Fix BR-1: Specification identifier (BT-24) missing

What does BR-1 mean?

An Invoice shall have a Specification identifier (BT-24). It is one of the mandatory fields of the European standard EN 16931. Without it the invoice is structurally incomplete and will be rejected.

Common causes of BR-1

• The mandatory element is missing entirely from the structured XML.
• The value appears only in the visible PDF layout, not in the XML.
• The element was sent empty.

How to fix BR-1

1. Find the faulty spot in the XML. Open the XML of the invoice and go to field BT-24 along this XPath://ram:ExchangedDocumentContext/ram:GuidelineSpecifiedDocumentContextParameter/ram:ID
2. Apply the fix. Add the guideline ID (Specification identifier, BT-24) in 'ram:GuidelineSpecifiedDocumentContextParameter/ram:ID', for example 'urn:cen.eu:en16931:2017' or the XRechnung identifier.
3. Validate again. Save the file and validate it again to check that BR-1 is no longer reported.

Frequent questions about BR-1

Related error codes

Check BR-1 automatically

Instead of digging through the XML by hand you can validate your ZUGFeRD or XRechnung file online – upload the PDF or the XML and you get every error with rule ID, affected field, fix and XPath, as a readable report or as JSON through the API.