# PEPPOL-EN16931-R008

> Document MUST not contain empty elements.

Checked against Peppol BIS Billing 3.0 2026.5

Canonical: https://einvoicecheck.eu/rules/peppol-en16931-r008

## Official rule text

Document MUST not contain empty elements.

## Why did my invoice fail PEPPOL-EN16931-R008?

No element in the document may be present but empty (no child content and no attributes). Empty elements carry no information, break downstream processing, and usually indicate a mapping bug, so Peppol forbids them outright.

## Common causes

- A field was mapped from a source value that turned out to be null, leaving <cbc:...></cbc:...>.
- Placeholder tags left in a template that were never populated.
- An optional group (e.g. an empty cac:PartyName or cac:AllowanceCharge) was serialized with no content.

## How do I fix it?

```
Remove the element instead of leaving it empty. Change <cbc:Note></cbc:Note> to either a populated <cbc:Note>Delivery next week</cbc:Note> or omit the element altogether.
```