What it means
Checks that the legal entity of the payee (cac:PayeeParty/cac:PartyLegalEntity) does not contain cbc:CompanyLegalForm, free text about the company's legal form. EN 16931 has additional legal information for the seller (BT-33), but nothing like it for the payee (BG-10), whose only allowed legal detail is the company registration number (BT-61).
Why it matters
This is a warning, so the file is still accepted. Legal form text under the payee has no business term behind it, so the recipient's software normally ignores it. It is worth fixing when you want a clean report, or when the recipient needs the text and should get it in the seller's additional legal information.
How to fix it
Clear any legal form or additional legal text from the payee details in your invoicing software and export again. If the text belongs to your own company, put it in the seller's additional legal information. If you build the XML yourself, delete cbc:CompanyLegalForm from cac:PayeeParty/cac:PartyLegalEntity.
The rule as published
A UBL invoice should not include the PayeeParty PartyLegalEntity CompanyLegalForm Where this rule applies
| Rule set | Version |
|---|---|
| EN 16931 (UBL) | 1.3.17 |
| EN 16931 (UBL credit note) | 1.3.17 |
| XRechnung 3.0 (UBL) | 3.0.2 |
| XRechnung 3.0 (UBL credit note) | 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 |
| France CTC (UBL invoice) | 1.4.0-04 |
| France CTC (UBL credit note) | 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 |
Check your file
Drop your e-invoice to see whether UBL-CR-279 still fails, and which other rules do.