Attestwire › Rule reference › BR-S-05

BR-S-05 Standard-rated lines must have a VAT rate above zero

noun · EN 16931 · fatal · BT-152

For a sample invoice, the library reports: Line 1 uses VAT category S (standard rated), so the invoiced item VAT rate (BT-152) must be greater than zero, but it is 0. A zero rate with category S is contradictory — if you genuinely charge no VAT, the category is Z, E, AE, K, G or O, and each of those has different evidencing requirements.

Business term

BT-152

Severity

fatal

The fix

Set line.vatRate to the applicable percentage as a number (19 for the German standard rate, 7 for the reduced rate). If no VAT is due, change vatCategory instead of setting the rate to 0.

A passing value

"vatCategory": "S", "vatRate": 19

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-S-05",
  "field": "BT-152",
  "severity": "fatal",
  "message": "Line 1 uses VAT category S (standard rated), so the invoiced item VAT rate (BT-152) must be greater than zero, but it is 0. A zero rate with category S is contradictory — if you genuinely charge no VAT, the category is Z, E, AE, K, G or O, and each of those has different evidencing requirements.",
  "fix": "Set line.vatRate to the applicable percentage as a number (19 for the German standard rate, 7 for the reduced rate). If no VAT is due, change vatCategory instead of setting the rate to 0.",
  "example": "\"vatCategory\": \"S\", \"vatRate\": 19",
  "xpath": "/ubl:Invoice/cac:InvoiceLine[1]/cac:Item/cac:ClassifiedTaxCategory/cbc:Percent",
  "docsUrl": "https://attestwire.com/rules/BR-S-05"
}

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