Rules / BR-O-13 · Markdown

BR-O-13

EN 16931-1 layer: en16931

Checked against Peppol BIS Billing 3.0 2026.5

What does BR-O-13 mean? An Invoice that contains a VAT breakdown group (BG-23) with a VAT category code (BT-118) "Not subject to VAT" shall not contain Document level allowances (BG-20) where Document level allowance VAT category code (BT-95) is not "Not subject to VAT".

Why did my invoice fail BR-O-13?

When any VAT breakdown group (BG-23) uses VAT category code (BT-118) O ("Not subject to VAT"), every document level allowance (BG-20) must also use category code O in its VAT category code (BT-95). Category O denotes transactions outside the scope of VAT, and mixing an out-of-scope invoice with allowances taxed under another category (S, Z, E, AE, etc.) is semantically inconsistent.

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 Document level allowances (BG-20) where Document level allowance VAT category code (BT-95) is not "Not subject to VAT".

Common causes

• A document level allowance was left with a default category such as S (Standard rated) while the rest of the invoice is category O.
• Copying an allowance block from a taxable invoice template into an out-of-scope invoice without updating BT-95.
• The allowance's TaxCategory/ID element is omitted, so it defaults to something other than O.

How do I fix it?

Set the allowance's VAT category to O to match: <cac:AllowanceCharge><cbc:ChargeIndicator>false</cbc:ChargeIndicator>...<cac:TaxCategory><cbc:ID>O</cbc:ID><cac:TaxScheme><cbc:ID>VAT</cbc:ID></cac:TaxScheme></cac:TaxCategory></cac:AllowanceCharge> (and do not include a Percent).

Related rules

BR-O-01 · BR-O-02 · BR-O-03 · BR-O-04 · BR-O-05 · BR-O-06 · BR-O-07 · BR-O-08