Peppol SML migration: What’s changing

In June 2025, OpenPeppol announced they would be migrating from a European Commission-run Service Metadata Locator (SML) service to their own hosted SML, which is now underway. We’ve compiled an overview of what’s involved, changes to expect and how to prepare – for both Tickstar customers and service providers utilising the Peppol SML.

From its inception, the Peppol domain has worked with the European Commission to operate their SML service. OpenPeppol is now preparing to operate the service itself, hosting the directory service on the Peppol domain.

This comes following the fast growth of the Peppol network, which is expected to continue with more countries enforcing mandatory eInvoicing obligations and organisations electing to adopt eInvoicing voluntarily. The migration makes it possible for Peppol to continue its growth trajectory without placing further demands on EU services.

For most, directory functions and message exchanges will continue as normal following the migration. There will be a period where the European Commission and OpenPeppol SML services will run in parallel to allow gradual migration and reduce risk of service interruption.

The European Commission has confirmed that they will continue to support existing users through this transition, but will no longer offer their SML service to new providers looking to establish their own domain.

This means most service providers utilising the SML will need to prepare for migration. Those using Tickstar’s Participant Lookup API, however, won’t need to do so – Tickstar has already completed migration for these customers.

With the migration, OpenPeppol are changing their name for the “trial” or “test” environment of their Service Metadata Locator. Previously known as the Peppol SMK, this environment will now be referred to as Peppol T-SML.

This change brings the naming convention in line with their live “production” environment – Peppol SML.

This migration is already underway, following the initial announcement in June 2025. As of May 2026, it is expected that the European Commission and OpenPeppol will complete this migration in the second half of 2026.

OpenPeppol will continue to keep stakeholders informed through the migration process.

Have a question about the Peppol SML migration, or other services? Reach out to our expert team at Tickstar.