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Fatal: fails the selected checks

BR-CL-14: Address country codes must be valid ISO 3166-1 codes

In short

BR-CL-14 means a country code in an address is not a valid ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 code. Choose the country from the list in your invoicing software rather than typing it, and export again.

On this page

What it means

Every country code in an address (seller, buyer, payee, tax representative or delivery) must be a two-letter ISO 3166-1 code, such as DE, FR, NL or BE. Names such as Germany, three-letter codes such as DEU, and lower case are not allowed. Note that Greece is GR and the United Kingdom is GB.

Why it matters

Codes are read by software, not by people. A value outside the agreed code list cannot be interpreted, so the recipient's system rejects the invoice even when the value looks sensible to a person.

How to fix it

Choose the country from the list in your invoicing software rather than typing it, and export again. If you build the XML yourself, write the two capital letters only, for example <cbc:IdentificationCode>DE</cbc:IdentificationCode> in UBL or <ram:CountryID>DE</ram:CountryID> in CII.

The rule as published

Country codes in an invoice MUST be coded using ISO code list 3166-1

Where this rule applies

Rule set Version
EN 16931 (UBL) 1.3.17
EN 16931 (UBL credit note) 1.3.17
EN 16931 (CII) 1.3.17
XRechnung 3.0 (UBL) 3.0.2
XRechnung 3.0 (UBL credit note) 3.0.2
XRechnung 3.0 (CII) 3.0.2
Peppol BIS Billing 3.0 (invoice) 2026.5
Peppol BIS Billing 3.0 (credit note) 2026.5
SI-UBL 2.0 / NLCIUS (invoice) 2.0.3.13
SI-UBL 2.0 / NLCIUS (credit note) 2.0.3.13
NLCIUS (CII) 1.0.3.13
France CTC (UBL invoice) 1.4.0-04
France CTC (UBL credit note) 1.4.0-04
France CTC (CII) 1.4.0-04
CIUS-RO UBL Invoice 1.0.9 1.0.9
CIUS-RO UBL Credit Note 1.0.9 1.0.9
Rule text from phive-rules 4.6.4.

Check your file

Drop your e-invoice to see whether BR-CL-14 still fails, and which other rules do.