Directive 2011/7: what rights you have and why almost nobody uses them

The directive on combating late payment in commercial transactions has applied since 2013. Its provisions take effect automatically, yet in practice only a minority make use of them.

What is in it

Payment terms. In B2B transactions the default payment term is thirty calendar days. By contract it can be extended to sixty. A longer term is possible only if it is not grossly unfair to the creditor. Public sector bodies are subject to thirty days, in exceptional cases sixty.

Verification procedure. If the contract provides for an acceptance procedure for the goods or services, it may not last longer than thirty days. That closes off the practice where the term is formally short but runs from an open-ended “acceptance” date.

Interest. The ECB reference rate plus at least eight percentage points. Due automatically.

Fixed compensation. No less than forty euros for every invoice paid late, with no separate justification required.

Further costs. Reasonable recovery costs are compensated on top.

Where member states differ

The directive sets minimums, which is why national transpositions are not uniform.

In Germany, nine percentage points above the base rate apply to B2B relations, not eight. In Poland the fixed compensation is tiered by invoice value rather than being a single amount.

The practical consequence: if you operate in several countries, the calculation has to be done separately for each. Applying a single average would give a wrong result in both directions.

There will be no new regulation

In September 2023 the Commission proposed a regulation that would have replaced the directive and imposed a hard thirty-day limit with no option to extend. Parliament adopted an amended version in April 2024.

In the Council, member states blocked the proposal. Later presidencies did not put the file on the agenda, and the legislative tracker shows the file as withdrawn.

The practical conclusion is simple: there is nothing to wait for. The rights in force are the ones that have applied since 2013.

Why they are not used

Three reasons, and only one of them is legal.

The relationship. A customer is a customer, and a demand for interest looks like the opening of a conflict.

The figure. To demand it you have to know the amount, and nobody calculates it.

The proportion. Forty euros on a single invoice looks insignificant. Three hundred late invoices a year look different, but you only see that amount once you add it up.

The first reason is real and cannot be argued away. The second and the third are only a matter of doing the arithmetic.