# UBL-SR-05

> Payment terms shall occur maximum once

Checked against Peppol BIS Billing 3.0 2026.5

Canonical: https://einvoicecheck.eu/rules/ubl-sr-05

## Official rule text

Payment terms shall occur maximum once

## Why did my invoice fail UBL-SR-05?

The Payment terms group (BG-16), containing the textual description of payment terms (BT-20), may occur at most once per invoice. In UBL this is cac:PaymentTerms, and only a single instance is allowed at document level.

## Common causes

- Each payment instalment or discount rule is emitted as its own cac:PaymentTerms element.
- Free-text terms are split across multiple cac:PaymentTerms/cbc:Note blocks instead of one.
- Template merges a description and a penalty clause into two separate PaymentTerms groups.

## How do I fix it?

```
Consolidate into one group with combined text: <cac:PaymentTerms><cbc:Note>Net 30 days. 2% discount if paid within 10 days.</cbc:Note></cac:PaymentTerms> and delete the extra cac:PaymentTerms.
```