CII (Cross Industry Invoice) is an international XML data standard from UN/CEFACT for commercial documents and one of the two XML syntaxes that allow the European standard EN 16931 for electronic invoices.
Construction
A CII invoice begins with the root element rsm:CrossIndustryInvoice. A credit uses the same root node and differs by the document type code 381. Parties and positions are nested within the trade transaction. Date information carries a format code, for example the code 102.
Deployment
ZUGFeRD exclusively uses CII. Technically, a ZUGFeRD invoice is a PDF/A-3 file with an embedded CII XML file. This file is usually called factur-x.xml and is located in the root directory of the PDF container. CII is technically identical to ZUGFeRD 2.x. For the XInvoice, CII is technically permissible, but is rarely used. In the Peppol environment, CII is considered a possible alternative to UBL, for example for the international specification PINT (Peppol International). According to the contribution (as of November 2025), CII is one of the planned technical standards in France.
Demarcation
UBL (Universal Business Language) is the second syntax approved by EN 16931. Both syntaxes describe the same fields in different XML structures. Peppol BIS Billing 3.0 uses UBL. See also ZUGFeRD, Factur-X, PDF/A-3, XRechnung and EN 16931.
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