# BR-20

> The Seller tax representative postal address (BG-12) shall contain a Tax representative country code (BT-69), if the Seller (BG-4) has a Seller tax representative party (BG-11).

Checked against Peppol BIS Billing 3.0 2026.5

Canonical: https://einvoicecheck.eu/rules/br-20

## Official rule text

The Seller tax representative postal address (BG-12) shall contain a Tax representative country code (BT-69), if the Seller (BG-4) has a Seller tax representative party (BG-11).

## Why did my invoice fail BR-20?

If the Seller (BG-4) has a Seller tax representative party (BG-11), that representative's postal address (BG-12) must include a Tax representative country code (BT-69). The country code fixes the jurisdiction of the VAT representative and is the one mandatory element of the address group. This rule enforces that the representative's country is always stated.

## Common causes

- The tax representative's cac:PostalAddress has no cac:Country/cbc:IdentificationCode.
- The country was given as free text in AddressLine instead of the coded IdentificationCode element.
- An invalid or non-ISO-3166 country code was used, so the required code is effectively missing.

## How do I fix it?

```
<cac:TaxRepresentativeParty>
  <cac:PostalAddress>
    <cac:Country>
      <cbc:IdentificationCode>DE</cbc:IdentificationCode>
    </cac:Country>
  </cac:PostalAddress>
</cac:TaxRepresentativeParty>
```