Access Point vs SMP — who does what

A Peppol Access Point transports documents — it sends, receives and validates. An SMP (Service Metadata Publisher) is the address book — it publishes what a participant can receive and which Access Point serves them. Your Service Provider typically operates both for you.

Division of labour

Access Point (AP): the certified gateway. Validates outgoing documents, discovers the receiver, transmits over AS4 with signing and encryption, acknowledges receipt, retries failures.
SMP (Service Metadata Publisher): the published metadata. For each participant: supported document types, process profiles, and the AP endpoint that serves them.
SML (Service Metadata Locator): the DNS layer that points a Peppol ID to its SMP — one global lookup root operated centrally.

When corner 2 (your AP) wants to deliver to corner 4, it asks the SML “where is this participant’s SMP?”, reads the SMP entry, and delivers to the listed AP. You can watch this discovery live with the Peppol ID lookup.

Updated: August 29, 2026

Frequently asked questions

Do I need my own SMP entry?

You need one, but you don't manage it — your Service Provider registers your Peppol ID and capabilities in an SMP and keeps them current.

Can my Access Point and SMP come from different providers?

Technically yes — the roles are separable. In practice one provider runs both, which avoids coordination overhead.