Attestwire › Rule reference › BR-E-05

BR-E-05 Exempt lines must have a VAT rate of zero

noun · EN 16931 · fatal · BT-152

For a sample invoice, the library reports: Line 1 uses VAT category E (Exempt from VAT), so the invoiced item VAT rate (BT-152) must be 0, but it is 19. No VAT is charged on this line, so any non-zero rate would make the document's VAT breakdown disagree with its totals.

Business term

BT-152

Severity

fatal

The fix

Set line.vatRate to 0 (or omit it) for category E. If you did mean to charge 19% VAT, the category should be S instead.

A passing value

"vatCategory": "E", "vatRate": 0

What the library returns

The full error returned by @attestwire/en16931. It includes the rule ID, affected field and suggested correction. Developers can use this object in their application:

{
  "rule": "BR-E-05",
  "field": "BT-152",
  "severity": "fatal",
  "message": "Line 1 uses VAT category E (Exempt from VAT), so the invoiced item VAT rate (BT-152) must be 0, but it is 19. No VAT is charged on this line, so any non-zero rate would make the document's VAT breakdown disagree with its totals.",
  "fix": "Set line.vatRate to 0 (or omit it) for category E. If you did mean to charge 19% VAT, the category should be S instead.",
  "example": "\"vatCategory\": \"E\", \"vatRate\": 0",
  "xpath": "/ubl:Invoice/cac:InvoiceLine[1]/cac:Item/cac:ClassifiedTaxCategory/cbc:Percent",
  "docsUrl": "https://attestwire.com/rules/BR-E-05"
}

xpath is always a UBL path. On a CII invoice, look for the matching CII field instead.