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 department of the addressee, such as Finance, as its own element. EN 16931 has no separate field for it, because the address is given as address lines, city, postcode, country subdivision and country. The rule fails when cac:TaxRepresentativeParty/cac:PostalAddress/cbc:Department is in the file at all, even if empty.
Why it matters
EN 16931 does not use a separate department field for the tax representative's address. A department name can be included in an address line if needed.
How to fix it
If you need the department in the address, include it in an address line, such as the second address line (BT-65), cbc:AdditionalStreetName, for example 'Finance department'. Remove cbc:Department 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 Department 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-314 still fails, and which other rules do.
Related rules
- 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
- UBL-CR-319 Leave the subdivision code out of the tax representative's address
- UBL-CR-320 Leave the separate region field out of the tax representative's address