectors: All sectors · Applies if: We invoice other businesses (B2B)
What to do
No action required yet. Watch the file; if adopted, contracts with payment terms above 30 days would need to be renegotiated and invoicing/dunning systems updated to charge statutory interest automatically.
Sources
- EUR-Lex – Proposal COM(2023) 533 on combating late payment (eur-lex.europa.eu)
- European Commission – Proposal for a regulation on combating late payment in commercial transactions (single-market-economy.ec.europa.eu)
- European Parliament – Legislative Train Schedule: revision of the late payments directive (www.europarl.europa.eu)
- EUR-Lex – Procedure 2023/0323/COD (eur-lex.europa.eu)
Last verified 1 October 2026. Informational only, not legal advice.