In this article
A restaurant always sits on both sides of the same law at once: a debtor to today's supplier, and a creditor to last month's catering client — and on neither side does anyone know the number the law actually attaches to it.
At the table, nobody pays on credit. The guest settles up before they're out the door, card or cash, and for most owners that's where thinking about "payment terms" stops entirely. But the moment an invoice goes out — to a catering client, a company that booked a staff party, an event organiser — the business turns from till into creditor. And the moment an invoice comes in from the vegetable supplier, the laundry service or the drinks distributor, that same business is a debtor.
Both sides are governed by the same EU law, and that law has hard numbers: a default term when nothing is agreed, an absolute ceiling in several member states, automatic interest that starts running without anyone sending a letter, and a flat €40 fee per late invoice that almost nobody in hospitality has ever claimed.
restaurant-cash-flow-management.html already treats payment terms as a lever — negotiating Net-7 versus Net-30 versus Net-45 to buy breathing room — and restaurant-supplier-negotiation.html gives the tactics for that conversation. Neither says what the law actually allows if that conversation goes nowhere, or what you're owed when your own invoice is the one paid late.
This article fills that gap: seven numbers, each sourced, that together set the floor and the ceiling on every payment term a hospitality business ever signs — as debtor and as creditor.
Why this cuts both ways, not one
Most restaurant owners read "payment terms" and think only of the supplier making them wait. That's half the story. Any business that does catering, invoices a corporate lunch, or bills a christening or a staff party on a written invoice instead of at the table is, at that moment, the creditor — with exactly the same statutory rights a supplier has against them.
That's precisely why event-management-group-bookings.html connects here: every group invoice going out is covered by exactly the same rules as the one coming in. Knowing only the debtor side leaves money on the table that the law already grants on the creditor side — interest and a flat fee, automatically, no reminder required.
The numbers below read in both directions: as a ceiling on what a supplier may ask of you, and as an entitlement on what a late-paying client owes you. Same law, two sides, and one calculator further down that does both.
Guide The complete finance guide Every article on cash flow, costs and the numbers behind hospitality, in one place. Read the guideThe 7 numbers
In the order a late invoice actually builds up: from the starting point everyone assumes, past the hard ceiling few know about, to the year one shared EU number died.
1. 30 days — the EU's default starting point
Directive 2011/7/EU, transposed into every member state's law, sets the floor: if a contract says nothing about the payment term, it is 30 calendar days from the invoice date or the delivery of goods or services — whichever comes later. That applies across the whole EU, for every B2B transaction, regardless of company size.
Thirty days, then, isn't "the usual term" or an industry habit — it's the statutory default that kicks in automatically the moment a supplier or a client hasn't agreed otherwise. On an invoice of €3,000 with no term written down anywhere, day 31 is the day statutory interest starts running, whatever was ever agreed verbally.
2. 60 days — Belgium closes the loophole completely
Since 1 February 2022, a B2B contract in Belgium can no longer set a payment term longer than 60 calendar days — for any company, from sole trader to listed group. A clause promising longer isn't "struck down by a judge": it is, by law, deemed unwritten, and the invoice automatically falls back to the 30-day default.
That's stricter than what most other member states apply. The general EU rule still allows a longer term as long as it isn't "grossly unfair" to the creditor — a vague test rarely enforced in practice. Belgium simply removed that exception, and closed the well-known workaround at the same time: contracts used to let the clock start only after a "conformity check" of the goods delivered. That inspection period now counts inside the 60 days, not before it.
The same 30-day EU floor everywhere — but every country draws its own hard line, or none at all.
The general EU directive's "not grossly unfair" test still applies in most other member states — with no single hard number like the ones above.
3. 8 percentage points above the ECB rate — the clock that starts itself
The moment an invoice passes its payment term, statutory interest starts accruing automatically — no reminder, no formal notice, no court order needed. The minimum is set in the directive: 8 percentage points above the European Central Bank's reference rate.
At the ECB's 2.40% rate (August 2026), that works out to 10.40% a year — running on unpaid B2B invoices across the eurozone right now, whether either side knows it or not. On an invoice of €3,000 paid 45 days late, that's already €38 in interest alone, before any other cost enters the picture.
4. €40 — the fee almost nobody claims
On top of the interest, every creditor is automatically entitled to a flat €40 compensation per late invoice, EU-wide, the moment the due date passes — no reminder needed, and no requirement to prove you actually incurred recovery costs. If the real cost of chasing the debt (a lawyer, a collection agency) runs higher, you can claim that too, on top of the €40.
In practice, almost no hospitality business ever asks for it — it isn't on the standard invoice template, and nobody adds it manually to a reminder. A business that gets ten catering invoices paid late a year is leaving €400 on the table that the law has already granted it, before interest even enters the picture.
5. 45 days end of month, or 60 from invoice — France and its fines
France's LME law lets businesses choose between two structures: 60 days from the invoice date, or 45 days end of month — which in practice can stretch to nearly 75 days for an invoice raised right after the month turns over. France also enforces it actively: a breaching company risks a fine of up to €2,000,000, rising to €4,000,000 on a repeat offence within two years.
