# BR-O-12

> An Invoice that contains a VAT breakdown group (BG-23) with a VAT category code (BT-118) "Not subject to VAT" shall not contain an Invoice line (BG-25) where the Invoiced item VAT category code (BT-151) is not "Not subject to VAT".

Checked against Peppol BIS Billing 3.0 2026.5

Canonical: https://einvoicecheck.eu/rules/br-o-12

## Official rule text

An Invoice that contains a VAT breakdown group (BG-23) with a VAT category code (BT-118) "Not subject to VAT" shall not contain an Invoice line (BG-25) where the Invoiced item VAT category code (BT-151) is not "Not subject to VAT".

## Why did my invoice fail BR-O-12?

If an invoice contains a VAT breakdown (BG-23) with category code 'O' (Not subject to VAT), then every invoice line (BG-25) must also use Invoiced item VAT category code (BT-151) 'O'. Because 'O' declares the entire document out of scope, no line may carry a different (taxable) VAT category.

## Common causes

- One or more lines use category 'S', 'Z', 'E' or 'K' while an 'O' breakdown is present.
- A mix of out-of-scope and in-scope items was placed on the same invoice.
- A line's cac:ClassifiedTaxCategory/cbc:ID was left at a default value instead of 'O'.
- The 'O' breakdown was added without re-coding all lines to 'O'.

## How do I fix it?

```
Set every line's category to O, e.g. <cac:Item>...<cac:ClassifiedTaxCategory><cbc:ID>O</cbc:ID><cac:TaxScheme><cbc:ID>VAT</cbc:ID></cac:TaxScheme></cac:ClassifiedTaxCategory></cac:Item>; or move in-scope lines to a separate invoice.
```