CII-DT-061: Leave the service supply country out of the VAT details

What it means

In a CII file, VAT is described in elements whose names end in TradeTax, such as ApplicableTradeTax in the VAT breakdown (BG-23) and on a line, or CategoryTradeTax on a discount or charge. This rule checks that none of them holds a ServiceSupplyTradeCountry element, which names the country where a service is supplied. EN 16931 has no field for it.

Why it matters

This is a warning, so the invoice is not rejected. The standard has no place for this country in the VAT details, so the recipient's software will normally ignore it and the buyer never sees what you meant by it. It is worth fixing when a recipient or platform shows warnings, or when you wanted that information to be read.

How to fix it

Open the e-invoice or XML export settings of your invoicing software and choose a standard EN 16931 output, such as XRechnung or the EN 16931 profile of Factur-X or ZUGFeRD, rather than a fuller profile. If you build the XML yourself or from a template, delete the ServiceSupplyTradeCountry element from every TradeTax block. If the buyer needs to know the country, mention it in an invoice note instead.

The rule as published

ServiceSupplyTradeCountry should not be present

Where this rule applies