Qonto Late Payments Index

The Qonto Late Payments Index indicates the share of paid B2B invoices issued by freelancers and SMEs in a given period that were paid more than seven days after their contractual due date. The index measures invoices by payment date, ensuring that reported figures remain immutable once published.

The analysis is based on aggregated and anonymized invoice and settlement information from Qonto's business customers in France, Germany, Italy, and Spain, drawn from Qonto's overall base of 750,000 customers.

This index should not be interpreted as reflective of the European market as a whole. It represents signals observed within Qonto's customer base and product ecosystem.

Published figures are aggregated, with anonymization, minimum-threshold, and suppression rules applied to prevent the identification of individual customers or the inference of confidential business patterns.

Industry sectors are aligned with NACE standards and grouped into broader sector categories for reporting purposes: Health, Education & Personal Services; Investment & Institutional Structures; Industry, Logistics & Trade; Commercial & Retail Activities; and Professional & Digital Services. Company size is determined using internal data. Country-level breakdowns reflect the business’ registered country. For the purposes of the Index, an invoice is classified as “late” when it meets all of the following conditions:

• the invoice included a payment date;
• the invoice was eventually paid;
• the payment made was matched to an invoice in Qonto’s platform;
• the payment was received more than seven calendar days after the invoice due date.

The seven-day grace period is applied to avoid counting short administrative delays as genuine late payments. Payments received within a few days of the due date may reflect bank settlement time, weekends, public holidays, or operational processing delays rather than material payment issues. This is in line with common EU late-payment practices.

To improve data quality, Qonto also excludes invoices where the due date falls before the issue date, as these are likely to reflect administrative or non-standard invoices. Organizations with no paid invoices are also excluded from the analysis, to reduce the impact of test usage or non-commercial feature activity.