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Warning

UBL-CR-488: Leave tax totals out of discounts and charges

In short

Warning: worth checking.

UBL-CR-488 means a discount or charge on the whole invoice has its own TaxTotal, which EN 16931 does not use. Remove this nested cac:TaxTotal and keep document-level VAT totals directly under Invoice or CreditNote.

On this page

What it means

This rule warns when a document-level discount (BG-20) or charge (BG-21), represented by cac:AllowanceCharge directly under Invoice or CreditNote, contains its own cac:TaxTotal. EN 16931 records VAT in the VAT breakdown (BG-23) and the invoice total VAT amount (BT-110), not in separate tax totals inside these discounts or charges.

Why it matters

Document-level discounts and charges contribute to the VAT breakdown; the EN 16931 UBL representation does not give them separate TaxTotal elements.

How to fix it

Delete cac:TaxTotal from each cac:AllowanceCharge directly under Invoice or CreditNote. Keep the document-level cac:TaxTotal elements. Check that the taxable amounts (BT-116) in the VAT breakdown account for the relevant discounts and charges. If your invoicing software writes nested tax totals, ask its supplier to stop. 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 AllowanceCharge TaxTotal

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
Rule text from phive-rules 4.6.4.

Check your file

Drop your e-invoice to see whether UBL-CR-488 still fails, and which other rules do.

Updated 6 November 2026