XRechnung required fields: a practical checklist
Official references
Use these sources to verify dates, formats, and official rule changes.
Related Technical Wiki
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XRechnung Business Terms and Groups (BT and BG), with field requirements, validation rules, and examples.
How XRechnung applies EN 16931 in Germany, including XML syntax, validation, buyer references, and delivery channels.
Required seller, buyer, invoice, currency, and line data.
XRechnung combines the European EN 16931 invoice model with German rules. A field can be optional in the European model and still be required by XRechnung. The active validator report is the final check.
Document and party basics
- Invoice: invoice number (BT-1), issue date (BT-2), type code (BT-3), currency (BT-5), and specification identifier (BT-24).
- Seller and buyer: legal names, postal addresses, country codes, and the identifiers required for the transaction.
- Lines and totals: item names, quantities, units, prices, VAT categories, VAT rates, line totals, tax totals, and payable amount.
Address fields: do not make BT-35 mandatory
BT-35 is optional: it is the first seller address line. Do not reject an otherwise complete address only because BT-35 is empty. For XRechnung, BR-DE-3 requires seller city (BT-37), and BR-DE-4 requires seller post code (BT-38). The seller country code is BT-40.
Seller contact is required
BR-DE-2 requires SELLER CONTACT (BG-6). BR-DE-5 requires seller contact point (BT-41). BR-DE-6 requires seller contact telephone number (BT-42). BR-DE-7 requires seller contact email address (BT-43). Use a monitored business contact.
Buyer reference and tax identifiers
BR-DE-15 requires Buyer reference (BT-10). For a public recipient, enter the routing reference that the recipient supplied, often a Leitweg-ID. Do not use a placeholder.
BR-DE-16 requires at least one of Seller VAT identifier (BT-31), Seller tax registration identifier (BT-32), or Seller tax representative VAT identifier (BT-63) when the listed VAT categories are used.
Electronic addresses need a scheme
Seller electronic address (BT-34) and buyer electronic address (BT-49) must carry the correct schemeID. PEPPOL-EN16931-R020 checks the seller scheme. A German VAT endpoint can use the EAS scheme and value 9930:DE123456789. Use the identifier and scheme that the recipient or network gave you; an email address alone is not a universal routing value.
Final check before sending
- Confirm the recipient, channel, and required profile.
- Check source values against the invoice, especially tax IDs and totals.
- Generate the UBL or CII XML and run the matching KoSIT configuration.
- Correct the source data and generate again. Keep manual review for uncertain source fields.
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