Reference

BR-04 Invoice type code is required

An invoice shall have an Invoice type code (BT-3) identifying the functional type of the document, such as a commercial invoice or a credit note.

This is an EN 16931 core rule. The type code tells the recipient whether to process the document as an invoice, a corrected invoice or a credit note; national rules such as BR-DE-17 narrow the accepted codes further. Neither the UBL nor the CII schema requires the element, so an export that omits it passes the schema check and fails only on BR-04.

Solution

Add cbc:InvoiceTypeCode with an allowed UNTDID 1001 code, for example 380 for a commercial invoice or 384 for a corrected invoice. In UBL, issue a credit note (381) as a CreditNote document with cbc:CreditNoteTypeCode; BR-CL-01 rejects 381 in cbc:InvoiceTypeCode. In CII, the code is rsm:ExchangedDocument/ram:TypeCode.

Quick actions

Validate XML Convert invoice

Valid Examples

BT-3 = 380 — commercial invoice
BT-3 = 381 — credit note (in UBL as cbc:CreditNoteTypeCode in a CreditNote document)

Invalid Examples

cbc:InvoiceTypeCode element is missing from the invoice header

Code Examples

Valid XML

<cbc:InvoiceTypeCode>380</cbc:InvoiceTypeCode>
<cbc:DocumentCurrencyCode>EUR</cbc:DocumentCurrencyCode>

Invalid XML

<cbc:IssueDate>2024-05-01</cbc:IssueDate>
<cbc:DocumentCurrencyCode>EUR</cbc:DocumentCurrencyCode>

Affected Fields

BT-3 Invoice type code

Validation Tools

Official KoSIT Validator

Run the official KoSIT validator with the XRechnung configuration to check EN 16931 and XRechnung rules.

Convert PDF to XRechnung

Find validation errors during conversion and review each correction.