# BR-O-13

> 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".

Checked against Peppol BIS Billing 3.0 2026.5

Canonical: https://einvoicecheck.eu/rules/br-o-13

## 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".

## 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.

## 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).
```