Rules / PEPPOL-EN16931-R002 · Markdown
PEPPOL-EN16931-R002
PEPPOL BIS Billing 3.0 layer: peppol
Checked against Peppol BIS Billing 3.0 2026.5
What does PEPPOL-EN16931-R002 mean? Either a Buyer reference (BT-10) or a Purchase order reference (BT-13) must be provided. Peppol requires at least one so the buyer can route the invoice.
Why did my invoice fail PEPPOL-EN16931-R002?
Peppol restricts document-level notes (BT-22) to at most one occurrence, except when both buyer and seller are German (identified by DE country codes), where multiple notes are permitted for national practice. This keeps document-level free text minimal for automated processing across the network.
Official rule text
No more than one note is allowed on document level, unless both the buyer and seller are German organizations.
Common causes
- More than one cbc:Note element at document (Invoice) level while the parties are not both German.
- Multiple free-text remarks placed at document level instead of consolidating into one Note.
- Line-level notes accidentally emitted at document level.
- Both parties German but their country codes (cac:PostalAddress/cac:Country/cbc:IdentificationCode) are not set to DE.
How do I fix it?
Consolidate into a single document-level note, e.g. keep one <cbc:Note>Delivery terms: DAP Berlin. Payment within 30 days.</cbc:Note> and remove the extra Note elements.
Related rules
PEPPOL-EN16931-R001 · PEPPOL-EN16931-R003 · PEPPOL-EN16931-R004 · PEPPOL-EN16931-R005 · PEPPOL-EN16931-R007 · PEPPOL-EN16931-R008 · PEPPOL-EN16931-R010 · PEPPOL-EN16931-R020
Paste it into the live demo, or call POST /v1/validate. See the quickstart.