Fix BR-DE-16: Seller VAT identifier or tax registration identifier missing

What does BR-DE-16 mean?

If an invoice uses the tax category codes S, Z, E, AE, K, G, L or M, it must carry at least one of the elements "Seller VAT identifier" (BT-31), "Seller tax registration identifier" (BT-32) or "SELLER TAX REPRESENTATIVE PARTY" (BG-11). This is a national KoSIT rule (XRechnung) that goes beyond EN 16931 and is mandatory for German e-invoices.

Common causes of BR-DE-16

• The element required by the German KoSIT rule is missing from the XML.
• The value appears only in the PDF, not in the structured data set.
• The entry was left empty.

How to fix BR-DE-16

1. Find the faulty spot in the XML. Open the XML of the invoice and go to field BT-31 along this XPath://ram:SellerTradeParty/ram:SpecifiedTaxRegistration
2. Apply the fix. If tax category codes S/Z/E/AE/K/G/L/M are used, the seller's VAT identifier (BT-31) OR tax registration identifier (BT-32) must be present in 'ram:SellerTradeParty/ram:SpecifiedTaxRegistration' (schemeID 'VA' or 'FC').
3. Validate again. Save the file and validate it again to check that BR-DE-16 is no longer reported.

Before / after: the XML example

This is the spot in question before and after the fix (Cross Industry Invoice, ZUGFeRD/Factur-X).

<ram:SellerTradeParty>
  <ram:Name>Musterfirma GmbH</ram:Name>
  <!-- ram:SpecifiedTaxRegistration fehlt -->
</ram:SellerTradeParty>

<ram:SellerTradeParty>
  <ram:Name>Musterfirma GmbH</ram:Name>
  <ram:SpecifiedTaxRegistration>
    <ram:ID schemeID="VA">DE123456789</ram:ID>
  </ram:SpecifiedTaxRegistration>
</ram:SellerTradeParty>

Frequent questions about BR-DE-16

Related error codes

Check BR-DE-16 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.