What it means
The invoice can name the seller's tax representative (BG-11), the person or company the seller has appointed to account for VAT on its behalf. In UBL a postal address can carry the building number as its own element. EN 16931 has no separate field for it. If you need to include the number, you can put it with the street name in the first address line (BT-64). The rule fails when cac:TaxRepresentativeParty/cac:PostalAddress/cbc:BuildingNumber is in the file at all, even if empty.
Why it matters
EN 16931 does not use a separate building number field for the tax representative's address. The number can be included in an address line instead.
How to fix it
If you need the building number in the address, include it with the street name in an address line, such as the first address line (BT-64), cbc:StreetName, for example 'Main Street 12'. Remove cbc:BuildingNumber from cac:TaxRepresentativeParty/cac:PostalAddress and recheck the corrected file.
Once the file is corrected, check it again for free: Validate an invoice against EN 16931
Or fix the invoice in a form and download the corrected file, for 1 credit: Fix a rejected e-invoice
The rule as published
A UBL invoice should not include the TaxRepresentativeParty PostalAddress BuildingNumber 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-312 still fails, and which other rules do.
Related rules
- UBL-CR-313 Leave the separate in-house mail field out of the tax representative's address
- UBL-CR-314 Leave the separate department field out of the tax representative's address
- UBL-CR-315 Leave the separate attention field out of the tax representative's address
- UBL-CR-316 Leave the separate care-of field out of the tax representative's address
- UBL-CR-317 Leave the separate plot identifier field out of the tax representative's address
- UBL-CR-318 Leave the separate city subdivision field out of the tax representative's address