That's not a dead letter. In 2025 alone, 409 French companies were checked, with a combined €47,000,000 in fines actually issued — and the names of the sanctioned companies are now published as a matter of course.
6. €800,000 — Spain's fine ceiling and its public blacklist
Spain shares the same 60-day ceiling, but its 2022 Crea y Crece law added a fine of up to €800,000 for breaching it. Alongside that, Spain maintains a public registry of companies that habitually pay late: any company sitting on more than €600,000 in overdue supplier debt while paying under 10% of its invoices on time is named publicly.
The effect is a second lever on top of the interest and the fee — not just financial, but reputational, exactly the kind of pressure an individual hospitality business can never organise on its own against a large client that systematically pays late.
7. 2025 — the year one European number died
In September 2023, the European Commission proposed a new regulation that would have capped B2B payment terms EU-wide at one hard 30-day limit — no exceptions, no contractual extension to 60 days the way most member states currently allow. The European Parliament voted through a softer version in 2024 (up to 60 days by explicit agreement), but the proposal stalled between the Council and Parliament.
In 2025, the incoming Danish presidency confirmed there would be no further action. The proposal is effectively dead, and the current patchwork simply stays in place: a hard 60 days in Belgium, France and Spain, a softer "not grossly unfair" test elsewhere, and a different fine — or none — depending on where you sit. For now, there is no single EU number that applies the same way everywhere.
Fourteen years of EU payment-term law, in four moments.
Nothing points to a fresh attempt any time soon — national ceilings remain the only hard numbers on the table.
What a late invoice legally costs
The calculator below does the same sum in both directions: enter an invoice amount and how many days it's overdue, and see what the law — on top of the invoice itself — automatically adds. Pick which side you're looking at first: the supplier making you wait, or the client sitting on your invoice. The amount doesn't change — only who the law says it belongs to.
By default the interest is set to 8 percentage points above the current ECB rate of 2.40%, but you can adjust it — countries outside the eurozone use their own central bank's reference rate, plus that same 8 points.
Calculate: interest + fee on a late invoice
Invoice amount, days overdue, the interest rate — the law does the rest automatically.
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Defaults: an invoice of €3,000, 45 days overdue, at 10.40% (ECB + 8 points) — adjust them to your own situation.
An illustration of the EU mechanism, not legal advice. Check the exact transposition and any national caps (like Belgium's 60 days) for your own country.
This illustrates the mechanism in Directive 2011/7/EU — it isn't legal advice and isn't an exact calculation for a specific case. The precise transposition, currency and any national deviations (like Belgium's hard 60-day cap) vary by country. Check your own member state's rules if in doubt.
What the calculator does show: the interest and the fee run automatically, whether or not anyone ever asks for them. On most late invoices in hospitality, not a cent of either is ever claimed — not because the law doesn't allow it, but because nobody has ever looked it up.
What to actually do with these seven numbers
Three moves, depending on which side of the invoice you're looking at.
When you're the one paying (debtor)
- Check your supplier contracts for a term longer than 60 days — in Belgium that clause is void regardless, elsewhere simply ask to have it revised.
- Negotiate the term rather than let it slide — Net-30 instead of Net-7 is often on the table with a long-standing relationship (see restaurant-supplier-negotiation.html).
- Pay within the agreed term where you can: 10.40% interest on an outstanding invoice is more expensive than most short-term credit lines.
When you're the one invoicing (creditor)
- Put the statutory interest and the €40 fee on your reminder template by default, even if you don't always apply them — the signal alone often speeds up payment.
- For a client that's habitually late (>60 days), actually claim the interest and the fee — that's not an aggressive move, it's what the law already grants you.
- Write the payment term explicitly into every quote and contract for an event or catering job — a term nobody agreed to defaults straight back to 30 days.
For a structural dispute
- Document the invoices, the due dates and every reminder sent — that's what a formal notice or a claim needs.
- Check whether your country has a specific registry or reporting mechanism (like Spain's late-payer list) for chronic offenders.
- Only bring in a lawyer or collection agency once the amount clears the cost of doing so — the real recovery cost can be claimed on top of the €40 regardless.
What to actually do with this
The point of this article isn't that you send every late-paying supplier a demand letter with interest and a €40 fee tomorrow — with a supplier you have a good relationship with, it's often not worth it. The point is that you now know what the law allows, in both directions: a supplier making you wait longer than 60 days in Belgium is simply breaking the law, full stop — and a catering client sitting on your invoice for 45 days already owes you interest and €40, whether you claim it or not.
On the supplier side, restaurant-cash-flow-management.html is still where you turn that into a tactic — negotiating Net-30 instead of Net-7, or offering an early-payment discount to your core suppliers. On the client side, it's simply a matter of putting the statutory interest and the €40 on your reminder template by default, so it stops being an exception and becomes a habit.
Two sides, one law, and seven numbers most restaurant owners have never looked up — while already being subject to them every month, on both sides of their own books.